ATM Card Frustrations and Good African Coffee

Kareem and I spent the afternoon yesterday working at a coffeeshop called "Good African Coffee," which was in fact very, very good. I don't know why it took me so long to discover the amazing coffee here, especially since I am such a coffee nut at home! Thankfully, I've discovered it now and will now continue to frequent Kampala's coffeeshops. Our office is pretty crowded due to IPA Uganda's rapid expansion--it is fun to have lots of people around but the office itself can get pretty stuffy, so it was great to get out and work somewhere else. Last night I went over to the Kabira Club to work out with my friend Paul. It is probably the nicest gym in Kampala but is not up to par with American standards--half of the machines are out of order and the treadmill I ran on was lumpy...the belt was uneven, haha. Luckily, because I went with Paul, who lives there, I didn't have to pay :) After working out, we swam in the pool to cool off and watched the movie I Love You, Man.

Although my day was relative relaxing, my post-Kabira evening was spent on the phone with Charles Schwab and Visa trying to have a new ATM card sent to me. After almost two hours of frustrating conversation, Visa overnighted a "temporary card" to Julian, the PI on my project, who is heading to Kampala tomorrow! I am still working out the details on getting my real card, but the temporary card will let me withdraw cash if I go to see a bank teller in person...and that will have to do for now! I am disappointed in Visa's Emergency/911 service; I expected that an international company known for its customer service would have an active action plan for every country in the world in case a customer ran into a problem, but my experience has been a tedious, difficult one. Nevertheless, I am happy to have some emergency cash with me and multiple back-up plans for my supply of cash.

I am hoping to get away from my desk and pre-test the latest version of our endline survey this afternoon! Kareem and I spent most of yesterday expanding the Health Knowledge questions on our survey, which is the most important as it will be how we assess our outcomes, and cutting down redundant/irrelevant questions in other parts. The survey is extremely long (~90 minutes) so anything that can be cut out will help make the surveying experience better for everyone involved :)