On the 16th of September I went out for dinner and drinks with a local friend of mine. After a good night and tasty meal I hoped on a boda boda who I had bargained a deal to get me to Kyebando for 3000 USH. When we arrived at my house I tried to pay with a 5000 USH bill but the driver told me he had no change. I didn’t believe him so decided to pay him in all coins. You could tell he was now kicking himself for saying he had no change. The next morning I had to pack my bags for our trip to Kabale.

Being very sleep deprived from the weekend and the night before I somehow managed to complete the task. Once finished we headed to the office where we waited for Meddie’s car to get washed. At around 11:30 we finally departed and headed out of the city. Our first stop on the way would be 2 hours down the road in a town called Masaka. On the way to Masaka we passed through several smaller towns one being Mpigi (the town where Becky and Leah live) and another called Drum Village (a place where they make a lot of drums). We finally arrived in Masaka where we decided to go for lunch at a restaurant called The Tropic Touch. Someone in Ali’s community (incidentally called Ali) who currently is living in Vancouver owns the restaurant. I order a fine plate of spaghetti and a big mug of Chi tea. After the extremely tasty meal we hit the road again. The rest of the car ride to Kabale was a blur. Once we arrived in Kabale we called Gonzaga who had informed us he would be in Kabale as well. We all then got together and went out for dinner. Gonzaga also brought along another VSO volunteer Eric who lives and works at the Teacher College in Kabale. He told us about some problems he was having at his computer lab so I agreed to help him out.

The next day Ali and Me started our training session with Ali leading it. Day one went by quite quickly after which we headed on back to the Hotel. After a short nap we went exploring looking for a restaurant to eat at. Meddie remembered a place he had been to before and after a bit of a drive around town we finally found it. I had pork muchomo (bbq) and chips. The pork tasted extremely good. On the TV at the restaurant was boxing from the weekend, De La Hoya VS Vargas. We stayed and watched the fight to the end. De La Hoya after being beaten early ended up winning later in the match. That night as I went to bed I wasn’t feeling 100% and had to get myself another blanket due to the cold night we were having.

The next morning I woke up feeling extremely cold. During the day I let Ali do most of the training as my health continued to degrade. I continued to get hot and cold flashes all day yet tried to suppress it as much as possible. Eventually I got Meddie to drive me back to the hotel so that I could rest. That night we returned to the restaurant we went to the night first night. I tried my hardest to get myself healthy by drinking plenty of tea and juice while eating a soup and sandwich. I ordered a club sandwich, which turned out to be a bad idea due to the fact it had egg in it. Later that night at around 1 am I woke up feeling extremely bad, I ran to the bathroom where I spent the next 30 minutes vomiting.

The next morning I woke on time, feeling somewhat better than the night before but not overly. After eating a few fruits for breakfast we departed up the hill back to Kigezi high. Again I let Ali handle most of the training while I huddled in the corner answering odd questions. This day I was able to actually finish the day though. After the training that day we all went out to the Teacher College where we met up with Eric and attempted to help him out. His lab was quite small with some very ancient machines. I did what I could in the brief amount of time we had. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel to rest up. After a short nap again we headed back to the Queen’s Hotel where we watched the boxing. We brought Eric along and all enjoyed a pleasant meal. At around 10 we decided to call it a night because we had to travel the next day.

The next morning I woke completely drenched in sweat yet feverless which was a good thing. The drive back was a relaxing one in which we stopped to take pictures many times along the way. We finally arrived back in Kampala at around 3:30. I tried to recover from the trip as much as possible before heading back out to the VSO barbeque for the new recruits. I arrived at VSO feeling somewhat healthy. Waited around the complex waiting for the Kampala crew to arrive. Meet most of the new recruits, they all seem to be quite nice folks. After eating the BBQ I had another bout with my stomach. It seemed like it wasn’t going to allow me to eat anything without causing any problems. So I decided to drown my pain away with copious amounts of water and soda. Eventually we got board of VSO and headed our way out to Kasanga where we spent the rest of the night relaxing and dancing.

The next day I departed early because I had to get back home to wash cloth and pack a bag for going to Mokono to attend an HIV/Aid’s and ICT workshop. Meddie came and picked up Ali and Me at around 6:30pm. We then continued on to the Sheraton where we picked up Tony Bloome a representative from the World Bank. We arrived in Mokono around 8ish, ate dinner then helped Tony and Meddie set up for the workshop. Afterwards we headed off to be. In the morning I was pleasantly surprised to find my bathroom had a bath and hot water. So before breakfast I helped myself to a nice long hot bath. Anyway the itinerary for the week was as follows: Monday: Telecenter workshop, Tuesday-Thursday (HIV/AIDS and ICT workshop). A lot of information was passed around on the problems being faced, I think though the only problem with the session was that it was quite short, and that if they want to come up with solutions they will have to continue to dialog. As well all this week (starting the prior Friday) I was riddled with a constant source of diarrhea, which was persisting from the Friday before. I eventually went to the doctor on Tuesday who after testing me found out nothing was wrong with me and that it must be some sort of virus or bacteria causing the problem. I was given antibiotics, which I started on right away. Wednesday night we had a culture night. The group performed cultural song and dance from all the regions of Uganda. It was very nice to see; in addition I even got up and danced at the end (see the picture).

