Today was an quite a mixed bag of a day. The team arose at an early hour in order to get a jump on a full day of work. We left for the World Hope office at 8:00 AM. A blow occurred in the early hours of the day. The team had to tell Hassan that the marketing license will not be accepted until three months after we leave Sierra Leone. Khanjan confirmed that it will be at least 90 days. Telling Hassan this not only brought down all of our spirits, but hurt the morale of Hassan as well. We tried to get Hassan a job as a translator for the malnutrition team in the mean time while we are waiting on the marketing license. Today left us with a lot to reflect on, between issues in transatlantic communication and bureaucracy reaching to even the farthest corners of the developing world.

In order to store the strips during this new  interim period, the team needed to purchase a large bin. We ventured into market and were approached by many vendors who tried to sell us very authentic Gucci slides and Louie Vuitton belts. Being the shrewd businessmen and businesswomen that the team is, we were able to see through their sales pitch. After purchasing the bucket, Zach was instructed by one of the merchants to place the containment unit upon his head in order to minimize stress to his very weak forearms. During this process, we stopped at a stand to buy Sierra Leone bon bons. Cassidy described them as, “It was better than I expected and it reminded me of SpongeBob”. After doing this, Zach was heckled by many a locals.

Once we returned to World Hope International, we observed that each member of the team that ventured into the market had sweat through their shirt due to both the high temperature and humidity. Hassan promptly pointed out that we paid too much for the bin (which was supposed to be a wooden crate, apparently) but we did our best. The team went out for a stretch in order to circulate blood and increase creativity.

Sage wrote the job description for HR to review.

Zach and Naakesh wrote the planning document that will guide how the mock training at World Hope will go. The mock training is used to determine how the training content is presented in the most digestible way possible. The training document is also used to see how easy it is to fill out the data collection documents which are paramount to our success.

Rohan tried to perform exposure tests in order to determine whether the strips have an accelerated rate of deterioration when exposed multiple environmental factors. This test yielded inconclusive results due to the weather changing from sunny to down-pouring in the span of fifteen minutes.

The Ukweli team received an email from Allieu about the application for expedited review. There were certain edits that needed to be made within 15 minutes of receiving that email. The team sprang into action and was able to make the edits and finalize the email within 14 minutes and 59 seconds.

After a sobering day, the team decided to brighten their spirits with a round of a Capella singing in order to practice for the GSIF talent show. There was also a round of the card game ERS, in which Rohan won like a champion, and Jordan cam in close second. Sage and Cassidy were new to the game but showed promise for improving in the future.

Thanks for listening hope you tune in next time, this has been DJ Bambi spinning up some live beats for y’all.