So far. I have been traveling for 48 hours. I started by taking a train Sunday, May 29 from Poughkeepsie, NY to New York City, followed by a cab ride to a hotel. The next morning, I went to JFK to catch a plane to Johannesburg, where I am now. Tomorrow morning, I will be flying from Johannesburg to Blantyre, when I will meet up with the rest of the interns. Having this period in limbo between worlds is giving me time to reflect on the journey I have ahead. Yesterday, I was excited with a heaping side of nervous. Since speaking with people on my flights, in transit, and communicating with the other interns, who arrived Saturday, my nervousness has begun to fade away and I am purely excited for what lies ahead.

On the flight, I met a fair number of people who are planning to do some type of humanitarian work during there time in this part of the world. One thing that all of us have in common is our desire to have a hand in generating change for the better. We all want to “be the change [we] want to see in the world”. However, we are all embarking on completely different journeys. I met someone traveling to an orphanage in Malawi to do health work for a week. I met another person going to Malawi to teach preschool and minister at an orphanage for a month. I met someone traveling to a ranch in South Africa to work for two months. And then there’s me – traveling to a university to improve the sustainability of medical technology for two months. All of us hope to have an impact, but we see that impact differently. What may be a roaring success for one of the travelers may be seen as relatively inappropriate by another.

With this in mind, what does “change for the better” mean? I think that varies person to person. To some, it may be propagating that their moral and ideological outlook. To others, it may mean improving the health of individuals in a community. For another group, it could be more focused on personal change and growth. To me, “change for the better” means improving access to quality health care, which I hope to contribute to by developing technological improvements.

In my preparations for this trip, I read many articles and watched many videos about the way change is implemented and how it can be beneficial or detrimental. (Find some of my favorites here, here, and here.) I hope that, as I work with the other interns and the staffs of Malawi Polytechnic and Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, I have a small part in improving the state of health care in Malawi and do so in a way that is sustainable, valuable, and respectful.

In just 2 hours, I leave for 2 months in Malawi! I’m sitting in the airport now endlessly running through my dozens of checklists and to-do lists to make sure I am ready. With all the boxes checked, I have a few breaths to think about what the summer holds.

For the next 8 weeks, I will be working in Queen Elizabeth’s Central Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi. My main focus will be on the bCPAP device: continuing clinical trials and traveling to district hospitals all over the country to decommission older models. In addition to that, I will be presenting the staff of doctors and nurses with several prototypes of medical devices developed by Rice design teams in the Global Health department. I will be recording their feedback on necessity, usability, and future improvements for each of the devices. The devices vary from a mechanical breast pump rocking chair to an educational diabetes wound care simulator. In the past month, I have been working at the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen learning these technologies backwards and forwards. I am impressed with ingenuity of these design teams and am eager to see how the hospital will receive them.

I would like to thank my sponsors, Jim and Linda Hargrove, for this opportunity to further my passion for global health. I am beyond ecstatic to get my feet on the ground in Malawi and witness first hand the real issues facing health in low-resource settings. Bring on the 34 hours of flying, I’m ready!

“I wish you could see the hospital.”

– Dr. Sam Meja, Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, 3 months ago

Our internship started 3 weeks ago formally. For me, it’s been on my mind since my conversation with Dr. Meja and Dr. Kommwa 4 months ago. This last semester, my team and I were making a pneumatic compression device meant to be used by patients after surgeries, and during the design process, we talked with two doctors in Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) to get a better idea of who we were designing our device for. Sitting half a world away, we were trying to figure out what the hospital was like:

• How much space did they have?
• What kind of technology were the nurses most familiar with?
• How long did power outages last for?
• What chemicals were used to clean devices moved from patient to patient?

Our questions went on, but midway through our conversation, Dr. Meja pointed out that it’d be so much better if we could actually be at the hospital, speaking with nurses, patients, and physicians, seeing patient rooms, and getting a real idea of who we were working for.

Four months ago, I knew where I wanted to be this summer. Three months ago, I applied to this internship, hopeful. Today, I sit a two minute walk away from Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, and I’m looking forward to talking to Dr. Meja and Dr. Kommwa in person!

We’re sitting on the runway at London’s Heathrow airport as we wait for Airbus engineers to sign off on some paperwork before take off. It’s kind of ironic – engineers (Airbus) holding up engineers (our team going to Malawi). Either way, sitting here on the tarmac gives me the perfect chance to kick off my blog posts. As an overview, I’ll be posting about twice a week for the next 8 weeks. I’m going to do my best to include pictures, videos (if I can make my GoPro work [Future interns take note: Photography skills can be an asset]), and any notable quotes I hear along the way.

We’ll be living at the Polytechnic University (Poly) in Blantyre, Malawi, alongside our counterparts from the Poly itself. The main hospital we’ll be working at, Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH), is just one of a few different sites we’ll be visiting within our first week of arriving in Malawi.

