Today we spend a fair amount of time at the Diocese office. I had figured out most of what was wrong with their network, but still wanted to see if I could get the outside wireless access point working properly. Long story short, I came close to getting it working, but there is definitely something wrong with the configuration of the device that I have not yet figured out completely. After doing electronic battle with it from about 10 AM to 1 PM, I figured it was time to put it down, have some lunch and get back to it on another day; hopefully with a fresh mind. Sometimes it just best to be patient and let it wait. I’ve had to do that a lot here in Tanzania over the years. In our culture, we often expect instant results and instant satisfaction. But out here where resources are limited, I had to learn to wait a day or two to get the result I am looking for.
After lunch, we went to the Bible College to continue to setup the new thin client computers. We have all five of them in operation now. I also started to download a new printer driver to get the new printer working from the main server. Interestingly, I found that the Internet connection (which is a DSL connection through the local Tanzanian telephone company – TTCL) is not running all that fast. The download was taking a really long time, or at least longer than I would expected for a “2 Gigabite” connection that we are paying for. I did some testing and found that the Internet connection at the Diocese compound has the same problem. Effectively, the connection speed is about 1/10 the speed of what they are paying for. Hmm??? I’m going to have to look into this further tomorrow, as I’m concerned that they are not getting what they are paying for.
I would appreciate your prayers for wisdom and guidance as I look into this and bring it to the attention of the TTCL rep. Unfortunately, you find quite often this kind of practice of quoting one thing and only giving partial of what was promised happens in this part of the world. I’m hoping I can approach this with patience but also with firmness with TTCL so that we can improve their Internet speed.
That being said, I’m still pleased that we were able to get some more of our planned work done today. We were planning to practice some song together (we know we will be asked to sing on Sunday), but we’ll have to wait until tomorrow and perhaps get some time in the afternoon to do that.
It’s 10:30 PM now, so I think I’ll shut things down soon for a good nights rest. The room we are in staying in at the compound has worked out nicely. Cathy is writing about it in our other blog; http://trips.schrull.us Be sure to link over to it to see what her perspectives on the day are.
Lala Salama
Bill