We finally departed Friday for home. After enjoying the brief stay at home (something we hadn’t done in almost 2 weeks) Ali and Me headed back out to meet up with the rest of the Kampala crew to go to Bujagali where we would go rafting on Saturday. After a lackluster night on Friday our group of Jamie, Ruth, Murad, Ali and myself were well pumped to hit the rapids. We hit the water at around 10:30 and got nice and wet right away. The day was amazingly fun, more so than the first time I went rafting. I also fell off the raft more times than before, (4 times compared to the 0 times last time). The last rapid of the day rightfully called The Bad Place really destroyed all of us. We ended up going into the rapid and surfing on it for a few seconds then it picked up the raft and flipped it nicely overly throwing all of us into some serious rapids. See the pictures for more details on the rafting. Anyway Saturday after rafting and eating some finely barbequed tilapia Murad, Ali and myself headed back to Kampala. We rented the Lord of the Rings and started to watch it at our house. Maybe 20 minutes into the movie everyone was fast asleep in his chairs.

Sunday was spent in Kampala at the office, then back home to Kyebando. On my walk home I started a conversation with one of the locals. After about 5 minutes of talking to him I had attracted a big group of both children and other curious locals. I actually ended up spending most of the hour that I talked with them trying to explain the fact that I am a volunteer doing work for free. They could not seem to understand why anyone would do any sort of work for free and kept on telling me I had some sort of hidden agenda. Also they were astonished at how young I was, and that I was teaching teachers. They couldn’t understand how I could know so much at such a young age. Anyway after making myself a lame spaghetti meal I headed out to meet up with Murad, Jamie, Ruth and Leah. After a nice night of chatting with the soon to be departing Y2Y I called it a night and headed home.

Again it has been a while since my last entry. Things have been quite busy to say the least. Two weeks ago (Sept 6) was the beginning of In Country Training 2. The point of ICT 2 is to get everyone from ICT 1 (the training done in Uganda when I first arrived) together to give an update on how things are going. Ali and Me checked into the Diplomat Hotel on the Thursday night after work.

After checking in I treated myself to a nice hot shower. After my shower I went up to the restaurant where I was blown away by the view. After ordering a drink I was met by Isha and Ali. Isha had come in from Khihihi with John and Kate. As time went on more and more people started to arrive. First Benedict, then John and Kate, and finally Alistair and Ruth. Y2Y Ruth also came up to join us. We all decided to order food from the restaurant; me taking advantage that VSO was fronting the bill ordered a big steak. During dinner Kate informed us that it was John’s birthday. So after dinner we took John out to Capital Pub for a night out. At Capital Pub I received a phone call from Murad who had just arrived for Eritrea, I told him where we were and where to meet us. He arrived shortly after. We all played some pool before heading off to the dance floor where we danced the rest of the night away. The next morning ICT 2 began (at least the formal aspect of it). We all got to share problems we were facing at work, problems we had within the country and so on. It was good to hear that people were having similar problems as I was. After hearing some of the stories though I now see that I am actually doing quite well. Around lunchtime Jamie arrived from Masindi to complete our group. The rest of the day was spent going over techniques to use to help solve our problems, and also showing us some information on development education. After our session I sat out on the balcony in the sun to relax. Realizing I was still worn out from the night before I decided on a short nap. After my nap I head up to the restaurant where I met up with the gang. We ate dinner after which time I decided to go back to bed and take advantage of the posh hotel rooms. The next day marked the end of ICT 2 and the beginning of a long week for me. On Monday was going to be the start of a week long Linux training that I was going to be giving to a large group of 10 + teachers. After spending Sunday in the office preparing I decided to head back home to finish things up. At home my laptop power supplied died on me, which meant that I would have no laptop to prepare on, or work on during the session. Day 1 saw the beginning of the session. Due to several issues within our office things did not kick off till around 10:30. After spending a good couple of hours teaching Linux theory and basic information I went into Linux installation. Finally I ended the session at around 3. Day one turned out better than I had anticipated seeing how many problems I was facing. After the training I went to a computer shop run by a very nice Chinese fellow. He fixed my Power Supply for a mere 15000 USH. After getting back my power supply I was then able to get back to work and prepare for the next day of training. Preparation sure is a Bitch let me tell you. By the time I was finished with the Day 2 lesson it was past 8pm. After getting back home I did another couple hours of preparing for the upcoming day then head off to bed. Day two was a little better than day 1 in that I actually had a few computers that the students could work on. Again after the session my time was spent preparing till late in the night. Day 3 and 4 encompassed more of the same, yet things were going slower than I had anticipated. It is really hard to budget how much one can fit into a day of training. Some topics go a lot quicker than anticipated while some go much slower. All in all it was a good learning experience. Anyway the Friday was census day so we did not have a session rather we were all counted. As well Friday night was Ruth’s birthday. That night the Y2Y’s along with Murad and Myself all went out for dinner at Fang Fang’s to eat Chinese. After dinner we went for drinks and dancing at the Rock Garden. The next day I finished up my training course with the final day. I had to leave out a few topics due to the time restraints but I think what I did train them in had helped. It is good to see when people are enthusiastic about learning. I think now my students have a good foundation to continue learning in Linux. This week was probably one of the more fulfilling weeks I have had hear at work, yet it was also the most stressful and tiring one. Now that I have done one session though I have all my notes, and know a little more about how to give these sessions thus the ones in the future I anticipate running more smoothly. This upcoming week I will be going with Ali and Meddie to Kabale where we will be doing some training in web development. Look for some amazing picture of Uganda’s southwest to come shortly.

