One Geek

I got a lift with Ian and Tash most of the way there, and caught a Pikie(Motorbike) the remaining distance down a small dirt road. I felt so white going through the back roads of rural Uganda. It also felt really good though because I had the wind in my face, the cool morning and the very beautiful country side. I arrived in time for the last hour and a half of a four hour church service at the PAG. I was made to introduce myself, except I neglected to mention my name, where I was from, or what I was doing there (OPS).

I had lunch with Sharon(the Manager of the project) and the chairman. It was quite nice to sit and talk and eat.

After lunch I took my leave and went to the “Divine Mercy Guesthouse” for the rest of the day. I thought I would be really intelligent this time and stay in a slightly more upmarket place then where they put me last time. The room was small but OK, except that the interior plumbing wasn’t functioning so I had to go to an outdoor bathroom. The staff also sat in the corridor between the rooms and seemed to talk all night. On the upside though I did manage to get breakfast and dinner there which is more then I ever managed at the previous place.

I was ready for three days of work when Monday morning came around. I ended up leading devotions with a message I stole straight from a book about the 4 people bring the man who was paralyzed to Jesus. I ended up talking about needing to have enough love and creative to work around the problems you are facing. (Look later for the irony in the message).

I had brought some new equipment (Voltage regulator, power boards, fixed UPS and good power cords) and set about getting everything ready. By about 9.05am I was all set and ready to go, but the managers who’s office the equipment was in was busy in meetings. About 10.20am she was free and I go the go ahead, but to run the generator they needed to buy more fuuuel. Why they could not have fuel on hand I do not know, anyway it was about 11am by the time the generator was running. In the mean time I got a second hand donated computer setup with an old monitor they had. The monitor lead for the newer monitor was missing. The first time the same group only sent the monitor with no computer, ops.

The UPS was not functioning correctly but everything else was working pretty well. I decided I’d try and get the printer running. This was all well and good except I forgot that the laser printer draws a lot of current and I ended up stuffing the voltage stabaliser. So they shut down the generator while I worked on option. I then worked to remove the old dodgy two pin European plug that didn’t sit properly in the Universal power sockets they use here with a brand new plug I brought in Kampala. However in the office they didn’t even had a screw driver and side cutters. Eventually I had some pliers with a cutter, and a screw driver so I set to work. Once I was ready to go we had to wait for a staff member to get back to start the generator.

Then once the staff membered started the generator it slowed down to a halt within about 10 seconds. One of the dodgy fuel intake pipes had broken off. It was now 1pm, and I’d only gotten to do 30-45 minutes of work. The manager and I went off for lunch at the church where I decided it was time to get the hell out of dodge. I discussed with the her and eventually got her to agree to let me go. She was disappointed, as was I but I couldn’t stand the idea of another two wasted days in the middle of nowhere. I promised to work on a proper solution to the power problem.

At about 4pm the generator was fixed and so I got 1 hour of training people in. I then worked to get the printer going again, except every time the computer started the power flickered on and off. Without a working UPS the computer just rebooted killing the print job and frustrating me. Around this time my driver arrived to pick me up and I left.

I didn’t really end up doing as much as I would of liked for my partner organisation in Kaberamaido but I did introduce two people to computers, and an accountant to Excel.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 10:37 pm and is filed under About stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.