So I neglected to post what I had written last week, and this week is going to be kind of a double post to make up for that. I will be posting what I wrote then as well as a new post for this week. Enjoy!
I wrote my first Easter egg last week week!
After I finished writing the Unit Tests for the system resources in our app and generating the navigation bar from those, I wrote an extra unit test that I’m doubtful will ever be seen by another human being. Nonetheless, I’ll always have a good laugh thinking back at this. Regardless of what anyone says, I always try to have a good time when I’m working — even if it’s something as seemingly mundane as writing unit tests.
Someday, many years from now, when Corey (and Donald Trump) and I are gone and long forgotten here in Kampala, I remember this hidden treasure and have a good laugh to myself. Maybe some junior will have to run tests and wonder what the hell this one even means. Until then, I can only hope that Corey and I have sufficiently emphasized the importance of tests so that the current junior developers understand the importance and continue to maintain their habits once we’re gone.
I finally had enough of the bush on top of my head and ended up heading to the hair salon last weekend. Anyone who knows me know thats whenever I find a good hair dresser, I stick with him/her until something prevents me from doing so. Well, if you know that then you can imagine my reluctance towards going to a hairdresser in Kampala — where men either have buzz cuts or shave off all their hair entirely. Funny enough, both Corey and I have relatively long hair for men. I kept imagining walking into the salon and the hair dresser having no idea what to do, leaving me being forced to get a buzz cut. Oh, god.
What luck that there happens to be a hair salon at the Kabira Country Club, where I usually find myself every Saturday and Sunday. Mira’s is tucked away just behind the swimming pool, opposite the entrance of the country club. I hadn’t ever once noticed it there, but actually read about it on Google after searching for “mzungu hair dresser Kampala.”
I was pleasantly surprised that the treatment there was nearly the same as my favourite hair salon back in Vancouver, Alpha D. Having a head massage prior to and after having your haircut is amazing and Mira, a humble, hardworking woman from Serbia, is a gem as well as a wonder to talk to. I told her of the anxiety I had when finding a new hair dresser (it sounds so stupid to write it out, haha!) and when I told her that I usually stick to one until the end she replied, “trust me I know how you men are.” Well, it was very comforting having her cut my hair. It’s a tiny bit shorter than I would normally get it, but for the first time, Mira definitely knows her shit. If you ever find yourself in Kampala and in dire need of a haircut, definitely hit up Mira and tell her Jamal from Vancouver sends his regards!
Mira didn’t even know she was the highest rated hair dresser online in all of Kampala (4.5+/5 stars!). I actually felt bad paying her regular price, knowing damn well what I pay back home to get my hair trimmed every month. I left her with exactly what I normally paid in Canada and left, but not before letting her know that I would be back again before leaving Kampala.
After hitting up the hair dresser, I found Corey hard at work at our regular spot poolside. We spent the remainder of the evening writing and enjoying the beautiful Ugandan weather. 30 degrees with a nice cool breeze.
It was my birthday this past Wednesday (March 8, 2017)!
Growing up, only my mom and my two sisters would ever make a big deal out of birthdays. My dad doesn’t even know his own real birthday, and I’d be really surprised if he remembered mine. As a kid I was rarely ever even allowed to attend my classmates’ or friends’ birthday parties until well into my teens. I guess I must have eventually protested enough to make my dad cave. Now he’s gone real soft. The last time I was home, one of my younger sisters was dressed up, looking like a princess, as she was picked up by her classmates in a limo to head to a birthday party. I would have been smacked upside the head just for imagining that.
Well, Corey almost seemed upset that I didn’t say anything. I feel kind of bad that he eventually learned about it from another coworker,who we’ve only known for a few weeks now, after he wished me a happy belated on the following morning at work. Jeorge must have learned through Facebook.
You can imagine the look on my face, expecting absolutely nothing this year, but my phone constantly vibrated from voice messages and whatsapp messages throughout the day. My boys back home really know how to take care of their brothers. They truly made me feel appreciated, even when I’m on the other side of the world. I will never forget this — even some of the messages that I wish I could! Haha.
My favorite soccer team had a very important game the evening of my birthday. For those unfamiliar, Barcelona played Paris Saint Germain for the second match. They were coming into the home game being four (FOUR!) goals down. PSG won the first game very handily. Honestly, I was ready to rule out my team that night. PSG is no pushover of a team, and for Barcelona to win they would have to score five goals and somehow keep PSG from scoring even one. The game started at 10:45 PM here, and I had already accepted that I would have to miss it unless I stayed up well into the night. And the internet here isn’t really good enough to watch a stream uninterrupted.
