Hi all,
Sorry for being a little late/ Our final week in Malawi has been jam-packed. Let us get right into it!
It began on Sunday. We prepared for the week ahead by going to local supermarkets for our small personal project, care packages for kangaroo care mothers. We also finished up our designs from the weeks before and prepared them for printing.
The week passed by quickly. Monday mostly consisted of coordination and planning with the design studio. I also integrated the react-i18next library into our project, making our app available in Chichewa and English. Tuesday, we visited QECH to present our devices to some nursing students. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, Racheal and I could not present PneumoNate, but it was great supporting Katie and Bright while they received excellent feedback.
We pulled all-nighters on Wednesday and Thursday before our presentations on Friday. Most of the work was focused on putting our DigiScale together and creating an engaging presentation. Along with the late nights working came unforgettable memories of eating Ekhaya together and bonding over our shared experiences. We also delivered our care packages to the mothers and had the opportunity to distribute them as well. It was great seeing our work light up so many faces.
We presented to our clinical mentors, design studio technicians, and other stakeholders on Friday. It was great to look back over all we accomplished during the summer and all the fantastic people we met along the way. Additionally, we were fortunate enough to have one of the Global Health Fellows join us! The feedback we received will be valuable moving forward as we develop our project further. The vast majority of input around DigiScale was centered around how to ensure compatibility with existing systems and how we can build on our work.
After our presentations, we immediately left for Lake Malawi—the final trip before our departure. We arrived late at night, thankfully without having any problems. In the following three days, we were able to engage in all sorts of fun activities. On Saturday, we were able to go canoeing and participate in a sunset boat cruise. On Sunday, we went fishing, snorkeling, and ended the night with a sailboat sunset cruise. We briefly got stranded out on the water because our engine broke… but ended up safely. Monday morning, we joined a Discovery Scuba tour. It began with a lesson on how to scuba, and then eventually we were able to dive 10-15m down. It was a fantastic experience and definitely motivated me to get my scuba certification in the future. After our fun scuba adventure, we returned to Blantyre. This car ride ended up being more of an adventure than we had expected. Instead of a regular 6-hour drive, it turned into a 12-hour ordeal, with multiple mechanic stops, traffic jams, and lots of bonding time. Unfortunately, we also missed our dinner with the Design Studio.
Overall, the weekend was a mixture of adventure, both good and bad. That being said, I am going to miss Malawi a lot. I have learned so much about myself and Malawi through this experience. My biggest takeaways from this trip have been that we do not really “need” as much as we think and that I enjoy building my ideas with bright, like-minded individuals. I would highly recommend this internship to anyone interested in global health and engineering. While there will always be ups and downs, it’s incredible to experience a different culture and lifestyle. I am forever grateful to Racheal, Bright, the Design Studio, and our QECH clinical mentors for a fantastic summer. Keep in touch
