What to do with computers on an island?

Lately I’ve been thinking about one of the challenges with computer centers in Tonga. Here’s my understanding of what usually happens; a Peace Corps volunteer comes into a village and sets up a computer center, the volunteer teaches them the Microsoft suite along with basic computer upkeep, then the volunteer’s two years are up and the computer center falls into decline. Nothing is maintained, electricity bills are not paid, and the center eventually shut downs.

The problem appears to be the motivation in up-keeping a computer center. Keeping a lot of computers running is often a painful task, even for the most hardcore computer admins.  If I were in the villager’s shoes/flip flops and the only thing I had to look forward to with computers were Excel spreadsheets and Word documents, I’d be bored out of my mind.


Here’s my theory on how previous volunteers have introduced computers. They come in with the mindset that they can make the people in their village successful by giving them great skills to put on their resumes. At first, the community takes notice of the volunteer’s work because it’s new. When the novelty wears off, no lasting impression is made. How many people remember any presentation on word / access/ excel?  How is it relevant to their lives when they're on a 5 mile island?


When volunteers introduce marketable skills, only the most committed people (those that are probably trying to get off the island) will fully explore the program. For the average Tongan in Ha'apai, why would you need a computer when there's only a handful of them on the whole island?  There’s very little bait, just simply a lot of mean looking hooks. In my humble opinion, trying to sell the importance of being able to create formulas in Excel to people on a small island smells like a recipe for disaster.  I'd like to try something slightly different; it may work or it may end up being worse, who knows?


Let me start off by asking how many computer gamers are in the Peace Corps? I don’t know statistically, but I’m sure there are very few just because of the conflicting environments. The people applying for the Peace Corps are ready to tough it out without electricity and live in a lean-in for their twenty-seven months whereas gamers are hard pressed to leave their computers and electricity. Peace Corps would be pretty far from the normal gamer’s thoughts.

So here’s one of the relatively few gamers in the Peace Corps (don’t ask how I got here). With that said, why not implement computer games to get the people’s interest? What better way to start off teaching typing than through Mavis Beacon’s car race?


My parents used to make me type at least half an hour on the program 'Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing' before I was allowed to go swimming in our pool or play video games.  I thought it was fruitless at the time, but by the time I was in 3rd grade, I had logged enough hours on my 486 computer that I could easily type 40 words per minute.  By 8th grade, I was typing at a rate of 80 words per minute with a near perfect accuracy rating.  By combining the tedious with the rewards, it kept a fair balance between work and enjoyment.

As people's interest in gaming increases, people could even pay money to enter events like a gaming tournament where the winner receives a portion of the entrance fees and another portion could be used to pay for the upkeep of the computers. The list of ideas goes on and on and I have to say that I’m very psyched. Hell, even if the ideas fall through, I’ll still have a blast playing LAN games with fellow volunteers and the community here.