Project: InterConnection Uganda

The day started out pretty normal…I headed to InterConnection Uganda early in the morning and finished setting up the demo computers, then I did some work sorting out all the RAM we have managed to rummage up into the appropriate size and speed piles. Things were pretty calm today after the mad rush to get the place ready for the Grand Opening.

Christina was scheduled to arrive at 2:00pm in Entebbe, but John the Driver got a little mixed up on what the schedule was, so we didn’t leave until 1:50pm. Ooops. I hope she’ll be okay.

By the time we made it to the airport, the passengers were just leaving the airplane. It turns out that they had delayed the flight by an hour. Wow…what timing.

Then things got even nuttier.

John, Christina, and I hung around Entebbe until about 6 pm, waiting for the Computers for Uganda team to arrive. On the agenda today: Meeting with the Vice President of Uganda at his beach house in Entebbe.

Wait…what?!

The dinner at the VP’s was lovely: A Ugandan barbecue complete with different types of meat, matooke, plantains, and you know…the good stuff (most of which I’m not allergic to!). We were entertained the whole night by an excellent dance troupe which performed a dance from all of the different regions of Uganda. In the meantime I was able to give the Vice President an MIT hat and pen, and invited him to come to MIT…!!

The VP is a very nice man, by the way. He’s very friendly and loves to interact with people, no matter what their social status is. He’s also very passionate about education and ICT (he sponsored one of the schools that the CFU team visited this year by funding them to set up the appropriate facilities to house the computers). Although there are quite a few corrupt politicians in Uganda and all of Africa, it’s nice to see that there are some genuinely caring people in office. With his wonderful personality, I think the VP has a good chance at running for President if he wanted to.

The most exciting moment of the night: The dance troupe came over to where we were sitting, the Vice President pulled out a drum, and a lot of dancing ensued.

Now, how awesome is that?!

Dance, John, dance!

I’ve been practicing too, ya know.

It’s a disco in here!

And so appropriately, after the song was over (actually *just* as the last drum beat ended) the power went out.

Shaun then got out his camera and we used the flash as a strobe. Haha…discotheque at the VP’s.

I love this country.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 7th, 2007 at 2:35 am and is filed under CFU, Fun/Events, People, Weekends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.