Amber began our morning with hype music from the lion king and high school musical, much to her enjoyment (as well as everyone else’s). We headed over to summer gardens, and today was the first day the training was run (mostly) by the TOTs! Although we still had to step in with some reminders and logistical assistance, the post-tests and us concur they did a pretty good job for their first time teaching by themselves.

The only notable thing that happened was two people tried to show up 2.75 hours after our start time of 9 am (which was more like 10:45 am) and us having to convince the TOTs that we couldn’t train them today because they’d missed the first 45 minutes of content and they had to come tomorrow. Another guy slipped in the venue during the ABC practical (at least 40% through the training), said he would also come tomorrow to finish it but just wanted to see it today? We were also confused, but maybe he’ll come back tomorrow to actually get a vest and a kit.

At lunch, Devir ordered fish again. He told us that his favorite part of the fish was eating the eyes, followed by the tongue and the brain. A common proposition is that eating enough fish eyes will let you see underwater. After learning about that, Kyrillos questioned Devir, “so then if you eat fish gills, can you breathe underwater?” Interestingly, Devir thought Kyrillos was out of his mind for suggesting he eat fish gills.

Hey all, hey, guess what? We needed to buy more data because we ran out of the 5.5 gb that we bought yesterday. We hypothesize it’s google sheets that’s taking up this much data but we honestly have no idea, please contact us if you have any solutions.

After our rather uneventful training, we went to Mukono resort hotel (yet again) for a meeting to translate the pre and post tests. Pretty simple we thought, as did Hannington, who only allotted 40 minutes for the meeting before he had to leave to do a procedure in Kampala. Four donuts, three hours, two cups of African tea and one chicken and chips dinner later, we had finished. We learned that even google translate doesn’t know how to translate Luganda, and there’s a lot of discrepancies in how people speak the language. For example, there’s no words for tourniquet, triage or trauma (all important phrases in our curriculum) so we had to brainstorm how to work around that. Some fun words we had to come up with descriptions for were blisters (or as Amber said “pus filled hole”), vinegar (which Amber so helpfully described as “acetic acid” and then “like lemon juice?”) and pelvis (we settled on “waist bone”).

We also learned that a lot of people in Uganda believe in the Illuminati! In fact, word on the street has it that every US President as well celebrities such as Lil Nas X, Beyoncé, Michael Jackson, and Justin Bieber are also a part of the organization. Kyrillos was quite fascinated by their recruitment process and rituals. Actually, that’s an understatement. Haleigh and Amber would say he looked spellbound, captivated… hypnotized perhaps? Upon learning that the Illuminati releases music videos that seem to have high-tech edits (ex: Lil Nas X’s Montero), Amber tested this hypothesis by showing them the video for Katy Perry’s ET and asking if they thought she was a part of the Illuminati. As she expected, they came to a consensus that Katy Perry is indeed a member of the institution.

Additionally, Haleigh is now Devir’s favorite because “the weather changes” (he totally didn’t tell Amber she was actually his favorite when Haleigh walked away two minutes later).

After getting home, we had a long discussion about our advanced and OB curriculum logistics. We gotta have some cliffhangers in here… we’ll fill you in on more details of that discussion later. Kyrillos made us ramen, and Amber and Haleigh enjoyed their new favorite snack of honey mustard pretzels (re: Haleigh ate Amber’s honey mustard pretzels while Amber tried to subtlety be possessive of her food since she only has one bag).

Gecko is MIA :(

“I feel like a chemist when I do this” -Haleigh mixing our electrolyte lemonades in the morning.

Haleigh would like to point out the stains on her shirt are from recently applying bug spray and not her inability to properly hand wash her clothes (although that may also be true)