Tree Houses!

Today is our first day working in Uganda. We woke up early after being taken out to pizza last night by Joe, our first ex-pat friend in Kampala. The team was very well behaved, so Jess allowed them to splurge on the 4 cheese pizza which costs 6,000 UsS more than the other pizzas ($3). Joe was very hospitable, and even repeatedly provided us with a live imitation of the animals we may see in Uganda. The night ended with a lesson on African dancing.

We got picked up at our apartment this morning by Mary and a CARE driver who took us over to the office and introduced us to a number of other workers here. The CARE office is a secluded fort (which reminds Courtney of the Dharma initiative in Lost) made up of very nice little buildings surrounded by trees, and even a grass volleyball court (Pictured Above). Today we’re working in the conference room which is known here as the ‘tree house’. The window of the tree house looks directly at Fang Fang, which is apparently the best Chinese restaurant in Uganda. We plan to test that hypothesis tonight.

The morning was full of meet and greets, and discussions on what we want to accomplish while we’re in Uganda. For our project we are working on a feasibility study of selling solar powered lights and clean energy stoves to the base of the pyramid in Uganda. The team has been split into two groups – one will focus on the demand side of the study, and the other will focus on the supply side, including financing of the products during all stages of the supply chain.

We finally experienced African food for lunch. CARE has a cafeteria woman who comes with lunch meals costing about $1 per person. Whitney got to try the food that she has been talking about for the past 3 days. Overall opinion of the food: Pretty good, very starchy and a little bland.