Micromine Training in Uganda

David Bartlett
Operations Manager, Micromine

 

Last week I travelled to Uganda to deliver Micromine training to a group of Randgold exploration geologist.

I flew into Uganda via Dubai, it’s about a 20 hour trip, fortunately the guest house I was staying at was very close to the airport. So there was no long car drive at the end of the long trip.

Entebbe airport is interesting, it’s surrounded by water, when you land you have water behind you, in front of you and to your left. The airport is right on Lake Victoria which is the 2nd largest lake in the world, despite this, when David Livingston (British Explorer in the 1800’s) went looking for it, he couldn’t find it. Lots of explorers went looking for Lake Victoria because it was believed to be the source of the Nile river.

 

The airport is also famous because in 1976, just before I was born, there was a raid (Operation Entebbe) on Entebbe airport when Idi Amin (better known as: His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in particular) allowed a plane, hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to land in Entebbe. The Israeli army flew into Entebbe in the middle of the night and freed 102 hostages, 3 hostages were killed, 1 was left in Uganda (74-year-old Dora Bloch who was later killed) and 10 hostages were injured. All 7 hijackers and about 40 Ugandan soldiers were killed but only one Israeli soldier died, the commander of the operation, Yoni Netanyahu (Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother).

The airport terminal where the raid took place is now abandoned, and I believe if you can get close enough you can still see all the bullet holes.

 

 

Food and Accommodation

The menu at the guest house was limited, but the fruit in Uganda is always fresh and sweet with plenty of banana’s, watermelon, oranges and mangoes for breakfast. I quickly became accustomed to eating a traditional lunch of Ugali (maize meal) which is eaten all over Africa and Nakati (similar to spinach in appearance, but has a bitter taste).

 

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Training

We did a week of Micromine training which consisted of 2 days introductory and 3 days geostatistical training. The students had all previously used Micromine, were all keen to learn and asked lots of relevant questions. To be honest, they were one of the best large groups I’ve ever given training to. They were all very enthusiastic about Micromine, arrived early and were ready to learn, which is sometimes a challenge when teaching a 5-day geostatistics course.

During the 5 days Randgold staff shared many humorous stories with me, one in particular was about a British Geologist who had visited the site and was a user of Micromine. When he arrived on at the office he demanded ‘Micro Monkey’. The staff didn’t know what he was talking about but he kept repeating ‘Micro Monkey, Micro Monkey, Micro Monkey’. After a few minutes (and further clarification from the staff) they realised that he was asking for a ‘Micromine Key’ (Micromine Dongle) to complete his work. Since then, both the geologist and Micromine are know as ‘Micro Monkey’ on site.

 

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Sightseeing in Uganda

Entebbe is a great place to walk and on most days I was able to, the temperature is always perfect and the locals are mostly friendly. It is green and the lake is very picturesque.

 

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On my last day, before flying out I also managed to briefly visit the Entebbe Botanical gardens which were famously the backdrop for a few Tarzan movies in the 1940’s starring Johnny Weissmuller.

 

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Here’s a few more pictures from my trip, thanks for reading!

 

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