Here in Kampala

Hi everyone!

We arrived in Kampala 2 days ago. Took a 5:30am bus from Kigali--took 10 hours on bumpy, dusty, curvy roads. We were greeted by 2 members of SAFY: Hadija and Meti. Hadija, we later found out, is a pop star. She's in an all-girl Ugandan band called the Viva Stars. They said we can join...last night we went to their concert and they invited us on stage to dance with them for one of their songs.

Yesterday, we also met Rita, the executive director of SAFY. She brought us to Kampala Primary School, where we will be deploying, and introduced us to the headmaster. We still need a couple weeks to finalize logistics and train teachers, but we are well on our way. Everybody appears to be very receptive of the program and excited to begin.

Tomorrow we will go to Rita's house to configure our server, etc. We still need to purchase access points and UK power strips.

Food has been good--similar to Rwandan food, as staples are similar (bananas, plantains, rice, potatoes, yams), but I like it a little more. There's also something called chipati, which is like a thicker, greasy tortilla roll, and it is fabulous. Everything is really tasty (and carb-loaded!).

For breakfast we eat white bread and boiled eggs with sometimes a banana. Food is cheap--you can get a full local meal with a bottle of water for less than $2.

The air is heavily polluted, as are the streets. Much dirtier and disorganized than Kigali, which is spankin' clean in comparison. In many ways, we were spoiled in Kigali. Now, we live in Najja High School dormitories, which act as our simple hostel for the next 2 months. It is in the slums near Makerere University, a renowned U in Kampala. Near our gated high school, there are many small shops for fresh vegetables, fruits, and convenience items.\

Today we attended a SAFY training session at Najja, where we live, and did laundry by hand in between. Tonight we will go with Hadija and her band to a place 20 km away for their concert. Tomorrow morning we will get picked up by Rita to work at her house (where XOs are currently being kept).

On Monday morning, bright and early, we will make a tirp to the US Embassey, just to let them know that we're here. I'm pretty excited to see it--I heard that it's humongous and intimidating.

We have tentatively planned a XO Launch for net Friday. We may have to push it to the following week, depending on our progress this week. We hope to bring in government officials and the media, in addition to the students, parents, teachers, and othe community members. In Kigali, we met the secretary to the First Lady of Uganda, who had sent her to the OLPCorps conference, so we hope to remain in contact with her. She was very enthusiastic about our project.

Further down the timeline, we hope to re-connect with the other 2 teams deploying in Uganda.

Well, that;s it for now. Hope to give more updates soon. Please leave comments of email me directly at victoriaycheng@gmail.com for any contact.

Victoria