6 January 2020

It’s been another busy day and I need to get to bed, but here is a quick post. First of all, I was able to go to the pharmacy school today and meet up with Professor Richard Odoi and the Head of the Pharmacy Program, Dr. Pakoyo Kamba. It was a wonderful reunion. I spent quite a bit of time today working on the details of the pharmaceutical care research project and getting a few new ideas.

I was also able to meet Mark Juba, a 4th year Pharmacy student. He was one of 9 students who were paired up with students of my Complementary and Alternative Medicine elective to do an interview over Whatsapp, a social media chat and phone call app that is widely used all over the world and is my main mode of communication with my Ugandan colleagues. The purpose of the interview was to help the US students understand the role of traditional medicine, mostly herbs and herbal products, in healthcare in Uganda and what Ugandan healthcare professionals think about them. This activity was thoroughly enjoyed by both groups of students. Mark filled in for an extra group of students when something came up for their assigned student. Today Mark and I talked over a classic Ugandan meal of matooke (cooked, mashed green banana- it is not sweet), Irish potatoes (regular white potatoes), rice, greens, and 2 sauces. One was a beef soup sauce and the other was a mixture of beans and g-nuts. G-nuts or ground nuts are similar to peanuts. They are ground and made into a sauce that has a mild peanut butter taste. It was all delicious but way too much food for me to eat!

After lunch I went back to the pharmacy school and was working in the board room and all of a sudden I heard some motion and bleating sounds. I turned around a 2 young goats has just joined me. Some how they found there way into the pharmacy school building and came to visit me. It was pretty hilarious. Dr Kamba had to go around and shoo them out of the building. Someone from a nearby area was probably grazing their goats and these two must have escaped.