Tuesday and Wednesday July 20 & 21, 2010 - Training, training, and Chinese

Tuesday and Wednesday July 20 & 21, 2010 - Training, training, and Chinese

The training all went well. It was held at a small hotel just down the road from the vet faculty, in a small meeting room with a view across a courtyard to a huge colourful banner of East African animals, with rather a novel perspective and sizing scheme, hiding the fact they at some point they started to put on an extra story. We had about 25 people from various areas - university, wildlife centre, research, and several wildlife NGO’s. The only obviously missing group was the Uganda Wildlife Authority, conspicuous by their absence. The talks went well, the projector worked, people laughed at (at least some of) my jokes. And the lunches were filling. It was an excellent networking activity. But I think the highpoint was a video I got off the internet on how to wash your hands properly. I felt a bit goofy showing it, but it was part of the “official training” topics, and surprisingly people thought it was very useful. I thought it was rather ironic that after all this talk about when and how to handwash and the difficulties in managing personal protective equipment (PPE) in the field, we were having a conference at a hotel with no water in the bathrooms for much of the time. Not easy to manage out of the field either! My personal highpoint was choosing a volunteer (perhaps that’s an oxymoron) from the audience to demonstrate putting on the PPE- white tyvek suit with footies and hoodie, booties, apron, goggles, N95 respirator mask, and two pairs of gloves. Quite a sight!

After sessions both days we went back to the PREDICT office for a few hours of planning and other catchup, and then on Wednesday we hit the Chinese restaurant right next door with a group of people. We all picked a dish and shared - when I gave in my first choice I was told it was too spicy and just for Chinese people. I think the hit of the evening was the Flaming Fish - an entire fish doused in something alcoholic (I suppose) and set on fire. Quite impressive.