Start of 2nd Month

2 months, wow i can not believe i have been in uganda for two months already, time does fly by when your busy. These past couple of weeks have been uneventful, im just learning the company and getting ready to move into my new office building, finally Nile Coffee will have its own office and i will be running the company :) yikes... its a lot of responsibility, specially now that i am studying the company and realizing how out of date their systems are, for example everything i done by cash here, no credit cards, no checks, well the banks take checks but only the main ones and it they have strict protocols about cashing checks, its not like the US where you have identification and drivers license and all sorts of other methods of checking the ID of someone. Then there is the issue of their books not matching, i have been stuck in edmunds old office for the past 6 days trying to sort out what the hell is going on here, we balanced and were short like a $1000 which in uganda is a lot of money...to give you an idea most salaries are about 400 to 500 a month and that is a good pay. So you can imagine $1000 missing is causing chaos. There is no structure because the coffee part of the company is only 5 months old and they do not have and procedure or structure in place, thats why im here trying to set a certain structure and foundation so that when i come back to USA everything will go smoothly hopefully.

On a bright note, saturday UCDA had ceremony of giving out certificates for R grading robusta coffee, and your truely have passed all the test and i got my certificate and not i am an expert cupper, inspector, and coffee analyst. in one week, all this in one week but it was a hell of a week, but i passed and now i am an robusta expert. Next week on monday i will start barista training for a week, once i finish that im done with training, so next week is gonna be a crazy week too, but atleast it wont be as boring as the robusta training. The barista is actually hands on and we will be learning how to make everything from espresso's, cappuccinos and all the other drink that coffee makes...The ceremony was in a 5 star hotel, you cant imagine how nice this hotel is. 5 star and they mean 5 star, i took some pictures of the inside so check them out. i really dont have anything else to write about for now, i do have alot to say but not yet i got somethings in the works  and once they are final i will write about them.

End of 7th week

Wow what a week, i know i wrote about this training course in my last blog but holy mother %^$^##&^%$,  there was point on saturday that i almost lost it and was just gonna cry....i find out today that this training session is suppose to be a month long class, we did in 1 week, not even a week cuz i missed half of monday and saturday so it was like 5 days, can you imagine 30 days worth of information and testing done in 5 days? nobody passed...i mean there are people who have been working at UCDA for years that didnot pass this freaking class.  The problem is that UCDA can not pay these people to stay in uganda for a month but then everyone suffers, out of the 22 test you have to pass to get certified, i passed 14, which is not bad considering i passed more then almost everyone else in the class. But i still would of loved to passed and get certified, the good thing is the tests i have passed are good for 18 month so i have a year and a half to pass the other 8. I am guessing when i get back state side i will pursue the certification. I have learned so much about coffee and its complex attributes that i am glad i got a chance to participate in this course. But man i sooooooo glad its over.

On sunday i was surfing the satellite dish that edmund has and was sorry to find out they dont show football, especially not the redskins games, i have been watching football since 1986 and was planning not watch and just see the highlights but as 1 pm approached (which is my 8pm) i couldnt take it anymore and thanks to the NFL channel and network i ordered the full season and watched the game on my labtop, and boy oh boy i was glad i did cuz our boy RGIII shined big time. Star in the making.. i could not believe that the redskins, i mean the redskins were playing good football and on offense. To my fellow redskins fans and football fans in general i have to ask, when was the last time you remember redskins playing that good on offense and have star QB? when was the last time redskins scored 40 points? holy &%$# the redskins scored 40 points and won a game. i gotta tell you i was in complete awwwwww last night and this morning but i had nobody to talk to about it, i couldnt text abdullah and talk shit to him cuz his giants lost and he has been texting me since they won the superbowl. i dont want to say anything premature but come guys i think there is a star about to shine here, well there in washington,  i have to admit i was a little skeptical about drafting him but after that performance (even though saints D is not among the elite) for a rookie QB to throw for 300 yards and 2 touchdowns and control the game the way he did, that was impressive. i have to say i slept very well last night, as my family knows how much the redskins stress me out, but finally we won and we have a QB. Hail to the REDSKINS. cant wait for the skins and dallas game.


 here are some pictures of the dreadful course. what you see is a cupping section of the test where they put 6 different coffees on the table and you have to pick the best and worst by a grading system, 10 criteria's, aroma/fragrance of dry and wet coffee, aftertaste, mouthfeel, bitterness, sweetness, saltiness, balance and overall. we did this 15 times. can you imagine, after a while everything starts to taste the same. anyways ill write more later now its law and order svu and bed time.

