This past week has comprised of work, which I am so glad about. I’m glad to be taking on this journey with my team “Team O2 Protection” with Alfred and Gloria. My team is focused on creating optimized filters for Oxygen Concentrators and we have made progress on the design. We are still using HEPA filter paper but this week we will be going out to different markets and hardware stores to find filter paper which can work just as well and is easy to find in Malawi, focusing on local sourcing of materials. Our preliminary testing indicates that less than 0.5% of dust can enter through the filter which is a huge improvement to the current external filter which practically lets any fine particulates in, up to the size of sand grains even. Soon we will finalize a design for the external filter and perform more testing with different materials found here in Malawi, currently the manufacturing process of this filter is mostly simple with one complex area which we are still trying to facilitate. Next up is the internal air filter, we hope to use a similar design as the external air filter, with more focus on universality than filtering if the latter problem has been solved. A common problem here is that medical devices are donated and they are always different brands and models that arrive with no spare parts. By making this filter universal then it can be used on multiple models and brands regardless of the availability of model specific proprietary filters. The filters are also so important because less particulates will enter the concentrator and increase its longevity too.

            We finished creating both testing models, one for testing airflow of filter material and one for testing dust retention, the airflow testing model has not been used yet but will be used in the coming week when testing the other materials used for the filter.

Part of the upcoming work that will come after the testing will be the 3D modeling of the filter enclosure and figuring out how to make it universal, or as close to this as possible.

Before we all knew it is our second month here in Malawi. I came here with few expectations, I knew life was going to be undeniably different, harder in some ways and easier in others. Now that I have been here for nearly four weeks I can very confidently say that Malawi is a country that offers so much to its people and to its visitors. From small things that seem insignificant such as the view of the rolling mountains of Blantyre during breakfast, every day seems like a new gift that is offered to me. The people are kind and humble, never asking for too much and always offering to give more. It is a nice refreshing change coming from Houston, a fast moving city where there is little time to slow down and take in the life that you are living. Even school feels a bit rushed to me having deadlines and due dates constantly catching up to you. Here life does not rely so strongly on a schedule, yes, this is difficult when you schedule a meeting at 9am and it only really begins at 10:30, but you learn to live with it. At times I prefer this way of living, where there is no rush and some leeway is given to people, I know that I will have a home-culture shock when I return home having to readjust myself to relying on my calendar again and planning activities down to the minute, but for now I like the way time works here. Everything happens when it needs to happen with no unnecessary rush. People here are also more appreciative of what they have and work better with less compared to the states where we use so much and waste so much. I can see this very tangibly in the Design Studio at the Polytechnic where everything is reusable and you don’t throw things out because you know that that material or item can be used again for another purpose as opposed to throwing everything out once it has been used a single time. Another example of how things here flow smoothly with less rules or restrictions is the traffic, there are so few traffic lights and lane separation does not exist here in Blantyre, but I have yet to be in a traffic jam, cars move and drivers respect each other’s travel everyone needs to get somewhere there is no need to be selfish on the road. Then comparing this mentality to driving in Florida or in Houston where people will cut you off and run red lights because they think their drive is much more important than everyone else’s. I’m learning an insurmountable amount here in Malawi, but none of this can be learned through books or lectures, you can only learn I it by living it. The life I am experiencing here will surely change the way I approach things for the near and far future.

Coming to Malawi has made me look at life a little differently, but I will only know its impact once I come back to the states and see how my approach has changed to things that I am used to.