Thursday, September 19, 2013

Nancy's birthday! Today we left Jinja, but we decided to take a quick trip to the police station to pick up the stolen internet radio. It had been at Spire Road School but the guard was tied up and they stole the internet radio and a monitor, but in their haste, left behind the safes they had stolen elsewhere. So today, we wanted to get the radio back. We needed to take someone from Spire Road school with us, so that was one trip. The guard no longer worked there, so we had to go to another school. He wanted to shower first but Francis just got a note from him to speak to a certain police officer who was familiar with the case. Next we were off to the police station, finally found the right officer and he was going to help us. Unfortunately, he did not have the key, looked all over but the person with the key was “taking tea” so we had to wait for him. Then he came to open this garage with all the stolen merchandise piled up on each other. The radio was under a bicycle and a motorcycle in this really cramped space. Finally we had it and we were on our way. It was a long and bumpy ride back to Kampala. Before we could get to the hotel, we needed to get the XO tablet from Dr. Ssemyalo because I promised it to Annet at the Ministry. That took a while because the traffic was horrific and our driver had to circumvent it. Ronald and I discussed the pilot and how he would conduct the research, introduced me to Christine who will be working on it. He wants a Memorandum of Understanding so that he can use the project and our alliance to raise funds for research. One more stop to meet Kenneth at his workplace to pick up the faulty XOs to bring back to the US for repairs if I cannot fix them. I had picked up a cold so I was soooo happy to reach the Olive Garden Hotel again, where I could rest. Just one more thing on today’s agenda: writing a report to the Ministry on all we have done this week. I have a meeting scheduled for 9 a.m., God and Manisule willing.