Spoiler Alert!
I don’t know what came over me, but I decided to stay up and watch it. If you haven’t seen it, I urge you to. That game will go down in history as one of the best comebacks of all time. That’s just about all I will say about that, except that I’m surprised I didn’t wake Corey up. There were many times that you would have thought the screaming was a little girl in the candy store, not a grown man watching football late into the night. I couldn’t ask for any more of a birthday gift. Go now, watch it!
Earlier in the week, Corey and I decided to invite the entire office over to our place on the weekend. We went out and picked up supplies the couple of days prior to Friday to make sure we would be able to accommodate everyone. The locals in the marketplace must have thought we were crazy; some of their heads turned as they stared, watching the two light skinned guys walking with dozens of bottles of a variety of alcohol.
We planned to open our door shortly before 9 PM. Some of our colleagues ended up showing up a little over an hour early than that. We spent the next few hours getting finally getting to really know each other outside of work.
Corey knows a scary amount of aimless drinking games. More than enough to do us all in over the course of the next few hours. I wish I could tell you about all the crazy stuff that went on that night, but I’m forced to only leave you with some safe for work snapshots and maybe a couple short clips. After our place, we took everyone out to claim our usual spot at Bubbles. As usual, I was the last man standing, leaving around 5 or 6 AM.
This weeks post:
We’ve been putting in a lot of extra work hours this entire trip, but especially during this last week. We worked for at least 14-16 hours every day this week in preparation for our first demo to our investors Ed and Boris tomorrow (Monday, March 20, 2017). This is the first time that I’ve ever worked on a team when making a company website, and it’s been so cool to have a partner that is willing to put in as much (more, actually!) hours than me. Our longest day together so far was Thursday night when we worked from 9AM until 2:30 AM the next morning.
Things at work have been hectic as usual. We hired another senior dev and have been doing our best to get him up to speed on using Laravel and the project in general. Ronald seems to be very comfortable in PHP and he’s done a great job so far. I have high hopes for the guy, but I’m well aware of the fact that he will need to be all that he can be in order to successfully carry on after Corey and I are gone. Not trying to toot our own horns at all. This week Corey was busy for most of the days talking with members of the office outside the dev team about what we need to port over from Mobis 3 to Mobis 4. I had a lot of one on one time with all the juniors and was able to clearly observe how much they have learned this far. We’re doing our best to make sure they learn as much as they can, and I made a point of dedicating that one on one time with them in order to ensure they are actually learning what I say.
Corey and I have spent a significant portion of our time writing very thorough documentation for every single part of the app we’re working on, as well as all the processes. Unfortunately, it seems as though reading isn’t really a thing in Ugandan culture. People prefer to speak rather than read. That really doesn’t bode well for the future of the development team if any of the devs end up leaving, as any new devs could be left without an idea of how to proceed.
We’re implementing various methods to make sure that these guys are as good as they can be before we leave. It’s definitely pretty awesome to have a work partner that’s as passionate, if not more, than I am about this stuff! Teaching web development doesn’t sound as hard as it actually is, especially given the barriers we’re experiencing, but we’re certainly doing our best.
So we decided to switch things up this weekend and go out for an adventure rather than stay in the city and enjoy the night life. We packed our things Friday night before we went to bed so we could leave at 6:45 AM and catch our shuttle bus at the Fat Cat Hostel.
Standing outside the Fat Cat Hostel, Corey decided to leave his stuff with me and head off a short distance to capture some photos. It’s still pretty early in the day, and there aren’t too many people about on this secondary street. We both turned to see a Boda driver approach me, and he turned around quickly, asking us if we needed a lift. The funny thing is, he drove towards Corey’s belongings that he left on the sidewalk, but I noticed right away. I heard Corey yell “Jamal!” from the distance, and I’m sure we both could see that the driver wasn’t actually looking at either of us — rather, as he eyed Corey’s bags, he seemed to be trying to determine if I could catch him if he were to try to speed off with them in his hand. Turns out, he was right. His 100 CC boda wouldn’t be enough. He left without so much as looking at us.
