Tuesday we did our final presentations. That morning I was scared. On Monday the digital display stopped working all together (thankfully it wasn’t anything wrong with the circuitry) but the temperature wasn’t displaying. So we decided to just attach the LCD display we had just so everyone can see that the temperatures were correct. We went ahead and stuffed the components into the box. Nothing. It all stopped working. So ya Tuesday I was petrified. I was waiting at my table and I checked my phone to see where Tim and Matthews were. And I saw a video the two sent me. It was a video of Matthews turning on our device, completely encased and attached to the armband. And it was working. Monday I was prepared to showcase our semi-fictional device. It’s ok if it wasn’t perfect. But my teammates saw that I was a little disappointed and they snuck the device home with them and got it to work.

The second they walked in the door that morning I gave them the biggest hugs ever. We did it. All the work we put in this past month and we got our device to work. And we were ready to present to the others what we did. Slight roadblock the computer kept freezing during our presentation haha. But otherwise it went amazing.

I cried Wednesday. I knew I would. We came in the day after the presentations to clean up our tables and give Francis and Andrew all the research and documents we had about our device. I took my team out for lunch. Matthews bought me a cute fluffy Pom Pom keychain and Nafe got me these beautiful earrings.

After lunch I thought to myself wow I’m doing a good job of holding myself together. We were about to leave to go back to the lodge and I have yet to cry. But then Timothy did it. I sat down next to him and he looked at me and said “Akshaya you are our team leader and you have also become my sister. And like my real sister I will miss you so much. I am crying in my heart so much thinking of you leaving. But I promise our paths will cross again. And I’m so proud of you.” I started bawling my eyes out. Matthews and Timothy held me and laughed saying that we’ll see each other soon and to not cry. The interns all swarmed around me and gave me hugs. And they sent us off in our taxi. I cried the entire way home. I’m going to miss them so much. My friends I’ve made in Malawi have been so kind and so supportive and so welcoming. They have helped us so much during our time here and they have taught me so much.

I wanted to say thank you to all the people I’ve met in Malawi, especially the Poly interns. Thank you Gloria for being so open and hilarious. Every time I hear your contagious laugh, I laugh too. Alfred, I could listen to you talk forever. I love the stories you tell us. Isaac, you are so focused I hope I can be as driven as you are. Thank you Nafe for being so sweet to us. You made sure we were taken care of every day (like when you got us those beanies so we wouldn’t freeze on the mountain). Thank you Taonga for your kindness. You taught me the handshake that you and your sister do together and that was just so touching. You welcomed us with open arms and I am so grateful for you. Demobre you never failed to make me laugh. You say the funniest things, and you always had our backs. Finally, I wanted to thank my two teammates. Timothy, you are so passionate and knowledgeable about what you are doing. Whenever something wasn’t going our way, you were calm and confident in us. And you taught me a lot about coding and elec. Matthews, you were always so positive and patient. You always took the time to explain things to me, and you were always quick in coming up with solutions when we experienced roadblocks. I loved meeting these amazing people, and I hope I will be able to come back to the Warm Heart of Africa and see everyone again soon!

The second to last week in Blantyre. The last full week of our internship. This week I think is the week that it hit me. It hit me how unbelievable this experience has been for me. This week was very stressful no doubt. I think the most stressful week for me. Our device just stopped working again and again and again. Friday I was so jittery watching Matthews and Timothy try to put all of our components into the case of our device. We switched on the device. Nothing. Everything was working before and Friday it just stops. I was so stressed out my hands were shaking.

But my teammates, my supportive positive teammates looked at me and started singing Every Little Thing is Gonna Be All Right. Haha a little cheesy but what I needed in that moment. They told me don’t worry. They said we worked too hard for this to happen. Everything will be ok. Sometimes I lose sight of the big picture and get so stressed at every single step. They made me remember what this internship in Malawi was really about. It’s about all the things we’ve been learning. And it’s about the connections we’ve made. I’ve made really strong connections in Malawi that’s for sure. My teammates laughing and singing, telling me it will work out. That was one of the most memorable experiences of this internship for me. I love my teammates, I love what I’m doing, and I love that I’m learning so much. Afterward, they pulled me aside and said to take some goofy pics. I definitely became less stressed because of them.

