Bahir Dar school - Concluding remarks

After hectic weeks in Bahir Dar, two members of the KAIRA/SGO team are now back in Finland and the rest of the group will return by the weekend. During the visit, we ran a series of lectures on applied mathematics and space physics. In addition we had splinter sessions on various topics (riometry, radar installation etc.) and discussed the curricula of mathematics and physics education in Bahir Dar University. BDU is developing fast and expanding rapidly, hence the need for curriculum revision. Our Lappeenranta and Tampere colleagues are doing similar things with a number of East-African universities and thus we have a consortium project for  these efforts. You can find our project website at  http://www.mafy.lut.fi/HEI-ICI/. This project is funded by Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and Centre for International Mobility (CIMO). Funding is greatly acknowledged!

The next Bahir Dar event will be held in October 2014 http://inverse-problems.org/sps2014/. The dates are somewhat tentative. This event will be a quad-lateral effort with Ethiopian, Finnish, US and South-African colleagues. In addition, we have scheduled the second Inverse Problems Africa workshop for late 2015. It will be held in Kampala, Uganda. The International Symposium in Equatorial Aeronomy will be held in Bahir Dar around 2016. (If I remember correctly.) Thus lots of interesting events will take place in the region in the near future. Naturally we encourage all the colleagues to attend these events!

And below a large set of photos from Bahir Dar by Mikko Orispää! (Might be useful for people who are thinking to participate 2014 events!)

Bahir Dar mosque.

Market I

Market II

Market III

Kids playing.

The ultimate public transportation 'device' - the Bajaj!

Markku and Lassi walking to the University gate.

Bajaj driver and co-driver!

Workshop lunch in Lake Shore

Lunch again.

University monkey!

Bahir Dar University stadium, where the grandiose Ethiopia - Finland (4-2) football match took place.

Kids playing on the shore of Lake Tana.

Bajaj hassle!

Lads posing to the camera.

A nosy boat.

Bahir Dar avenues.

And some random flower.

Physics department.

Donkey - the local Toyota HiAce

Cooking and selling food...

Lassi before the film festival event.

And the cinema, where we watched Stanley Kubrick's film '2001: A Space Odyssey'

And yes, we did have enough room for the film audience....

Bunna mafelat - Coffee ceremony before the film.

Odours of Ethiopia...

And the coffee beans...