Five weeks went WAY too fast. It was wild being back in the US, but it didn’t feel like home. We were in our house for like four hours, and it didn’t feel like our house. Which meant it didn’t feel like home. Hanging out with friends and family was amazing and it was VERY hard to leave, but still… Uganda feels like home. I hopped in my truck on day one and drove on the left side of the road with no problem whatsoever. It felt more natural than US driving.
But the return wasn’t easy-cheesy. Declan threw up on the plane after we landed in London (sleep deprivation and that unsettled feeling from altitude), and then Uganda was less than welcoming. We were initially refused access to the country because our $100 US bills (for visa payments) were too “old”. They did offer us 1000UGX to $1, about half the exchange rate, though, which was quite hospitable. Then we came in one bag short (out of 24, that’s not bad), and then we packed the vans in the pouring rain.
But still, we are blessed. We are safe. We have so much to be thankful about, and I’ll write about it in the days to come. For starters we had LOTS of gear donations, and I’m very thankful for that. I’ll be posting an official thank-you with photos very soon.
One thing I’ve realized is that I don’t blog enough. So I’m resolved to do better. Here goes nothing.
Yesterday (Tuesday) was my first work day. I went to the bank and paid Fred and Geoffrey (our head of security). I stopped in to see the training center, and it looked great! We have a new desk and bookshelf and a few more tables which we’ll use for the machines we’re adding.
Fred installed a bunch of Kensington locks (donated!) on the laptops for security purposes and I went back to the house to start working on the training content we got from the US.
I made backup copies of the ten DVD’s that Lynda.com donated (they want us to use the DVD’s in a one-per-person capacity) and I made backup ISO images of the content we purchased from TotalTraining. I also copied the contents of the TotalTraining ISOs onto our web server and promised Geoffrey I would make a course list. Apparently he’s getting pounded by requests for the course list. It seems we have a LOT of interested customers. Although, many people are uncomfortable paying by the hour. They want a discounted monthly rate. We can’t do that. This is community project, but our prices are rock-bottom as it is.
So I’m off to pull together more content for the training center. More details later.
