July 22nd- Kampala

This morning Angela and I slept through Angela's alarm (I forgot to set mine). Angela woke up at 11 and immediately woke me up too- we were supposed to meet Emmanuel at 11. We called him and told him we would be late, and got out of the house 15 minutes later. We got to Kampala road where we met Emmanuel at 12, and apologized for our tardiness. While traveling to Kampala road, Harriet Muyambi called me, so I called her back as soon as we got there. I set up a meeting with her for 3 pm at the Imperial Royale Hotel, where her office is.

Emmanuel, Angela and I then set off to look for charge controllers, inverters, and batteries. We first went to a taxi park where there were incredible numbers of taxis and people. I wish I had time to take a picture- it was litteraly a sea of small white buses. I'm not sure how they all got in there, or how any of them manage to get out. We finally figured out which taxi to take and then went off on a fairly long taxi ride, followed by a short boda boda ride, to Ultra Tech. We spent a while at Ultra Tec, as at first they just wanted us to tell us the load we had, and they would design our system for us. We finally convinced them that we just wanted to know the prices of various types of inverters and charge controllers, got the information, and headed back to the taxi. We got back near Kampala road and went to Market street where we went to 3 other vendors, again spending lots of time convincing them that we did not want them to size our system for us. We eventually got the information we wanted, finishing at 2:20- enough time left to get a quick bite to eat before meeting Harriet. Angela, Emmanuel, and I then went to a nice little lunch spot near Market St. where we all had chapattis and gravy, and mango juice out of juice boxes. Emmanuel is very nice and helpful, and really led the search for controllers and inverters today. Then we split up, Emmanuel heading back to Makerere and Angela and I going to the Imperial Royale Hotel, but we are looking forward to seeing him again next week.

Angela and I took boda bodas to the Imperial Royale Hotel, but our boda bodas went different ways so we arrived at different exits. I called her and we found each other easily, but I admit it scared me for a second. It was my first time in the city not being in an arms reach of Angela. We went through the 2 security check points and found the Super Rides office in the lobby of the Imperial Royale Hotel. Harriet was very nice and asked me many questions about my sister Rebecca, who she knows well. My sister worked with her while she was in Uganda, which is how I found out about their company. Harriet showed us the pickup truck that would take the crates and confirmed that we could ride with them to the clinic, which I think is currently our plan. We want to make sure that the crates get their safely, and make sure they are loaded carefully into a room in the clinic. We met the driver who seemed very nice, but did not speak any English. He's from the Masaka area, and knows where Engeye is, which is really nice since Angela and I don't. I then quickly confirmed the plan with Harriet- we would meet them at their office, then drive over to FedEx with them tomorrow morning, and head to the village. Angela and I have not decided if we will stay in the village for the rest of the week, or if we will come back with the truck driver to Kampala. We still have people we want to meet with here, but the weekend probably will not be the best time for that anyways. We'll decide that tonight.

After the Imperial Royale Hotel, we walked back in towards the main areas of Kampala (props to Angela for not getting us lost even though she had never walked that area before). We went and saw UTL- the internet carrier for Angela- so that hopefully we can have internet at her home when we are in Kampala again. It has been frustrating to have a computer and an internet connection, but not be able to use it. Finally we came back to Ntinda, where we passed my new friend who sells sugar cane on the street. We bought some from him the other day, and since we walk that road every day to get to the internet cafe, we now say hello every day. And now we are here, at an internet cafe at 6 pm, pretty exhausted (probably because we've only eaten chapattis today, which is essentially very flat bread). But we got a lot done today, even though we woke up later than we had intended.

I'll try and post again tomorrow, but if we're in the village then I'm not sure what the internet availability will be. I'm very excited to see the village! Can't believe we're going tomorrow!