Day 8,9

The worst thing i can imagine is coming to a foreign country and get sick, unfortunately saturday night my worst nightmare came true...somehow with all the precautions i have taken i have contracted the malaria virus. I woke up Sunday morning with a fever and my whole body was hurting. I am thinking to my self holy shit this is not good, i went to the main house and spoke to Edmund about it and they took me to a local doctor. Doctor drew blood and 10 minutes later told me that i have malaria..but i guess it is a very common thing here.. gave me some pills and send me on my way. Sunday was pretty bad, i pretty much slept all day and had bad stomach ache. Today i am feeling much better, i guess the medicine is working. what i dont understand is i have been taking malaria prevention pill that my doctor in the states told me that i would have nothing to worry about, and they cost 180 dollars for 26 weeks...when i get back in december she will get a piece of my mind. anyways the night before (saturday night) Edmund threw a party here and it was real fun...there was alot of people here dancing and drinking..and do these people drink... my god 12 people went through 2 bottles of Johnny Walker Black, a bottle of Chivas, bottle of crown royal, and some local Gin they drink here. but i went to sleep early, i think i was getting sick that night. here are some pictures of the party.

Day 7

What a crazy week! Finally today i visited Kampala's down town. WOW..... for those of you who have been to NYC's Canal St in china town you know what im talking about. Imagine canal st but 100 time bigger and more shops...freaking people are selling everything, its crazy...i heard muzungo all day.. because i am a muzungo they think i have money. Anyways we walked around for about an hour, i took some pictures but they dont serve them well. for some reason Ugandan's feel violated when you take video or pictures of them with out asking first, so while sitting in the car and taking video and pictures im getting cursed at but i dont understand because they are cursing me out in lugandan which is uganda's 2nd language besides english. i have also decided to learn the basics of lugandan...at least i would know what they are saying a little but it is a very hard language. I will give you guys an example: Wasuze otyano Ssebo means good morning sir, but Ossibye Otyanno Ssebo means good afternoon sir....see the word otyano and otyanno...same word right? nope they have different meanings. Hopefully in a couple of weeks of studying i will understand a bit. now its late and i must p90x then eat and sleep....thank god tomorrow is saturday. oh btw for my family i am drinking the best fresh coffee in the world and today i learned how to make my first cappuccino.

Day 6

All i have to say is WOW, i have been drinking and testing so much coffee its freaking incredible. So far in the past 2 days i have tested anywhere between 400 to 600 cups of coffee, all different kinds of Ugandan coffee. This training is very intense, alot of information is coming from every person there. check out the pictures of the facility and my tasting and spiting coffee. After about 4 hours of tasting coffee, we are seperating coffee and picking out picking out defects. I am going to need alot of training for this. anyways after a couple of hours of looking at the coffee bean and learning all kind of abnormalities of the coffee bean i finally got to go and see how the coffee is being sold. Kampala is a crazy busy city but its alot of fun...

On our way to Entebbe airport to see some supermarkets about coffee we get pulled over by the police, everyone gets out of the car and start to negotiate.. basically you have to pay them to let you off like a bribe, long story short we ended up giving him 5000 ugx which is about 2 dollars...its crazy how corrupt these police officers are they pull over so many driver with fake radar guns that dont even work and demand money with black mail. anyway we paid him off and we are on our way to lake victoria (BTW i took a bunch of pictures but some how deleted them), such a beautiful place....very very very long day i just got home at 930 so about to eat take a shower and sleep

