Rushing to wait

Warning: I wrote the following blog throughout the day, hope it is not confusing.

Morning

I was able to wake up at 7 this morning so it was so nice to sleep in a bit. I took a shower late last night instead of this morning, and I must say night showers are the way to go when you only have cold water. After a day of work the cold water isn’t nearly as painful.

Just finished breakfast and then yoga led by David, one of the other volunteers. Finished the yoga with a little massage session on shoulder and neck, which as most of you know that is very helpful for my lovely neck/shoulder condition. We are all nice and stretched now so I think we are getting ready to start the work day.

Lunch

Sitting around here waiting for our next task to do and for lunch to be prepared. This morning Gema, Katie, and I just worked a bit with one of the video cameras to make sure we knew how everything worked before we went out to do interviews this afternoon. It was pretty much the blind leading the blind and two of three have zero to little film experience. I think we figured out the basics though so we shouldn’t be to terrible at the thing this afternoon. The films supervisor has been quite busy this morning running around having meetings with the UWEC director so a lot of sitting around a waiting to be given tasks. A bit annoying to be honest but I guess once we know a bit more we will be able to go work on our own a bit.
Would love to upload some photos to show everyone but I don’t think it will be possible. We are using a satellite hookup to have connection to the internet which does work (as of course you can see here) but when a lot of people are on it the slower it goes and we do have blackouts every once in a while. I believe the web team is also trying to start upload some stuff on the site so there really isn’t enough bandwidth to do much else.

Oh alright my supervisor is finally back so hopefully I will be given a lesson on editing film on a mac!

Evening

Well this afternoon turn out to be very frustrating. Katie and I were stuck waiting until about 3pm to actually be given our assignment for the day. Fiona finally told Katie and I that we would be in charge of interviewing the handshake volunteers about why they came on the handshake so would could put it up on the net. Oh and she told us she wanted it all filmed and edited by tonight. Since the sun was beginning to set by the time we got the camera and mic ready it was hard to get everyone interviewed. We did do a decent amount though considering I know nothing about filming and Kate has just graduated with a film degree but not a lot of hands on experience. Fiona actually sounded surprised how much we did get done in the short time so she was happy and tomorrow morning we will import it into the the mac and start editing and finish interviewing the group.

I received a very elementary and quick tutorial on how to edit with Final Cut Pro. I’m sure I have already forgotten everything I was told, but hopefully I will pick it up tomorrow when we are a bit more hands on with it.

To say the least a few of us were getting a bit frustrated with how things were being run today. Katie and I felt like we were pushed aside, but hopefully tomorrow we will be busy all day and seem a little more useful. Besides the volunteer interviews we need to come up with a “fact of the day” video question. We will be posting answers to a different question about Uganda and primate conservation hopefully everyday coming in the near future on the website. Remember the website is www.primatehandshake.org

After finishing up working and dinner we all met up with Peace from UWEC and had night walk through the center. The chimps and rhinos were put away but many of the other animals are allowed to stay out all night. We saw the hyenas and lions; very amazing things to see in the dark. Their exhibits are right next to each other just separated by a fence. They were having a bit of a fight going on chasing each other and roaring. So amazing to watch and they were right up next to where the visitors stood so we were really close and could see everything. Quite scary to hear a lion roar in the dark!

We are now in the dorms and it is so insanely hot in the room. It’s nicer outside! I fear sleeping tonight might be a problem.

Update: Simon is slowly getting over malaria, not so much sick now as tired. However, Lisa has been sick all day as well. Not sure if it is malaria yet or not, but I think it’s just a stomach bug. So far I am doing fine. Only count 1 big bug bite and three little ones which I think are from ants. No worries family!