For the first day since we’ve been here, we got picked up on time! Devir was at our place right at 7:02am this morning to pick us up and walk us to the summer gardens hotel… for our first day of training ever!!

In spite of our respective illnesses and fatigue, Haleigh and Amber were excited (and admittedly a little nervous) for the 14 hour day they had ahead. We planned on training two groups of trainers of trainers (TOTs) today, with each training lasting five and a half hour long.

We arrived at the training venue at 7:15 AM to get all set up, only to discover the projector we requested for our presentation wouldn’t be there for another four hours and the materials we needed hadn’t arrived yet. We reviewed our notes for the presentation until the materials arrived, and Amber went back into the venue’s storage to find a projector.

Our first training, which was supposed to start at 8am sharp, did not start until 10:15am due continued technological and personnel difficulties. Should we start with the fact that neither our laptops nor Jacob’s connected to the projector here, or that Amber accidentally cut herself with a surgical blade and had to take a mini interlude to demonstrate first aid firsthand? Anyways, she rallied pretty quickly, and while the technological difficulties were getting sorted out, she had everyone go around and say their name and a “fun fact” about themselves. Haleigh has never despised Amber more than in that moment.

We had two trainings planned in one day to reduce total costs of the venue, so the late start made us a bit rushed in the first training. We were pleasantly surprised with how well it was going in the beginning, everyone seemed engaged in our lectures and wanted to practice the skills and teaching themselves! We admit we became a little tired halfway through and our voices were a little strained from our still present sicknesses, but we powered through. Our break out sessions were a big hit, where they practiced assessing scene safety, checking airway breathing and circulation, bleeding management, splinting, triage and transport. While showing them how to use a towel for cervical spine immobilization, one participant asked how you would do this on an amputee, since it involves tucking the towel under their armpits. Haleigh had the innovative idea to tie a piece of roller gauze to the towel and pulled it across to secure on the other side to add tension to the device.

After completing the post test to assess how much knowledge they gained during the course, everyone was very excited to eat lunch. Unfortunately there was no lunch left over for us, but we had some vegetable samosas from the venue before getting ready for our next training at 2 pm.

Flash forward to 3:30 pm and there was only one person there for the training out of the twelve that were supposed to be there. Our meeting with the Mukono Red Cross wasn’t enough to confirm that Red Cross instructors would be participating in the training of trainers class, so we had to postpone our second training of the day and schedule a meeting with the Ugandan Red Cross next week. Fortunately, this meant we could go home early. We were very proud of ourselves for walking the 0.5 miles from the venue to our place all by ourselves for the first time!! (Our first time navigating Mukono alone!!) There was only a brief two seconds we didn’t know where to turn, but our navigation skills are slightly better than our cooking skills and we figured it out correctly on the first try.

We arrived home safely and promptly fell asleep after snacking on some Cheese-Itz. Amber woke up a little before Haleigh and proceeded to spend an hour and a half trying to download a digital copy of her diploma (she still doesn’t believe she actually graduated yet… she’s in shock). Afterwards, we began entering the boda boda information that we gathered during recruitment info a spreadsheet.

During this process, we spotted Isaac the gecko running across our floor, but he was gone in quite literally the blink of an eye. We thought for a bit that he had made himself at home under Haleigh’s armchair. That didn’t last too long though! A few minutes later he scurried back out, and we learned that Haleigh’s tupperware catching skills are just as effective as her shoe whacking skills.

An exciting new development in our food saga - we got a microwave from Sammy today! We were both feeling a little deprived of protein come dinnertimetoday, so we ordered from Eunie’s kitchen again. We were feeling adventurous with our “masala macaroni” order, which just turned out to be potatoes with sauce and not pasta like we were expected. However, it was still pretty filling and had good flavor. Interestingly, it was paired with a side of the same sesame chicken wings we had last night, but those were still just as delicious!

All pictures posted with permission from included parties (we tried asking the gecko this time but it was a little busy being suffocated).

Amber being the pinnacle of helpfulness during our technological difficulties

Our assortment of first aid materials to teach with, featuring the very surgical blade Amber cut her finger on.

One of our trainees in the middle practicing the “head-tilt chin-lift” on our lovely victim

Amber quickly beat Haleigh in tic tac toe (Amber wouldn’t let Haleigh post the picture of Haleigh beating her with the same strategy 15 seconds later)