New pictures up of some hard rain and the weekend at Hotel Diplomate during ICT 2.

Yesterday saw the first long rainy day we have experienced. We have had rain in the past but usually it lasts only for an hour then becomes sunny again. For most of the day the rain tumbled down, in torrential quantities. Eventually around 6pm the rain slowed to a halt, which gave Ali and Me an opportunity to go home.

As we arrived at the Taxi Park we found ourselves looking around for the taxi that would take us back to Kyebando. Eventually we asked an attendant where we would find the taxi and he informed us that it still hasn’t arrived. So we waited in the drizzling rain for our taxi to arrive amongst the many other Kyebandoians. Finally a taxi made its way towards where we were standing and a crowd of people quickly rushed it, leaving Ali and Myself standing dumbfounded. The people grabbed, and pushed, and fought their way onto the taxi until it was right filled up, leaving over half those buying for a seat back standing with us in the drizzle. As time went on another taxi made its way towards us. This time Ali and Me made our way towards the taxi, getting in line to hope in. Being the kind/non-aggressive Canadians we are we ended up letting all the people fighting to get in by us. Once again we were left standing in the drizzling rain with the rest of the people who missed out on the last taxi. Up on the horizon another taxi was making its way towards the park. Still unsure if it was going to Kyebando or not Ali and me decided to wait and find out. As it came closer a local attendant of the taxi park who had watched our two failed attempts whispered into our ears “Now you two get on that one!” We didn’t have to be told twice and quickly made our way to its opening door. Still not the first ones on the Taxi (as we let the crazed patrons on first) we did however manage to get on. So as the taxi left the park we noticed traffic was absolutely horrid. Slowly but surely we made our way back home on the taxi, everyone very quite as the traffic slowly got lighter. Eventually after over an hour in this small Toyota Hiace we arrived back home. To think all this madness, all this time waiting for and in the taxi was caused by a little bit of rain!

Rather than bore you with a long drawn out week in review I decided to write down a few key things that happened last week.

- Tuesday I did another training session on installing Linux with a teacher from Iganga. I had to do it on the fly because he had just come in out of the blue. It went ok baring a few problems we faced with setting up the network cards. All in all alright for a lack of preparation.

- Spent most of my evenings in Kabalagala meeting up with Ruth and other friends.
- Saturday morning after discovering our fresh milk had slowly turned into buttermilk I decided to make an attempt at making pancakes. Due to our terrible frying pan, and oversized spatula they ended up turning into pancake chunks. I ended up mixing the pancake chunks with pineapple chunks, which actually tasted quite nice. For not having any type of recipe for pancakes I am quite pleased with the result.
- Saturday afternoon I taught Meddie a bit about Photoshop. I basically showed him how to use all the tools, and then went into some of the more advanced features.
- Jamie was also in town Saturday, which gave me someone to go out with for the night (as I thought Ruth was going to stay another night in Mbale, and was under the impression the rest of the Y2Y’s were going to be in Bujagali). As it turns out after Ruth found out Jamie was in town she decided to come back to Kampala. As for the rest of the Y2Y’s they got bored in Bujagali and ended up coming out as well, thus Jamie and Me met up with a lot more people than we had initially expected!
- Sunday I slept all day, made spaghetti with a fresh tomato sauce, and slept some more.

If you look to the right hand side of the page you will find a two new things. One is in the resources section a profiles page. This page is to let you get to know who I am talking about in my stories. It profiles my friends and supplies a nice mug shot of each. Next there is a new section called Friends Sites. This section features websites of other netcorps/vso's around the globe!