Day 5

My formal coffee training has begun. I had no idea coffee can be so technical, so much information i feel like i should be in school. but it should all be worth it once i learn everything.
I have been stuck in the house for 3 days now and going a little crazy, so much to see but ugandans dont do anything on the weekends which kind of sucks but thats the way it is. right out side of my compound the poverty level is incredible, we take so much for granted and here people are content with sleeping in a 4 by 4 hut with no water, electricity or toilet, just make me thankful for all i have.  make me really think of how much we have and how much we waste back in the states. I sit here with my labtop blogging, watching sportscenter on satellite on edmunds HD 50 inch TV, and writing my blog, there are people outside burning wood to make charcoal to sell so they can feed them selves. There is a huge gap between society here that is  unbelievable.
I also learned today that Edmund wants me to drive, and he is giving me my own car/suv. now here if you drive your somebody, if you have a suv your really somebody... normally driving would not be an issue because i love to drive.  But driving here is a whole different story. first of all they drive on the left, second there are no lights or rules and regulation, third the road conditions are horrific. they barely have paved roads and when they do, they are going so fast it is scary. so i am not looking forward to driving at all so it should be an experience. I have taken some photos that whom ever is reading this should look at. Edmund has so many people working for him it crazy, they wont let me do anything, for example he has a gardner, cook, 4 drivers, security guard at night, and treats them all with so much respect everyone loves him. I believe he has 2 blood kids and 6 adopted children, the youngest one is laura which is the first picture. but finally yesterday morning they let me cook my famous omlete.. now i am going to sleep.

Day 4

Saturday was actually a pretty chill day, we didnt do much just stayed in the house and relaxed. The night before was pretty crazy so i need to recover. hopefully monday would be a more exciting day!

Day 3

Day 3

Just to have some back ground of who I am with, I am living in the quest house of Mr. Edmund Kananura, he is the senior quality controller for Uganda Coffee Development authority.  Basically he controls all of the coffee produced in Uganda.

Today was an amazing day, we took a drive to a town called Jinja, this place is incredible.  Jinja is 40 miles east of kamapala, this city of Jinja is the source of the Nile. Now when they told me we were going to see the source of the nile I didn’t understand at first what they ment, but it turns out at lake Victoria is actually the source of the Nile.  The longest and most famous river in the world is right in our back yard and more amazingly the source of this mighty river is right here in this little town called Jinja. I have taken a bunch of pictures of this place which does not look all that glamorous but think about what this place is and the magnitude of this place comes to life. I have never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be standing on the banks of the nile or be at the source of this river.  After about an hour of standing there in complete amazement, we took a 2 hour hike along the nile, through a couple of small fishing villages, walking along side this river and seeing all the little farms and the people and how simple they live is amazing to me. Somehow we ended up with two 12 year boys as our guides. They helped us navigate through the village, and pretty much explain in detail what was going on around us and what the plants and trees were. (check out the pictures of us walking In the villages) on the way back we got caught in a major rain storm which was actually pretty cool, huge rain drops cooled us off and then we started to head back.

On our way back to kampala we stopped by a rainforest and a resort which was located directly in the middle of the forest, they said there was monkeys and small animals  there but I didn’t see any. Check out some of the pictures.

When we got back food was waiting for us, we ate and then went to an open bar in down town kampala. This freaking bar was amazing, music drinks, and I thought I was back in DC for a minute. Anyways we stayed at this bar for about 3 hours, had a few drinks met some people then went home and now im about to sleep since its 430 in the morning. J

P.S

The Ugandan word for white people is MUZUNGO, I never considered my self white but here if you are not black you are white, so I am muzungo.

Day 2

Finally after 22 hours of flying i am finally here, everything is so easy here. People are so nice everyone is trying to help each other out. Customs was a breeze they didnt even check my bags or anything.  walked right up paid the $50 customs fee and was right in. picked up my bags and my driver was waiting for me in the front, i gotta say that was pretty cool.  He had my name typed up and a board, he introduced him self and then we got in his car. Now here is the part which was a complete shock to me, this dude was driving like a maniac weaving in and out of traffic passing cars on a way lane rd with on coming traffic. Dude was insane... there were a couple of very very close calls. any ways i havent slept in 2 days so gonna try and get some sleep. pictures to come very soon

Day 1

I have never really been a nervous kind of person, but today i am a little nervous. Its 1206pm and my flight is not leaving for another 6 hours i thought i would start this blog so friends and family could follow what im doing and know that im safe. more to follow as soon as i land in ugada.