Training Day 2

There appear to be 8 channels on the TV. There is a Chinese channel, a French channel, two sports channels (one with no audio), one American movie channel, a couple of African drama channels and a channel that is sort of like news. This morning as I got up I turned on the TV to the news channel. They were holding up newspapers and reading the headlines and then the presenters would discuss the stories with each other for a while.

For breakfast I checked off the Scrambled Eggs category and listened to my luggage birds while relaxing.

I enjoy this painting with actual thatch and bird feathers.

Today was probably the most important day for me to participate as a student. It was much more focused on Entomology rather than generically on the software. Of course I got interrupted more today than any other day as well. I still got a lot out of the class as I feel much more comfortable with the concepts of Abundance and now I know about Corrected Mortality (that's bug mortality, not human mortality.)

Today I was able to use my own computer as we got a couple of extra computers from the office for people to use who were not able to use their own. I might have been better off if I didn't have my computer.

The chair that I got had an unfortunate issue where the slightest movement caused an irritating squeak like a cricket. So there I was in my cricket chair driving everyone around me batty.

I got an idea on Monday that might make it easier to do the class. Instead of connecting to a server in Liverpool with internet going in and out, we created our own local network and used Eddie's computer as a server. It worked really well and we will make this the standard operating procedure for all classes in the future.

You would think Entomologists would be more careful about closing the door. Kept letting in the mosquitoes. Then we're swatting at them for the next couple of hours until it's time to open the door again and let in a whole new batch. Mosquitoes here seem faster than back home. I can't seem to manage to catch them at all.

For lunch I had banku and chicken. I find banku to be very filling so I didn't manage to eat a whole lot more than you see here.

Banku (the ball on the left) is cooked fermented corn dough
as compared with Fufu which is pounded cassava and plantain

At the end of the day I interviewed a candidate for a database manager position. It is much nicer to do so in person without the difficulty of phone connections and  background noise on top of the African Accent. The interview actually went really well. I realized that applicants are getting younger and younger, but the young man that I spoke to was really knowledgeable about access and seemed like the kind of personality that works well with us.

After all of that, I was too tired to go out for dinner. I stayed in, blogged and read for a bit. Then I went to the hotel dining room where I had a terrific dinner of kabob and yam chips