Mid 7th week

OMG, i get a call from Edmund monday morning during our weekly sales meeting telling me that UCDA is doing R grade training and testing to get certified, not this certification in the coffee world is a huge deal...basically if you pass all the tests which are 22 test total, you are a master coffee cupper, roaster, and inspector. All i have to say is OM fucking God, i have been in training none stop since monday 10 am everyday till 630, and let me tell you its no freaking joke, its class for an hour then the test and the test are sooooooooo hard... i have been only been learning for a month now, there are people in our group who have been with UCDA years and still have not passed this test, so far out of 10 test we have taken i have managed to pass 2, which is very disapointing but edmund is telling me i have done better then alot of other people who have been there for a while. so i guess im not doing too bad but man its crazy and so much information. The organization  who runs this program/test/certification is world wide know and are called COFFEE QUALITY INSTITUTE, apparently they train all coffee experts all over the world, and man they are tough. So as you can imagine my week has not been pleasant, i mean 10 hours of coffee coffee coffee test after test after test is starting to wear me out, everything is starting to taste the same, coffee is so freaking complicated it is unbelievable. there are things about coffee that scientists still havent figured out, that is amazing to me. this little fucking bean is as complex as our brains.. every aspect of it we are getting tested on, taste color, acidity, bitterness, roasting it, brewing it, i can go on and on but most of you would not even understand the complexity of this little tiny miracle. anyways i thought i should write about this experience, ill have more on this on the weekend when i have more time to write and take pictures.

6th week

I am really starting to miss being in the US, dont get me wrong uganda is great but my home is in the states, i miss my car, i miss driving on the left of  the car and  driving on the freaking right side of the road and not left like these idiots are doing. I catch my self 3or 4  times a day trying to get into my car and im on the wrong freaking side. GRRRRRRRRRR, no rules and regulations, no lights, no nothing. I mean its good in a way but everything and everyone needs some kind of system to follow.. i mean come on fix these roads already... im gonna take some pictures of these roads so you guys can see how fucked up they are....most of the roads are not even paved unless your down town kampala which is completely different..imagin you are in dc antd you are on your way home and all of a sudden the road turns into a dirt road with fake me out speed bumps that are so freaking huge, normal sedans cants go over them with out scrapping the bottom of their cars. Its just madness, so much poverty that makes me think of how rich i am and how much we take for granted.

Still have not had any kind of meat, except for some fish i had today, i mean the tilapea is freaking awsome, but everything else like chicken, pork and beef i have not touched. But despite of it all i feel great, i eat salad twice a day, beans everyday and sundays is fish day, Edmunds favorite food, oh and alot of fruit which is very expensive...apples and oranges dont grow here so they import them, oh btw i forgot to mention that i found this tuna in a can with sunflower oil that is amazing so i plan on eating that 4 or 5 times a week if i can afford it, anything that is imported in soooo expensive...can of tuna in the states cost what? like a dollar, well its 10000 shillings here which is about 4 dollars, for one small can of tuna! i mean thats crazy i dont know how people here afford to eat? if you dont eat local food, which is rice, beans, chapate(tortilla) you will go broke, a meal at  local place will cost 4000 shilling thats with a bottled water...thats not even 2 dollars. but a can of tuna cost 4 dollars....im gonna have to import some tuna from the states :)  anyways, the weather is amazing. never hot during the day and very cool at night, i havent had to turn on the ac since ive been here...which is a good thing cuz my body is like a furnace and produces alot of heat on its own. so im pretty happy about that.

On a different note, i need to get coffee to the states, and we dont have anybody on that side since im here and atrac is in new zealand...we are starting to get some orders but cannot full fill them due to the fact that i have no one there to ship it for me, so if anybody is reading this and know of someone who wants to make some cash, which will not be alot at first but once we do get a steady demand for it, it could be a very easy and alot of money, basically im looking for a logistics person who can go to the post office and send a package, its really not that hard and if the volume gets too big i would rent a storage unit and keep the coffee there. Once the coffee is roasted and packaged it has a shelf life of 2 years, so please if anyone knows anyone or even if you want to make some extra cash hit me up and we can talk about it in more detail. think about it like this, once i bring this company state side we are gonna blow up. we are planning to have a warehouse to store coffee and a shop to sell...and if things work out we will open up a distribution center somewhere and then the possibilities are endless. people are always gonna drink coffee and i have a superior coffee here, coffee is the second most commodity sold in the world next to oil. there is so much coffee trading that the coffee industry had to split up the arabica and robusta, arabica is traded in NYC and robusta in London..its amazing how much volume is sold and consumed by people. so people think about it and let me know... i havent taken any pictures this week because i really havent been anywhere, but when i move into my own building/office then i will add some pics. i made a huge mistake by not bringing my dress shoes, pants and suits, cuz now i need them, im starting to approach alot of cafe's and all i have to wear is jeans and tennis shoes...so automatically im not respected, but once they hear me talk and see our product its all over, dont judge a book by its cover and we are all guilty of that. pictures to come soon