Saturday morning I wanted to get some money out from the ATM because Matthews and Timothy wanted to help us buy gifts at the Blantyre marker for our friends back home. I put in all my information, my card came out of the machine like normal, and I tried to take it out. It was difficult because I just painted my nails and it was raining. I guess I took too long because the machine ATE MY CARD and didn’t give me my money. I was shocked. So I had to run into the bank and ask one of the tellers to get my card back. We were going to be late meeting Timothy and Matthews so we ran all the way back to the lodge.

Despite that, I had such a great time going to the market with my teammates. They helped us a lot, showing us the best places to get gifts. We also got to go eat at KFC. The ice cream and fries are AMAZING.

Sunday my friend Daisy (who came to the secondary schools last week with us) invited Sajel and me to her house for lunch near Limbe! When we got out of our cab we heard really fun music playing loudly nearby. Apparently there was a wedding happening, and weddings are a huge deal. We walked over to Daisy’s place where we were greeted by her siblings Teresa and seven year old Horrace. Horrace was especially thrilled to see us. They showed us their family’s chicken farm, and Sajel and I got to hold a chicken.

As you can see, I was TERRIFIED. It was great just talking to Daisy and playing with Horrace. I was really sad because I wish we spent more time with Daisy. But Daisy who is wise beyond her years told us that some friendships don’t need a lot of time to become so strong.

Day 34

So funny thing. We took out our device, measured ambient temperature, and it was all good. It seemed like correct temperature readings (it’s 19 degrees in Blantyre, and that was what our device was measuring). But then Timothy wanted to see if our device would go off when someone had a fever. Of course, no one around us had a fever (I don’t think…I hope not anyways). So Matthews brought over our soldering iron and held it next to our thermistor. And the temperature DROPPED to 9 degrees Celsius. Ya…I don’t think our soldering iron is that cold considering how many times I’ve burnt myself with it. Apparently, something in our code was making our device read a drop in temperature when there was actually a rise in temperature. Our device reads the correct voltage changes when we tested with the multimeter, but we had a bug in our code that was converting the voltage values to the wrong temperature readings. I’m glad there was some trend in the error because if our device was just outputting the wrong temperature readings, I don’t know how we were going to fix that (and I definitely did NOT want to solder all over again).

Timothy and I did some research and found a revised code and equation we could use. After uploading this code, our device was reading the correct temperature and was reading an increase in temperature when the ambient temperature was also increasing. Yayyyy!

Day 35

I had lunch today with a girl I met at the presentations a while ago. Her name is Yvonne and she’s from Zomba (an hour or so away from Blantyre). She’s a third year studying civil engineering, and the crazy thing is she’s only 18 YEARS OLD. She started school really REALLY early which is crazy! We were talking about a lot of things like the school system in Malawi, jobs, day-to-day life and I’m always so amazed by how different life is here compared to the US.

Day 36

My awesome team fixing our somewhat working project.

Day 37

Gloria who is wonderful invited the interns to her house off campus for dinner. We rode the minibus after work (my first time, it was so cool) to her neighborhood five or so minutes away from the Poly. We got to her house and we met her roommate, some of her housemates, and her other friends. I got to see how nsima is made, and I got to talk to some other students who got to the Poly. It was really awesome to see how the students live their day to day lives. And Gloria made really great food for all of us.

