Sixth Day in Abidjan (14 August 2013)

Today's date was a kind of so so. We haven't accomplished that much. It was not just we did not do anything, but we tried our level best to push things to the end. The IP address issue did not move forward that much, and is still in limbo. Since tomorrow is another public holiday and we do not access to the institute, we just gave up testing the IP address functionality while we are here. So, we hope (actually they are working on it right now) the local IT personnel will handle the problem soon. Like Guinea, in Abidjan there is an internet service provider (ISP) to handle the firewall issue. That means once the internal IP address problem get solved, the institute personnel still should contact the ISP people to open the firewall port for us. They already started talking each other. Other than that, the instrument is recording excellent data.

 Prof Obrou putting a wire on the GPS for grounding, just to protect from lightning!!

After lunch Kathryn and I had to split, and Kathryn, with Prof Obrou's student another professor from the same university, stayed at the site to see if the IP address get resolved. I went to the university to meet the director of the laboratory which provided help to simplify the custom issue, and in fact the head of our collaborator. Prof Obrou and I arrived at the university in the middle of student seminar presentation. The MSc student ware presenting their research work progress in front of the professors, lab director, and fellow students. There were about 30-40 people in that room. Although I did not understand what they were talking about due to language barrier, I was so impressed with the brain storm discussion at the end of each student's presentation. Such student seminar presentation and brain storm discussion with their professors can be taken as role model for other universities across the entire Africa. Because, this provides an outstanding presentation experience as well as help them to understand their research work very well. I'm pro female scientist, especially African, and I was so impressed to see a female full professor in Atmospheric Physics at one of the African university (Cocody University). Hope the young Ivorian female student will follow her foot steps.

 An MSc student presenting his work to the audience!!

Some of the professors who are listening student presentation!!!

Finally, Prof Vafi, another professor and a friend of mine, drove me back to the hotel from the university. We picked Kathryn and he took us to the nice restaurant which is located in Riviera suburb. The food was delicious. On the way back to our hotel from dinner, Prof Vafi drove us through the hotel where President Alassane Ouattara was protected by the French army during the 2011 political crises. It is not that big hotel and not far from the US embassy.  
As I said tomorrow is a holiday and it will be our final day in Abidjan and in Africa. We'll head back home tomorrow late in the evening.