Sixth Day in Conakry (9 August 2013)

Today is our last day we can visit our instrument. Our driver came way earlier than scheduled time. When we arrived at the institute, we were escorted to Dr Bamba's office. I presented him a vest with ISR of BC logo on it. Then he escorted us to the director general office and had a small business meeting with the directors and director general. We talked about how we make our collaboration more beneficial to both sides. They also told us that the institute has been authorized by the president of Guinea (President Professor Alfa Conde) to offer MSc and PhD in various fields. Thus currently, they have enrolled more than 25 students for both PhD and MSc programs. 

Alpf (the IT person) came to the institute at 10:00am with good news. He solved the iBoot connection problem. Of course I had to wake up Matt, which was 6:00am in Boston,  to tell me if he can see the iBoot, and sure he did. That was a big success.

I was also asked to give a training (they call it training but actually it is a formal presentation) to the PhD and MSc candidates.  I gave about 45minute presentation (remember all my texts are translated to French).  Kathryn also gave about 20 minute presentation. When we left the conference room, we faced another unexpected situation. Remember what the minister requested, i.e., to broadcast my briefing on TV? Well! Here it comes. The minister did not even send the TV crew, instead he brought them with him. Another impressive commitment.  He asked me if I can do it again for the TV crew? He also introduced me to the TV crew and formally gave me formal goodbye greeting and left for his primary job. The TV crew made an interview with me, and asked me to go through the briefing that I did to the minister, and of course I did. That was really fun! Of course we had English to French translator to communicate with journalists. 

 The Guinean national TV interviewing me about my work in Guinea!

 I was going through the slides that I used to brief the minister to the TV crew!

 Kathryn explains the sensor to the TV crew!

 

 Electronic table cleaned up before we leave! 

 

Very happy face, with everything turns out a success in Conakry! I sincerely thank every single local people who helped us for the successful AMBER installation in Conakry. I also thank our crew at UCLA and Matt of BC for their unwavering support they provided to us.

 After all these, Alfa drove us to lunch (because our driver wants to goto mosque for his Friday praying), this time to a different restaurant (Chinese one). After lunch we went back to the institute for a final checkup. Alfa, who became so friendly to us, spent the whole day with us. At the end of our final check up, he took us to the market to buy Guinean roasted coffee to take it with us back home. Guinean coffee is really very good. 

 Freshly roasted Guinean coffee, full of the pink bag.

 On our way to the local market!

However, to goto our hotel it was a big traffic hassle. We were told that since it is holiday, every kids would like to go to the city center. That kept us on the street for more than an hour, and finally we made it to our hotel at about 7:20pm. We had an arrangement with our Canadian friend to take us out for dinner at different restaurant. We did not get out from our hotel for dinner before. So, Alfa drove us,including our Canadian friend,  to the French restaurant which is really good. 

If you are on a one way street and has no any turning point, what would you do? Stay in your car and pray for the traffic ahead of you to clear out! that was what we did this afternoon to come to our hotel from the local market.

BTW, just a few things about Guinea. It gets its independence from France in October 1958. I was told Guinea was the first French colonies which get its independence. When Charles de Gaulle withdrew the French from Guinea, he took much of the country's infrastructure and large amounts of capital. Although I know the name President Ahmed Sékou Touré, who was one of the founding father of OAU (organization of African union) along with Haileselassie of Ethiopia and few others, I did not know that he was a president of Guinea. When President Toure fade up with the Westerns, he quickly aligned himself with the Soviet Union, and that opens a gate for many Guineans to go to Russia and did their higher education. Most scientists at the Institute speak Russian and received their graduate degrees from the Soviet Union. I was also told that the institute, where I put my magnetometer, was built by the Russians.   
 
Another important thing I learned was that most business owners in Guinea are Lebanese. The reason, when the Christian Lebanese were being prosecuted by the Turkish, the French, knowing this, invited them to their colonies to be part of the business class in the French African Colonies. Wonder why they did not invite them to France instead of to French African colonies??
There is no check and balance political power in Guinea, which means there is no parliament. This implies everything will be decided by the president. The parliamentary election has been setback quite a few times, and now the parliamentary election is scheduled for September 2013, if it happens, because I did not see any election campaign posters around.

Well! That was our final day in Conakry. We'll be flying back to Abidjan to perform our similar mission there, though the instrument is still at custom,  cross our fingers to have successful installation! 

I'm a beer drinker, but there are quite a few variety of choices to enjoy in Conakry!