Monday, 25 June 2018

My day got off to an excellent start when I met with Professor Richard Odoi and hewas able to hand me a signed MOU (memorandum of understanding) to formalize the scholarly partnership between Makerere University College of Health Sciences and Binghamton University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Yay!! Although I have been working with Professor and the School of Pharmacy for 7 years, the partnership needed to be sealed with this MOU to make obtaining future research approvals go more smoothly. Speaking of that, we had a great conversation and planned our next project in building capacity for pharmaceutical care to improve patient health and safe medication use.

I also met with Winnie and Kalidi, both pharmacy faculty who are applying for a unique opportunity for a 1-yr fellowship for junior university faculty to jumpstart a research agenda while being mentored by a senior faculty. They are both excellent ideas that would help improve drug use and patient outcomes in Uganda. I won’t reveal them as they are competing for this opportunity with many other faculty.

Later in the afternoon, Gonsha, one of the Ugandan Pharmacists who studied with me in the USA back in 2015 brought me to see her pharmacy and to her new house. The last time I had seen the house it was basically a pile of bricks! She now has basically a compound house with 2 Full and separate living areas. She also has her own medicinal herb garden which was especially interesting since I’m teaching a complementary and alternative medicine course this fall. She showed me all of the herbs she has and explained their uses. We also shared a delicious meal of chicken stew, rice and matooke (mashed banana). Her maid had purchased the chicken at the market today, prepared it, and cooked it. Talk about fresh food!!

Last evening, after returning from Masindi, a friend, Lydia, took me to dinner at a beautiful restaurant in the sky–at least it seemed like we were way high in the sky over Kampala. The view was spectacular but unfortunately with the dim light and only a phone camera, I couldn’t get a photo to express what I was seeing. The hotel and restaurant is actually called The Skyz–a very appropriate name!