This week was a whirlwind. There has been so much new information to take in, and so I thought I’d use a blog entry to introduce some of the people we’ve met and places we’ve been during our first week in Blantyre.
New Faces
Dr. Gregory Gamula is the head Electrical Engineering professor at the Poly. He’s been pretty busy this week finishing up grading for the semester that just ended, but he still very graciously spent some time with us to introduce us to the key players involved in our internship this summer and to welcome us to the university.
Dr. Alick Vweza is a engineering lecturer at the Poly who will be working closely with us this summer on furthering our various projects.
Mr. Million Mafuta is another engineering lecturer at the Poly and he will be one of our main resources in helping plan the freshman engineering orientation week. We meet with him on Monday to discuss our plans.
The Four Poly Interns’ names are Christina, Francis, Anjrew and Charles. The first three are studying electrical engineering while Charles is studying mechanical. They are all rising fifth year students, (at the Poly, an engineering degree is five years because the first year is spent doing more general studies,) and it looks like we’ll spend most of our time this summer working with them. They are exceedingly kind and unbelievably smart. Just as soon as we would show them one of the prototypes we brought, they would generate a dozen new design changes and even possible spin-off projects!
New Places
Kabula Lodge is the place we are staying. We live in a house down the road a little way from the main lodge. My favorite part is having our own kitchen. Already the five of us have had great fun cooking dinners, and on Friday night we even had the Poly interns over to help us learn to make some traditional Malawian cuisine.
The University of Malawi Polytechnic is where my team will be working this summer. The Poly interns gave us the grand tour on Tuesday, and so far we’ve been primarily working from a computer lab in the main building.
Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) is a massive, sprawling, bustling hospital, just from the little bit of it that I’ve seen.
Shoprite/Chipiku/Superior are all grocery stores we shopped at this week. Shoprite is the biggest, but Chipiku and Superior are closer to the Poly so we’re able to run by them on our way home from work if needed.
The Market – we finally went to the market yesterday! It is quite the experience. It is loud and exciting and there are lots of fresh produce and friendly people. I’m learning Chichewa pang’onopang’ono, (little by little,) but already I’ve found that the more you know, the better deals you can make.