Keith's first week

Day 1 Tuesday 08/06/2010

I won't bore you with the details of travelling but I did see the most beautiful sunset as we came into Ugandan airspace. It was pitch dark at about 7.30 so by the time I was out of the airport it felt as though it was about 2/3 o' clock at home. My flight landed on time and I was greeted by Joseph and 3 other men. They were all really nice and they took my bags from me and carried them to the car. There was nowhere to buy a sim card or to exchange money so off we headed toward Kampala. It took roughly an hour to get to the guest house.

After seeing me to my room and arranging to meet up with Joseph at 10 the following morning they all said good night and left. I whipped out my laptop only to discover I can't get the internet. The problem is while my laptop can see that there is a network there the signal is too weak to pick it up.

It was a very long day but a good day full of excitement and nervousness that has ended . It's looking like this place is going to be more adventurous than I had anticipated. A good night's sleep should sort me out.

Day 2

Today was an important day of getting in contact with everybody who I'm guessing were a little bit concerned about if or when I arrived. I met some other visiting researchers at breakfast today. Apparently it was a late breakfast as it is a public holiday (hero's day) and according to the other visiting researchers they have quite a few of them, so wohoo I guess. After breakfast I met with Chris (I think that's his name!). He was one of the 4 guys who picked me up from the airport so I had a one in 3 chance of getting it right, as the 4th was Professor Joseph Olobo. Anyway we headed for town in a public taxi. That trip in itself was an adventure. Just about the only rule of the road that is obeyed is which side to drive on and even then this was ignored at junctions. There are no speed limits but there are some pot-holes big enough to bury a person. We arrived in the town and got some money exchanged.

I think Joseph wants me to start work tomorrow so I'll have to change my meeting with Niamh (a previous trainee of the CDPC now working in Kampala) to maybe tomorrow evening. I guess that means it's a good thing that I have the rest of the day to myself to read up on techniques and methodologies but boy is it going to be boring.

As I am Irish I would be remiss if I didn't at least briefly talk about the weather. Unusually for an Irish conversation about the weather there are no complaints. Clear skies and the temp is in the mid-twenties and apparently that is where it is set to stay. The coldest it gets is the mid-teens during the night and the hottest it gets is the high-twenties during the afternoon so no huge fluctuations and plenty of opportunity to grab some sun.

The evening hasn't been a total loss I have vultures, hawks and magpies twice the size of those at home outside my room to keep me occupied until they go to sleep.

Day 3

I am eager to get to work because I really have nothing else to do and feel like I am in the way. I know I'll start doing my literature review section, I have papers downloaded so I should be able to cover a good bit of it. Why didn't I think of this yesterday when I was bored out of my tree in the room, ah well.

Just finished my first day in the lab spent most of it with Chris and professor Olobo showing me how I will be culturing the parasites and preparing stocks ready for subculture next week. I also experienced my first real taste of Ugandan food. The rice and beef were nice but they have some funky ways of preparing banana as part of the main meal. Neither way of preparation was overly nice to say the least. I'll keep plugging away at different things though.

I spent a while with Chris touring the "campus" and hospital. All the separate buildings are based around the hospital and are part of its research in different areas.

Anyway it's as hot as hell here tonight I have the fan going 90 and have a tough day tomorrow in work. I'll have to finish early to go to the Irish embassy then back here for a little bit and after that get credit to send some texts. After that it's off to the pub to watch the opening games of the world cup.

Day 4

Didn't get a very good night's sleep last night I had the fan on to try keep cool but it was too loud so I turned it off. Unfortunately it was only just about drowning out the sound of some really bad really loud African music being played by someone down the road. Ah well.

Got into work a little early today as from the way the professor sounded yesterday we had a bit of work ahead of us today before finishing. Turns out we it wasn't busy after all. He got Chris to remove the stocks from the -70oC freezer and sink them in liquid nitrogen. It would have been cool to see but instead the professor took me to the Irish embassy so I could register as being here.  It only took 20mins to register so I was in and out in no time at all. Once registered I was given an invitation to a party being held in the Irish embassy at the end of the month, so that should be fun. I wonder how formal it will be; something tells me jeans and a shirt won't cut it??? After this the professor dropped me just at the end of the road from where I am staying. Rather than going home and sitting around I went down to a local hut to buy air minutes and then headed back to the office to go on the internet. Between the jigs and the reels of trying to set myself up with wireless on my laptop one of the girls in the office took pity on me and brought me to the library where the head guy there sorted me right out with server numbers and IP addresses etc. So I have wireless on my laptop again wohoo but only to within a few meters of the library aww. Ever the optimist I'm seeing this as a good step forward and with each step I feel a little bit more settled here. I fired off some emails and checked about on facebook. Unfortunately when it really matters late in the evening I may not be able to skype because they lock that place up pretty tight, but I'm going to give it a shot over the weekend and see how it goes. Worst case scenario is that it doesn't work out properly and I take the plunge and buy a portable modem.

I'm telling you now, atkins wouldn't do well here. Every plate has two kinds of cooked banana/plantain things, a portion (which is the white block of chewy starchy tastelessness), of rice, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes (they're not really "Irish" potatoes, they're just normal white potatoes but boy was I glad to see them), yams as well as some meat (I say some but really yesterday I got two small pieces which put together were about the same size of Aoife's phone and today I got one big piece which was slightly over twice the size of a meatball found in subway, but it contained more fat and cartilage than meat). My point of the rant was a serious over load of starch.

