Techno woes

Permit me the pleasure of a little rant over our technology frustrations during this trip.  I promise to toss in some eye candy to make it bearable.

My old blackberry phone has sat in a drawer for the past 3 years, but is still very serviceable.  North American phones are "locked", which means married to a single provider network, so you can't throw a Telus SIM card in your Bell cellphone and expect it will work.  One can find unlock codes on the internet ($6.99 for my old BB), but I was sent about 10 codes with the guarantee that one would work.  The phone turns into a brick after 10 failed attempts, so I left it in the hands of my capable friend Maurice, who seemed to have success.  I was somewhat worried because the Bell logo still appears on the screen when I fire it up.

Arnold seems to have settled into life at the babies' dorm and is now showing his sweet nature consistently

Bridget was encouraged by her parents to come and work at BKU while waiting to start college in the summer

Victoria says the Airtel network is best, since her staff use that and it's more expensive to call phones on a different network.  A day or 2 after we arrive, I purchase a SIM card, plop it in, load on some air time and successfully make a couple of calls.  Brilliant!

The next day, when I attempt to call anyone, I'm immediately disconnected.  I change one setting to "global", but still no luck.  Simon (the driver) says his buddy is a cell phone wizard, and drops the phone off with a promise to get it back the next day.  Long story short - we don't get the phone back until after we've returned from safari, it's flagged as having no air time left despite me making only 2 calls on the 20,000 UGS, even then needs to be reactivated by Airtel and finally seems to be working fine the last 2 days of our two week trip.  I leave it for Carly to use and hope fervently we'll have no problems with it on our return to Uganda sometime in the future.

Ida is Obama's baby sister, now a Bright Kid herself.  Very beautiful but often struggles to get along with her mates.

Obama & Sanyu clown around with a happy dance on the sand pile

workers plaster outer walls of the old salon which is now headmistress Angel's office for the new nursery school

The wifi hotspot I purchased at Airtel causes less grief.  It works fine for 3 hours the first day then dies completely.  When I return it, of course, it fires up & works fine for the clerk.  Over time I discover it will die from overheating at times, but revives if I pull out the battery and let it cool for 10 minutes.  It seems to be faster than the internet USB sticks which Victoria uses, the data plan is cheaper, and up to 9 users can connect wirelessly.  Best of all, Rose can now connect to the internet - her Linux computer could not operate the USB sticks.  I leave the unit in Carly's care and she will leave it with Jackie after her placement finishes in 2 months.

it's amazing to see baby Praise starting to walk already

Rose can now research medical information on the internet

There is no final triumph on our last challenge, however.  The old BKU office printer requires one black ink cartridge and 3 colour catridges, each of which is frighteningly expensive in Kampala.  After consultation, Carly generously purchased a monochrome Canon printer that takes only a black cartridge which can be refilled quite inexpensively.  Rose has reports she wishes to print from her computer.  The Canon software is for Windows and will not run on the Linux machine.  The Ubuntu flavour of Linux includes many Canon printer drivers, but none for the 4410 model.  I research online and eventually find reference to a print driver package that may work.  Installing it on Rose's computer causes me hours of frustration on Monday and today (mainly because of my very limited familiarity with Linux), but I finally succeed only to find that the new expanded list of printers seems to include the 4100, 4200, 4300, 4500, but NOT the 4400 series.  Loading the others does not allow us to print.  So, I admit defeat but verify that, with her internet access, Rose can now email her word processor & spreadsheet documents to Jackie, who can print them from her Windows laptop.

Any guest of Banana village will remember Joel's friendliness & customer service

BKU van slows for another cow parade

A pleasant interlude midday is provided by accompanying Kato to his school near Kisubi.  It's a beautiful campus sitting atop a hill with a lovely view.  The institution is obviously doing well as evidenced by active construction projects, and we are happy to be greeted by the four other BKU kids who attend.

lovely school campus

Back at the big house, we all celebrate when Victoria gets the news that Gloria scored top marks on her final government exams, and she now awaits entrance to university!

The evening sees some misbehaving and adventure.  Jackie & Carly want to go for pizza, and Sue has not been in a mutatu (public taxi van), so we grab one into Entebbe to visit our favourite pizza joint (apart from Banana village).  The food is great, but we are again inflicted by shooters courtesy of Carly and it's very late when we exit the mutatu in kabona.  Jackie is unsuccessful negotiating with the driver to detour to Banana Village, and we are just tipsy enough that Susan agrees to hop on one of the motorcycle taxis with me for our first boda boda ride.  Everyone survives, and more happy memories are sown.