Author: Pranav Mandyam

2. Welcome to Malawi!

Posted on by Pranav Mandyam

June 25, 2023:

Hey everyone, it’s Pranav again! I’m writing to you from Blantyre, Malawi: the Warm Heart of Africa! Our first week in Malawi has been amazing, and I’m finally feeling like I’ve gotten my bearings in Blantyre. 

Our Plane at O.R. Tambo Int’l Airport, Johannesburg

Earlier this week, we departed from Houston on the long, 40+ hour journey to Malawi. After a short stop at Atlanta and a restful overnight layover at Johannesburg, Alex and I finally touched down at Chileka International Airport. There, we met Hillary, Sally, and Waliko, who enthusiastically greeted us and helped us with our luggage. The first thing I noticed about Malawi was the striking mountains surrounding us in all directions. That, and the fact that you drive on the opposite side of the road. We decided to drop all our belongings off at Kabula Lodge before heading to the Design Studio at MUBAS. The rest of the day involved a whirlwind of introductions, a short tour around the city (Hillary showed us a nice place to grab some coffee), and shopping for our stay at Blantyre. 

Meeting Sally, Waliko, and Hillary at the Airport.

The next day, we woke up to a beautiful view of the sunrise while having some breakfast (the pancakes were delicious) at Kabula Lodge. When we arrived at the design studio, we met four other interns—Getrude, Arnold, Joyce, and Nassan—who were doing the MUBAS engineering internship. We then went right into our project work: I was paired with Sally while Alex was paired with Waliko. As a previous team at MUBAS had worked on the IV drip project before, we reviewed their documentation and research in order to understand the scope of the project. Our goal was to build off of the previous team’s work by integrating a drip monitoring system and a flow rate control mechanism with a touch-screen display and the cloud.

View from Kabula Lodge during Breakfast

Front Entrance of MUBAS

On Friday, we took part in a workshop led by one of the design studio technicians about building and printing custom circuit boards. It was my first time ever using circuit boards, so it was intriguing to learn the basics behind circuits and create our own circuit system. The workshop made me excited for all the new techniques and concepts that I would be learning over the next couple of weeks in Malawi.

Printable Circuit Board Workshop

Before we knew it, our first weekend in Malawi was upon us. We spent Saturday exploring nearby sites around town, such as the Blantyre market and the Bean There Coffee Roastery. We also grabbed some lunch at KwaHaraba Café, which had been highly recommended by previous travelers to Malawi. The café was decorated with local artwork and crafts that depicted the beauty of Malawi. On Sunday, we did our first of many road trips—this time to the Zomba Plateau. We went with Sally and Waliko, and met up with one of their classmates, Tom, at Zomba. Tom showed us around town, giving us a tour through the University of Malawi and highlighting the various administrative buildings (Zomba once used to be the capital city). He then took us up to the top of the plateau, passing by many scenic viewpoints with breathtaking views on the way. Driving through Zomba while blasting some African music was an amazing way to get to know Sally, Waliko, and Tom better. 

KwaHaraba Cafe

A Dam at Zomba Plateau

Williams Falls at Zomba Plateau

As the weekend comes to a wrap, I’m looking forward to learning more designing basics for my projects, from learning how to use Arduino IDE to wiring together sensors and motors. 

Until next time!

Pranav

1. Introduction and Preparations

Posted on by Pranav Mandyam

Hi everyone, my name is Pranav Mandyam, and I’m a rising junior majoring in Biosciences (Cell Biology & Genetics) and minoring in Global Health Technologies. I was first introduced to Rice360 through the introductory Global Health class I took in my sophomore fall. After learning about the various facets of global health and listening to a variety of guest speakers, I excitedly enrolled in my first project-based class, GLHT 360, which helped solidify my passion for developing healthcare technologies in low-resource settings. My passion for medical innovation in various settings and my interest in directly collaborating with local experts and students made it an easy choice to decide on taking part in the Rice360 summer internship. I’m looking forward to getting a more complete understanding of the design process and the opportunity to work as a team with colleagues in Malawi. 

As I finish off my first week in the internship, I learned a lot about the cultural competencies that we must consider when immersed in a new environment. We started off our discussion by reflecting on our values, and then conversed about cultural differences and the ethical considerations of working within a different country. One thing that really stood out to me was communicating our experiences through photography, and the ethics behind it. I love to take photos everywhere I go, so it was really interesting to understand the impact that images can make in telling a truthful story.

Earlier this month, we were given the projects that we were taking to Malawi. The two projects that I was assigned were an IV Drip System and an Infant Oxygen Concentrator. The IV Drip project involves constructing an IV infusion monitor to deliver and monitor IV fluids at an accurate rate that is not achievable through a solely gravity-based drip system. Meanwhile, the Infant Oxygen Concentrator is a needs-finding project that focuses on modifying a previous Oxygen Concentrator to accommodate infants and be portable. This week involved a lot of research about these two projects so that I can hit the ground running in Malawi. 

On June 19th, Alex and I will be boarding our flight to Malawi, a trip that takes almost two whole days. We’ll be stopping over at Atlanta and Johannesburg (an overnight layover!) before landing at the Blantyre airport. Throughout this week, we’ve been preparing for our travel, from arranging our Visas to making (and remaking) packing lists. As the date gets closer, I’ve been getting more and more excited and nervous in anticipation of our time in Malawi. I’m really looking forward to meeting the Malawi team and all the new experiences I’ll encounter!