The shuttle would take us a few hours away to Jinja, where we would be camping for the weekend. The shuttle itself was amazing. It took us through many parts of Kampala that we hadn’t seen yet, and through rural areas that we couldn’t possibly have imagined. Kampala is so heavily populated, and Corey and I have barely made it outside a thirty minute walking radius of our apartment. That day really made me aware of how much of this place we hadn’t actually seen yet.
The first major event on our schedule on Saturday was to go white water rafting on the Nile River. We landed at the base camp and were instructed to leave our important belongings behind, taking only what we would be willing to take on the raft.
Prior to actually booking the event, we had the option of choosing what “grade” of rafting we would be opting for. I don’t know why I expected Corey to choose anything except for the highest grade, but I did. I’ll let you imagine the look on my face when we got exactly that.
We spent about an hour going through all the various commands that the guide would be shouting at us throughout the trip. All our actions had to be in sync to make sure that the raft would be moving in the direction that we wanted it to be as we would be fighting the rapids and the current. Thankfully, we even practiced capsizing the raft so that we all knew what to do in case of a crash.
The first set of rapids went decent until we got to the bottom. The waterfall kept pulling us back, and we needed the help of some of the expert kayakers to help us escape the current and avoid being sucked in and flipping. Those rapids were the only ones that Corey’s boat managed to get through without flipping.
The second rapids were actually supposed to be a little less intense than the first (a grade 5 vs a grade 4). I actually felt a lot more comfortable going through this second time around, having gone through what would be the highest grade rapid that we were to expect all night. Unfortunately, that confidence was in vain.
We ended up flipping without actually making it all the way down. I closed my eyes as soon as the wave of water rushed against my face, but I remember the movement of the boat flipping as we descended the relatively small waterfall. I remember thinking “this isn’t so bad,” just before I was hit the first time from a flying body above me. The girl opposite me in the front of the boat, Lauren, wasn’t able to maintain her grip on the boat as we were instructed to do, and she flew away and landed on top of me. That was maybe 3 seconds before another body landed on top of my outstretched arm, still gripping the boat tightly. After seeing the photos, we’ve come to the conclusion that it must have been Corey that landed on my arm. Hah!
I really can’t describe the feeling too well; it’s not really pain, but it’s definitely panic inducing. The moment that I felt it, I knew something was wrong, and I needed desperately to get out of the water. I remember trying to swim, and the strange feeling of defiance of my left arm in performing any action. Luckily, the adrenaline gave me the power to make it to the nearest raft where I was hoisted in and rescued. All I could think as soon as I was safely inside was “please, God, please, let somebody here have some pain killers.” Pretty wishful thinking for someone who’s literally in the middle of the Nile river.
From then on, I knew it was bad from the horrific looks from literally every person in all the other boats staring. The pain started setting in as the guide hopped into my raft. He asked me if I had “ever done this before,” and I knew immediately that my shoulder had been dislocated. What a relief. I was so certain that something was broken. From what I could see, which wasn’t too much, there was definitely a bone sticking out the back of my shoulder, where my posterior deltoid should be.
I told him no, I had not, but I had performed it before and am medically trained. I asked him if he had ever done it before. He said three times, so I told him “do what you gotta do!” He told me, “I will, but I need you to do something, too.” “What’s that?” “Grit your teeth!” “I already am!” The next thing I know, the pain in my arm dropped significantly, and reassured the guide that I would be carrying on. There’s no way I would be heading back to camp alone. Luckily, they had enough paracetamol and ibuprofen to last me the weekend. I even made it through the boat cruise and late into the barbecue. Around 9 PM, I told Corey that I would be taking a taxi back to Kampala so I could at least sleep comfortably in a bed — not in a sleeping bag on the ground. Now, I wish I would have stayed.
It stormed heavily that night in Jinja, where Corey was camping. I’ve said it a hundred times already, but that guy can sleep through anything, whereas I wake up at any erratic sound. Corey woke up that morning to the sound of one of the italian girls we met screaming, berating one of the security guards. It turns out that her tent had been robbed in the middle of the night during the storm. Corey said he kind of chuckled, wondering how someone could be robbed as they sleep.
Well, it turns out the thief was pretty clever. Corey returned to his tent to find the zipper in the back of his tent half open. He looked under his bed and found that his bag had been stolen, too. Unfortunately, he had a little more than just his iPhone in there. His DSLR, phone, and other valuables were taken. Thankfully,we’re both okay. Everything can and will be replaced… It’s unfortunate that we lost all our photos, though.
That’s about it for this week. Heading back to work! Ciao!