Week highlights:
Saturday spent the afternoon with Yves, the interim ambassador and the ambassador’s wife on a driving tour on the north side of the island. In the evening headed out to the Pirata with a crew of friends from the café.
Tuesday Jorge publicly announced my project, showing images and giving my name on national television. The news here is surprisingly pervasive, as everyone I meet now says, “Oh, I saw your project on television.”
Wednesday visited James’s childhood home in Praia Francesa. By pure coincidence his parents would be backyard neighbors with the terminal, per my design. Received their enthusiastic approval of the project. Also met Ned Seligman, director of the NGO Step-UP and former director of the Peace Corps in Sao Tome. He is very knowledgeable on the topic of American development interests in Sao Tome and can be a good partner for the University of Illinois.
Wednesday and Thursday sat in on meetings with U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Roger Binder and Mr. Allan Storm, representing international civil/military aviation issues from the Pentagon. They are traveling to Sao Tome, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon and Angola laying foundations for an air security enhancement program in the Gulf of Guinea. The United States intends to offer equipment and training to the participating nations, with the goal of making air communications and monitoring systems compatible and granting the nations sovereignty over their airspace. A similar program was already implemented in a group of former soviet block nations and is underway in Latin America. In the case of Sao Tome, this program would mean greatly enhanced safety, security and efficiency, and the offer was enthusiastically welcomed by the airport administration. I presented my airport terminal project to the group as well, making them aware of the drastic security and safety breaches resulting from the currently insufficient ground infrastructure. They recognized the importance of these infrastructure improvements and noted that many of the airports they had visited had similar deficiencies.
Later Thursday I was interviewed and photographed by a local newspaper regarding the airport project.
Friday met with Elsa to show discuss some initial design concepts for her new house. She is currently renting and is anxious to begin work on her own residence.
