10:46pm, May 6th, 2019
Well, today was quite interesting, and I was able to experience a little bit of the typical Ugandan life. This morning a woman named Flavia drove me to Robin and Rose’s house so that Cyprian and I could go to some startup incubators. While Cyprian and I were driving to the first incubator, Innovation Center, we were pulled over by police, and as soon as the officer saw me sitting in the front seat, he said something about me being “the lady” and apologized and let us drive on. So the officer thought that I was an ex-pat and that Cyprian was my driver! Cyprian and I both found this very funny.
We then arrived at the Innovation Center, and we met Newton. He is an important person who is high up in the private organization. We sat with Newton while we were waiting for the co-founder Alex. Newton showed us around, introduced us to people, and then we sat down to talk about what Innovation Center was all about and its mission. Most of what Cyprian and Newton spoke about was way above my knowledge, but what I understood I found interesting. Cyprian himself has worked with non-profit organizations before and private companies and has created his own company that he will use to help companies like Innovation Center. After a lot of talking with Newton, we left to pick up Robin and were stopped by the police again! They wanted something that Cyprian did not have, and it was all complicated, and they wanted to take us somewhere two hours away and impound the car, and they wanted money from Cyprian, but then Cyprian found a way around it, but we were there for about 20 minutes before they let us go. After that Cyprian told me how there is lots of corruption with the police because the government sometimes will not pay police so they can go two or three months without getting paid.
After we picked up Robin, we went to Innovation Village which was very different from the Innovation Center. We met the owner of Innovation Village, Jefe, he showed us around and talked about his company.
After Innovation Village we went to downtown Kampala which I had not seen yet. We drove around, and Robin pointed out all of the famous and vital buildings like parliament, the supreme court, famous hotels, the Bank of Uganda, and many more. Then, as we were driving home in the terrible traffic, a man quickly drove into our lane, and we crashed into him! Luckily there was a traffic cop that saw the whole thing, so he backed us up when the other man who drove into our lane tried to blame Robin for the incident. But then, when we went to drive away, the police demanded money from Robin and of course Robin had to give in because he was our only witness. Then we had a nice big dinner and transferred our things to Robin’s house which is where we are now staying!
We then arrived at the Innovation Center, and we met Newton. He is an important person who is high up in the private organization. We sat with Newton while we were waiting for the co-founder Alex. Newton showed us around, introduced us to people, and then we sat down to talk about what Innovation Center was all about and its mission. Most of what Cyprian and Newton spoke about was way above my knowledge, but what I understood I found interesting. Cyprian himself has worked with non-profit organizations before and private companies and has created his own company that he will use to help companies like Innovation Center. After a lot of talking with Newton, we left to pick up Robin and were stopped by the police again! They wanted something that Cyprian did not have, and it was all complicated, and they wanted to take us somewhere two hours away and impound the car, and they wanted money from Cyprian, but then Cyprian found a way around it, but we were there for about 20 minutes before they let us go. After that Cyprian told me how there is lots of corruption with the police because the government sometimes will not pay police so they can go two or three months without getting paid.
After we picked up Robin, we went to Innovation Village which was very different from the Innovation Center. We met the owner of Innovation Village, Jefe, he showed us around and talked about his company.
After Innovation Village we went to downtown Kampala which I had not seen yet. We drove around, and Robin pointed out all of the famous and vital buildings like parliament, the supreme court, famous hotels, the Bank of Uganda, and many more. Then, as we were driving home in the terrible traffic, a man quickly drove into our lane, and we crashed into him! Luckily there was a traffic cop that saw the whole thing, so he backed us up when the other man who drove into our lane tried to blame Robin for the incident. But then, when we went to drive away, the police demanded money from Robin and of course Robin had to give in because he was our only witness. Then we had a nice big dinner and transferred our things to Robin’s house which is where we are now staying!
Hours for the day: 7
Hours in total: 46.5
Until tomorrow,
Maria
Really enjoying your blog, Mimi! This is a fascinating window into life in Uganda! Thanks for sharing. Spectacular photos.
ReplyDelete