Day 38

Women In STEM, a global organization promoting girls to pursue STEM, invited me and Sajel to visit some secondary schools in Thyolo and talk to the girls about our experiences in STEM. The Thyolo Secondary School was so pretty and I got to each lunch with some of the girls there! They told me about their favorite music and what they do in school, and they taught me a few more phrases in Chichewa. After lunch, myself, Sajel, a few girls from the Poly, Faith (who led our trip to Thyolo), and Dr. Teresa (the former dean of engineering of the Poly) spoke to the girls and we had such an awesome time! The girls were tasked with building a tower with uncooked spaghetti and balancing a marshmallow on top. And I have to say they are very talented. I had to do that challenge last semester and our tower collapsed.

Day 39

We left early this morning to go hiking Mt. Mulanje. And I was TERRIFIED. Why were we hiking so much in two days our legs are going to be LITERAL JELLY. We were supposed to hike all the way up to Sapitwa (the peak of the mountain), but we changed our plans and chose to hike up the second tallest peak, Chambe, instead. We stayed at a cabin a few hours away from the peak and it was super cool (literally, I was freezing despite the bajillion layers I was wearing). We saw the stars really well (for a few minutes before the clouds came in), and we had a fire place so we ate a really good dinner.

Day 40

We woke up early and set off to Chambe Peak. It took a few hours and honestly the SCARIEST thing I’ve ever done. We had to scramble up a really steep slope and if I looked down, I definitely would have fallen off. It was horrifying. But we made it to the top and it was so breath taking. I honestly didn’t realize how high up we were it was crazy. Kristoffer and Franklin wanted to go higher so those two set off to scale another treacherous part of the mountain while Sajel and I watched from a distance, eating our cookies and chips. We hiked back down (which was way easier than going up haha), said goodbye to our guide Davys and his team, climbed into our cab, and passed out from exhaustion. Would I do that again? Probably not. But I don’t regret it. It was a wild experience that’s for sure.

Day 27

We continued working on our project today. Since everything was all good on the breadboard, we decided to go ahead and start soldering all the components together on a PCB board so that we could start testing the accuracy of the thermistor on the skin. On the board we could only detect ambient temperature. I think I burned myself ten times with the soldering iron but it was all done. We will see how it works tomorrow. Oh we also ate at the school cafeteria today instead of our usual spot and there were no utensils so we had to eat with our hands. But it was REALLY good food.

PS Karen doesn’t really know how to eat with her hands so Kristoffer made her a makeshift spoon out of the container.

Day 28

We went to Mikos (again) and got some really REALLY good ice cream (I got a flavor that tasted very much like McDonalds soft serve). This was after I got really frustrated because the soldering was so bad that our thermistor was reading really wrong temperature readings. We spent all day trying to fix it, but in the end we just took everything apart and agreed to re-solder everything the next day. I took my frustration out when we went rock climbing that night. There is a boldering wall in a field behind a high school (kind of random) and it was so fun.

Day 29

We soldered our device once again and are hoping to see if this time, we get accurate readings (it took ALL DAY). I was really exhausted after burning my hand four times and wanted to just sleep, but we stopped at a café near our lodge. There was a poetry reading there, and it was actually really great. I’m not a huge poetry fan, but everyone that was reading a poem was from Malawi and talking about Malawi. It was really moving hearing what they had to say about their country and lives. I liked it a lot and we are definitely going again.

Day 30

Today was the last day before the three day weekend. We finally got some right numbers on our thermistor (yay thank you Matthews for helping me do a MUCH better soldering job this time). What a satisfying way to end the week and start a three day break. Hopefully next week we can start testing our device to see if it measures accurate body temperature (fingers crossed).

Day 31

We woke up early this morning and it was cold and rainy. But I was really excited because we were going to Lake Malawi! It was a five hour drive (I never get car sick but the road was so rocky at the end I almost threw up). We got to Cape McClear and passed by a bunch of SUPER PACKED lodges. I was a little worried that we would be staying at a super crowded part of the lake. But when we got to our lodge I was so happy. There was literally NO ONE there. It was quiet and empty and so pretty. And it was warm! That night was probably my favorite experience in Malawi. The five of us went to the beach right in front of our dorms and we laid down on the sand and looked at the stars for such a long time. It was so quiet and we could see parts of the Milky Way! I’ve never seen so many stars in my entire life it was amazing. It got kinda cold but we all huddled close to one another and just stargazed. It was the best.

