Two Week Catchup

I disappeared again for a couple of weeks, I have been way too busy and too stressed to sit and write. The bulk of the stress has been due to our WWAN connectivity project. The last post was an update on this and we are still without a site for the last link in the connection.  We are working to solve this one still, and I am confident that we will achieve or ends.

Lately most of my stress has centered on getting our equipment out of customs. The whole tale began sometime back in November. Through the AMPATH affiliation with Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH), we can bring in things that will benefit the people of Kenya.  Our networking equipment qualified for a waiver of charges because it will be used strictly for our health care operations.

It took a few weeks to get the waiver and then a couple of more weeks for the shipment to arrive in Nairobi. Part of the delay was due to the holidays, which was understandable from my point of view.

Everything seemed to be going to plan until well things went off the rails.  I won't go into the details, but suffice to say that what we thought was under control wasn't. The result, well, we were unable to clear our equipment through customs and we had to simply wait. There was so much back and forth on this, and too often it seemed through the whole process the "failure to communicate" issues were rife.

This past Friday, our items were finally released from customs. Great way to go into a weekend, but that good feeling quickly turned sour when we received a pretty hefty bill for things that were supposed to be waived.  I cannot yet explain the bill and given our customs waiver, to say that I am pretty upset with the whole process would be a major understatement.  

* Okay so this post is not very uplifting or inspiring. It is not even an accurate account of what happened, I left a bunch out, no sense putting you through all that.