Boda bodas are motor bikes that act as taxis. The bikes are form the 70's or 80's (as are most of the cars here too). Getting a boda is basically getting on a barely functioning bike with a driver that has a death wish on roads with holes varying in size from pots to graves and all sorts of bumps the size of speed ramps and divots that were equally as deep. Oh and there are three to a bike with no protection whatsoever. Needless to say I was nervous getting on but when in Rome I said to myself. The funny thing is that everybody I have talked to has said not to use them, even Chris, and yet there I was hanging onto the back grip bar for dear life.

He has told me that tomorrow seeing as I have made no plans that I can go to his uncles/family's place just outside of town where I will meet his uncle and other members of his family and stay for dinner. I'm looking forward to the experience but not so much to the food again or the language barrier. They all talk their native tongues to each other mixed with English so it's hard to keep up with conversations. Even when it is all in English the pronunciation is difficult for both parties to understand, but it should be fun.

Day 5

I met with Chris just after mid-day and we got a taxi to a market somewhere between here and the place he grew up. It was quite busy. There were hundreds of small areas composed a person sitting on the ground at the rear of a mass of whatever they were selling and they sold everything from clothes to fruit. There were no gaps between each area; they all essentially melded into each other on the ground. So Chris bought some fruit for when we arrived. We got a public taxi most of the rest of the way there followed by a boda journey. Not half as bad as the last time but only because the roads were so bad the driver couldn't get any speed going. We arrived to an almost empty house. His sister was the only one home as most of his family were at some gathering in his home village. His sister (Sara) made dinner and washed the fruit that was bought. The time I spent there was very humbling indeed.

Chris's uncle arrived shortly after we finished dinner but only sat with us for a minute. He has a malignant cancer and has had operations to remove three tumours already but it is still spreading so he is looking into alternative ways like a certain diet to fight it or reduce it. He presented Chris with an email he received filled with the biggest load of nonsensical tripe about a fruit that easily cures all cancers and other ailments. Unfortunately I think he believed it but thankfully Chris saw some sense. Once we had rested after dinner we walked about half a mile back to the main road and got a public taxi back to Kampala city.

Walking around the area where Chris lived I saw the kind of poverty that you see on documentaries about poverty in Africa. You know how when you go to New York and it is exactly as you see it on TV, well it's the same here except at the total opposite end of the spectrum. I am officially a "Muzungu" it means rich person in lugandan. African people have to be fat, wear nice clothes and drive nice cars to be considered rich. I just happen to be white so regardless of what I have on me or in my wallet I am considered a rich Muzungu.

Just so you can picture it the public taxis are Toyota hi-ace vans from the early 80's ish. They are kitted out with 12 seats inside them and probably most worrying is that they are all fitted with Nissan bull bars across the front. This place is pure madness.

Day 6

Today is the first day it has rained since my arrival and boy does it rain here. I'm afraid to go out in that not cus of getting wet but it actually looks as though those rain drops would hurt. Added to that is the loud claps of thunder and flashes of lighteninf. The funniest part is there wasn't a cloud in the sky two hours ago and about 3 mins ago BOOM!!! The kind of rain that would destroy Cork in a matter of minutes.

It's nice to get a bit of rain, it makes a change from all that sunshine we've been having HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Today is my first day of proper work and I am looking forward to getting stuck into it. Professor Olobo has given me a quick rundown of what I will be doing and the rough lengths of time this will take and according to my calculations if all goes according to plan I will be finished in 9 weeks. However, I'm wondering how likely is it that everything will go according to plan.

Day 8

Not much to do today in work, so far just inoculating another two vials to create passage two of our parasite cultures, but Chris said it was a more complicated procedure. It turns out it was an easier one, just using syringes instead of pipettes. I think Chris just wanted something to do, then again so did I.

Chris and a friend of his got invited to a wedding that is on this weekend so he decided to invite me. I politely refused. I didn't want to be rude but I don't know the couple, and as much as it would have been fun to see a different kind of wedding compared to what I am used to back home or on the TV, I wouldn't feel comfortable because I wasn't invited by the family. Also I wouldn't know what to buy (because you can't show up empty handed) or what to wear or how to act/behave and it all would have been a bit much I think.

According to Chris's friend if I am to try to learn a language it would be best if I learned Swahili as Lugandan is only a local language and Kampala being the capital city people from all over Uganda come with their own local language that is totally different to Lugandan so very few people speak it. Almost everywhere you go in east Africa the people understand Swahili.

In the afternoon Chris was talking to the professor and the professor told him that as I have never worked with parasites before, I required a short course so that I knew what it was I was looking for. Part 1 was looking at smears under a light microscope which took a total of an hour to do and to be honest that was only because I wasn't sure if I needed to look at all the slides before I told Chris what I had figured out (yeah Chris is giving me the course). Tomorrow it is staining the parasites and again looking at the smears, that I will prepare under the microscope.

Its 23.45 so I am officially a week here (& a bit), this week has flown through and yet the idea of being here for almost another three months seems so long, but I'm sure once a proper routine kicks in within the next week or so time will slip away.