Tuesday July 6, 2010
Order of the day -an expedition to the Predict office - Benard, the country coordinator for Uganda, picked me up first thing this morning and we fought our way through the traffic to the offices. Predict and Respond, two large USAID programs, have taken over a large plot of land with several small sprawling buildings, all newly painted and in the process of being furnished and equipped with the accoutrements of a North American office. It felt like I had just changed continents since yesterday. Fast wireless internet, a colour printer, a kitchen with tea and coffee and a watercooler, and a whole bunch of expats bustling around. Some of them career expats with experience all over the world, others newly hired on for this project. So I got a desk and the wireless key and a cup of tea and settled down for the day, other than lunch out with Benard, to make powerpoints out of the Predict protocols that we are supposed to be teaching the week after next. It will be a challenge to turn personal protective gear, laboratory safety, and documentation for shipping samples into something that will keep people awake and interested for three days. I think I’ll have to find some videos on laboratory explosions to keep them awake!
On mosquitos
The mosquitos are very annoying here. There aren’t that many of them but nothing is screened so they appear in the evening in the guest house. Their bites aren’t any worse than those at home, perhaps less intense, but each tiny mosquito has to be seen as a pestilential germ and malarial containing threat. I’ve taken to wearing my quick dry pants, and maybe a pair of socks, in the evening to keep them at bay. I could dab myself with Deet, but the evenings cool down so putting on some clothing isn’t a hardship.
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