Subject: Bukoba #19: April Ailments, May Medicines
Date: Wednesday, May 22, 2002
As of early April I have had dial-up Internet access from home. Sometimes I cannot connect, but when I can the connection is fast and reliable. I have a local e-mail account (gregvogl@bukobaonline.com) but it is easier to keep all my mail in Yahoo, so you can continue to use my Yahoo address to contact me. I hope to get a cellphone as soon as I am paid again and find a decent phone, as too many times I have needed to get or receive a call away from home. The initial investment is big (about $80) and it is relatively expensive to call from and to a cellphone, but short text messages are almost free. I am a bit short of dough at the moment but will be fine as soon as I am paid and reimbursed by VSO and the University.
Most of the month of April was spent being ill to various degrees. It all started on Easter Sunday when I think I ate a bad egg. By late April my gut pains got much worse, and after a three-hour wait at the Bukoba Government Hospital an overworked doctor promptly diagnosed me with acute appendicitis. After a night of frantic phone calls, a tiny AMREF/Flying Doctors plane took me to Nairobi Hospital the next morning, but the doctor said I merely had some sort of minor intestinal problem, and indeed the symptoms were greatly reduced in just a day. Despite the immense costs of flying me there and a barrage of tests, they never did find out exactly what's wrong, and despite taking my medicine something's still not quite right, but it isn't serious and I can wait to have more tests next time I'm in a big city. At least I had a pleasant little vacation: good food, a variety of scenery, two museums (the one in Nairobi is much better than the one in Kampala), and a chance to do some shopping (though not nearly enough time due to weekends and holidays).
The opening date of the University has been postponed until September, which is necessary because the new campus is still undergoing many renovations. (Also it would be best to start at the same time as most other universities in the world.) The physical and environmental science wings, library, and several lecture halls are mostly ready, and the administrative wing is about to start renovations. Some of the second- and third-year students have started to look for education elsewhere. I have decided that I should focus my efforts on increasing and improving computer applications training, and that the most valuable advanced courses I can teach are computer maintenance and computers in education.
Computers for Africa will arrive in Bukoba June 18 and return June 29, and they will soon ship the donated computer equipment to Dar. I will try to accompany them from Kampala to Bukoba and back. Hopefully they will give the University some Pentium IIs to replace some of our older and/or deceased PCs. Some of my 50 computer surveys have trickled in from the schools and various organisations in the region, but the responses are generally too brief and vague to give a clear picture of their computer needs. The questions were too open-ended and assumed a good knowledge of computers and their uses, which few organisations have.
I finally finished my Windows, Word and Excel training at the Bukoba District Council. What should have been four weeks of training took eleven, only 40 of the 56 participants completed enough sessions to earn a certificate because they were busy with so many other things, and I was tired of repeating the same basic things so many times, but my boss Antoon (the Dutch District Development Advisor) and the students seemed generally satisfied. My next batch of training is still uncertain, but I hope to be training a few members of staff from the Bukoba town council, the Kagera Agricultural and Environmental Management Project, and at long last, our own University staff.
Saturday I met with the deputy vice-chancellor, registrar, architect and contractor at the new University campus. We went through my plans for the new computer building, which will include a large classroom (about 30'x18'), a smaller classroom, an office, a room for network cables, hubs and server, and a small storage room. My proposals for the use of the building were accepted with few changes, and renovation will begin soon, but it is unlikely that the computer building will be entirely ready for student use by the time Computers for Africa arrives. So I don't think they'll be able to put in network cabling.
Until we move to the new computer lab, I have set up a small computer lab in the current University building with three electrical outlets and space for at least the seven computers we have. Sunday morning at the University four students helped me configure and test a temporary peer-to-peer network to share files amongst four computers running Windows 98, Me (my portable) and XP. Before we left we had to disassemble it because the four-port hub belongs to one of the students, but it was a good learning experience for us all, and we look forward to the day when the University has a network and server for file and device sharing, local and Internet e-mail, and Internet access.
I suddenly have a lot of free time on my hands today and am not sure what to do with it, which is why I am writing this letter. I have been spending some quality time with my third wife; a bit of an emotional rollercoaster but generally nice. I have only been to a few wazungu gatherings in the past couple months, including Bas's birthday party (which included a goodbye shrine to the queen mum) and Donald's sumptuous barbecue. I've been cooking and eating much better, since I've decided that the extra time and effort may be necessary to stay healthy. The rainy season has come and gone. It hasn't rained for at least two weeks, except for briefly overnight a couple times. Most days are sunny and hot, though today it is cloudy and breezy. Last night it was quite cool, and the relative warmth of my house may have been the reason why a neighbour's chicken decided to roost on my bedroom window sill. It wasn't at all fazed when I threw a glass of water on it. My exercise schedule has been erratic, though I have been able to do whatever I had the energy for: walking, running, tennis. The Edan Hotel now has a very professional disco with a wonderful variety of music from East, Central and Southern Africa, though I've only been once. A guy on the beach invited me to bathe with him; I declined in favour of watching the varied and abundant birdlife. (My name literally means bird watcher.)