Our internship actually started three weeks ago. We’ve been running around assembling six different medical device prototypes, learning about how to use line voltage monitors, learning oxygen concentrator troubleshooting techniques all in preparation for the next two-months.

Aside from adjusting to a new culture, we’ll be spending our first week repairing oxygen concentrators, learning Chichewa, and really getting a handle on the ropes of our internship. The next seven weeks, we’ll be working on the medical device prototypes, improving them through collaboration with the Poly and through surveys conducted at QECH.  Altogether, we have about six medical device prototypes that we want to get feedback on. We have another three devices that we’ll be demonstrating at QECH, and each of us will be looking to find a need that hasn’t been met at the Poly or at QECH and work towards designing/implementing a solution for that need.

I’d like to thank Rice 360, the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen, and my sponsors – Judy and Mike Koehl, for giving me the opportunity to learn more about engineering, global health, and the role that I can play in a global setting.

Eleven years ago I was in a land rover winding through the Ethiopian countryside. As we navigated the winding mountain roads, I curiously asked my friend Worku the names of everything I saw. Being in the Ethiopian countryside, I counted a lot of animals, but I soon paused when a herd of hundreds of goats got the best of my Amharic counting abilities. Worku, hearing my silence, supplied the word bazoo meaning ‘many.’ At ten-years-old I loved the sound of the word rolling off my tongue (much much more than my fellow passengers liked hearing it unfortunately), and soon I was christened Bazoonesh. Though initially given to me because of my single word obsession,  there is a certain truth to the name, meaning ‘girl of many choices,’ that far surpasses it’s phonological origins.

A diploma from Rice University ensures many things and choices is one of them. In preparing for graduation my classmates and I debated a number of different options for what to do when we parted but ultimately my choices have brought me here, to the Heathrow airport, on my way to Blantyre Malawi.

In reality we all have many choices- some big and some small, some made in advance and others in the moment. In preparing for the following 9 weeks I have made some choices:

1. I choose to be someone who encourages my fellow interns and the others who I interact with
2. I choose to spend time every day learning about Malawi and practicing Chichewa (the local language) Moni, muli bwanji?
3. I choose to be flexible with plans and attempt to find the balance between staying out of the way and taking initiative
4. I choose to spend time every day to reflect on how I am growing as a person and how these experiences will shape choices I make in the future

I am excited to be returning to Africa, a place that has changed the way I view the world many times, and so thankful for this opportunity. Check in here to see how these next two months play out for all of us Rice 360 interns and see where our choices lead us!

There has been so much to do just simply to get to Malawi. Combine all of our packing (not just clothes, but medical devices as well) with various forms and protocols to follow and you get a wonderful range of emotions from nervous to pure excitement. Having only two weeks to prepare for my internship at the Polytechnic in Blantyre, Malawi, it’s hard to really find time to stop and think about the journey I am about to embark on. To give a little background; I will be working at the Polytechnic University with three other Rice University students. Our main project is repairing Oxygen Concentrators, but we will also be getting feedback on six medical device prototypes and developing more needs to begin working on next year.

As I sit on my plane from London to Johannesburg it all finally starts to sink in. Soon I will actually be in Malawi, equipped with six devices that we have been prepping. Soon I will finally meet the wonderful Malawians I will be spending two months gettting to know. Soon I will be able to show the students at the Polytechnic the device I have been working on to get much needed feedback to work on improvements. I don’t know exactly what this two months has in store for me, but I do know that I cannot wait for this opportunity of a lifetime to start. I am so lucky to have my sponsors and Rice 360 supporting this wonderful internship. The next time I write I will finally be in Malawi.

After the craziness of building prototypes, getting vaccinated, making lists, going to Target countless times, and packing, I am finally ready to leave for two months in Malawi! It is absolutely crazy to me that this adventure is ready to begin, but here it is! I left this morning for New York for a family event, but I won’t be heading to Malawi until Monday.

While I am in Malawi, I will be working with students at the Polytechnic on a few projects. Our main project will be repairing oxygen concentrators and developing more sustainable ways of doing so. We will also be receiving feedback on technologies designed by Rice students over the past year, scoping future projects for Rice 360, and working on small side projects that we will determine there.

As I was packing, I couldn’t help but wonder about the adventure I am about to embark on. I feel like there is a lot I don’t know. I don’t know what my day-to-day schedule will be or who the interns from the Poly are. I don’t know what our house will be like or how to say “Where’s the bathroom?” in Chichewa. But that’s what makes this exciting! I am usually the person who plans ahead. I am used to having most of my week planned out by Monday and I color code my calendar. The fact that I don’t know what’s coming is a huge part of the thrill. I will get to play it by ear and learn about Malawian culture while I work on our assigned projects.

A week from today, I will be completing my first full day in Malawi. The fact that it is so close is surreal, and it can’t get here fast enough.