Fellows Blog: Day 40
We’ve run out of ideas of fun ways to start the blog, but we will say that this morning we made last minute edits on our presentation and did a run through of who was doing each slide and what we were going to say. While we were slightly late being picked up, we actually got to the Department of Health Office (DHO) right before our 9:30 am meeting time. Others were a bit delayed, but naturally the meeting didn’t get started until 10:30, so it worked out. It was nice to see all our TOTs in one room again!
Our goal in meeting with the DHO was to reconfirm their support for our project and discuss ways to move forward with the programming. We heard speeches from the DHO chairperson, Hannington, and the chairman of the boda boda drivers, all of whom expressed how grateful they were for our work and how vital it is we continue these efforts. The guy in charge was about to wrap up the meeting when Hannington reminded him we also had a “brief” presentation to give. This was only slightly awkward because Hannington had told us to make a 20-30 minute presentation… so you know us overachievers at WashU made a 32 minute one. However, it went extremely well: everyone was very impressed with our visuals, eloquence, and confidence. We got many compliments on how knowledgeable we were and how they had never seen a presentation like ours before. They loved how engaging it was, which we were very pleased to hear. If you’re interested, here’s a link to our presentation. :)
We gathered for pictures afterwards, in which everyone used Kyrillos’ phone. Just from today, he had over 150 pictures, mostly of selfies of other people. We then went to Bredo, the restaurant by the Mukono access clinic for posho and beans, our staple meal for the first two weeks that we haven’t had since then.
Afterwards, Haleigh went home to get some rest while Amber and Kyrillos decided to explore some more of the town and do a bit of shopping. We went back to the place with chicken and potato wedges for dinner, although it’s much less appealing the third time around in a week unfortunately.
It’s crazy to think we almost have a couple days left (we leave early morning on the 20th) and we need to start crossing items off our bucket list of things we want to do a last time in Mukono!
Can you tell by our expressions whose idea it was to take this mirror picture?
Hint: Kyrillos got annoyed and tried to take the picture himself, but then he relinquished the phone to Amber after he realized it was too difficult to not block her face in the process
And yes, Haleigh and Amber are matching yet again
Amber scared everyone away from her before the presentation even started “I have no friends” (kidding Haleigh and Kyrillos love her very much)
A letter from the Boda Boda Commissioner we’ve been working with on his thoughts of the program!
Personality picture of the three of us :)
Beginning our presentation, again featuring the Ugandan President (well, in a picture frame but the the Chairman of the Mukono District was there which was fantastic)
Some of our TOTs!
More of our TOTs! Notice how the logo on Haleigh and Amber’s shirts are fading from all the bug spray applied :(
Anddd finally a picture with most of our TOTs, a slightly chaotic group selfie that took at least 20 minutes to organize
All the attendees for our meeting this morning!
Kyrillos graciously “killed” a spider today. By kill we mean it was likely already dead and he flicked it from the light onto an undisclosed location and there’s a 10% chance it’s still alive. But we bribed him to do this for a shout-out in the blog so we greatly appreciate his efforts!