International Course

On Monday, the international course on groundwater modeling got underway. It takes place every year, inviting water supply engineers from over a dozen countries in Africa. The course is now held at a new, rather luxurious hotel in town, the Dreamliner, which is named after the long anticipated Boeing jumbo jet (the hotel owner works for Ethiopian Airlines, and is rumored to pilot for P.M. Meles Zenawi). I attended the first day to hear the country reports by each participant, which turned out to be very interesting.
The subject matter was water supply, of course, but each participant showed a map of their country, gave a brief introduction and talked about specific geography, challenges and the sort. Since I've done little study on Africa itself, the 10 minute presentations on places like Tanzania, the Kingdom of Lesotho (actually located within South Africa, similar to Swaziland), Namibia, Kenya, Malawi and others, was a fascinating introduction. The course is being held in English, so you could hear the different accents, not to mention a few of the participants who wore cultural attire, such as one engineer from Nigeria who wore a colorful turquoise boubou robe and kufi/fila hat (I don't count the Mosotho who wore Fila sportswear).
There was also a brief nod between the Sudanese participants, the first one introducing himself as coming from "Sudan-North", while the other one is from Southern Sudan, which is expected to become independent in an upcoming referendum. There was the shocking reminder that the median age in Uganda is 15 y.o. due to war and violence in the 70s and early 80s. I found it interesting to hear about the commercial interest by foreign bottlers in spring water located in the mountains of Lesotho; the participant said his country's mountain springs have been left untapped since the country can't afford to explore the resource on it's own, but commercial water is increasingly becoming part of his job now since it brings in valuable foreign capital. I later spoke with the participant from Ghana, who has an advanced degree in water supply and civil engineering, and he expressed his hope to get his PhD in a few years researching potential water conflicts, such as the one surrounding usage of the Nile, which originates in Ethiopia, passes through Sudan and then on to Egypt.