Wednesday, 13.3. – Day '-1'

Again, a tight agenda for today, and, as every day, some surprises coming along. We meet with Geoffrey at 9:30 in the hotel and leave for our visit to United Bank of Africa, which is supposed to be a 15min walk. After 15min, I ask Geoffrey where the bank is and he indicates a building 200m away from us. I freeze – this is not United Bank of Africa, but Bank of Africa! So where is United Bank of Africa and how do we get there within the next 10min?! We ask a police officer who luckily guides us into the right direction and – more luckily – the bank we are looking for is also just 100m away.

We have a good meeting with the UBA HR department and can win them to participate in our workshop tomorrow. 

The three MMU musketeers at UBA

Until noon, I maintain my daily routine of calling the banks that have not confirmed their attendance so far and receive more positive feedback, so we are gradually increasing the number of participants into the direction of 10.

At 12, Christoph Zipfel picks us up and we go to Hotel Africana (coincidentally the venue where we will have the event tomorrow) and have lunch with Joachim Düster, the Deputy Head of German Embassy in Uganda and his Colleague Mrs. Blume, who just spent her first 10 days of a 3-year stay in Uganda. 

Lunch with the German embassy at Hotel Africana

On the occasion of being in Hotel Africana, I meet with the hotel manager to discuss tomorrow’s event and arrange the setup of the three conference rooms we have booked. A while later, Jackie from GIZ joins our discussion and kindly gives me a lift back to the Sheraton once we are done. The rest of the afternoon is spent with more calls and emails to banks, and at the end of the day it seems we have finally reached all banks we have initially targeted. If everything comes as planned, we hope to see 7-10 banks on tomorrow’s event. We will see! Our pickup for tomorrow to Hotel Africana is agreed for 7:45. It will be a busy day!