Day 32

We got on a boat today that took us to an island off the coast. Apparently it’s a really great place to go snorkeling! I was really scared I’ve only been “snorkeling” in our pool, and the water was really choppy. ingested a lot of lake water. And I almost got hit by a boat while I was underwater. But it ended up being super awesome! We also fed eagles, and two eagles ran into each other mid air while diving for some fish it was wild.

[20 July 2018]

So much has happened this last week. It seems getting the laser cutter working triggered everything else to happen all at once!

First of all, I’ve made a lot of progress tuning the cutter and learning how to use it properly. The alignment procedure had to be repeated, but all the previous work made it go very smoothly. The cutter software, however, has been a point of much frustration! As if technical manuals weren’t obscure enough, this one is written in often unintelligible English. Well, careful experimenting with the hints provided in the manual have been working so far. The problem now, is figuring out how to balance laser power and speed, to produce a cut which can burn through a thin layer of paper, without damaging a plastic layer underneath. I’ve most of the cuts down pretty well, but the laser is determined to melt little pin-holes at all the design corners!

At the end of last week, Gloria, one of the Malawian interns working with Franklin, invited everyone over to her house for dinner! We have all really taken to the food here in general, but the chance to be a part of cooking it at someone’s home was really exciting. There were many other Malawians there, and it turned into a nice party with all of us telling stories and listening to great music together.

Alyssa and Jessie also arrived this last week, and brought lots of supplies the Polytechnic had ordered in a giant camping backpack! I wish I’d caught a photo of Francis when we went through everything – he looked like it was Christmas Day.

Over the weekend, we hiked Chombe peak at Mt. Mulanje, which can only be adequately described with photographs. Well, close, anyhow. This is such a beautiful country! It also happened to be the same weekend of the porter’s races, during which the local porters compete in a footrace from the bottom to the top of the mountain. There was a gigantic party crowded around the finish line, big speakers were blasting music, competing with people in front of colorful stalls, yelling at everyone to try this or buy that. We weaved through the packed crowd with our backpacks, following our mountain guide up past the finish line, where we saw one of the racers coming down this last foothill barefoot. Some of these porters ran barefoot! I still can’t believe it. Others still, if I understand correctly, complete the race with big packs or loads on their heads, but I didn’t see any of them. It’s incredible to think about though, that they can do in hours what we were about to do in two whole days – amazing what people can condition themselves to accomplish.

The rest of the week has been filled with attempts to cut these paper-layered plastic sheets properly. It won’t make for much of a good story, all these experiments. I am reminded now of those many days spent in the laboratory back at Rice, making the original versions. Every failed attempt (there were many) had to be met with an open mind so we could glean information from it, building little successes out of them in the form of understanding, until one day it worked. It will be so rewarding to have figured this out, and to make that first batch of good cards which could one day be used down the street at the hospital.

[10 July 2018]

After over a week of racking my brains to beat this laser cutter problem, we have our answer. By this time I’d practically memorized that maintenance manual, and had been communicating back and forth with a technician who was traveling through Thailand, by email. Email here meant walking back and forth between the Poly and Queens to mooch a connection off the CPAP office. Trying to have conversations like this made me think on how hard it must have been to get anything done before phones and telegraphs. Can you imagine waiting weeks for an answer by paper? Phone lines are amazing. I guess back before all that, you just had to resign yourself to waiting, or just figuring it out on your own.

Anyway, after all these messages back and forth, the technician and I had come to a dismal conclusion. Either the laser tube was bad – which was highly unlikely, because it had been checked before being shipped from the factory – or the power supply had failed, despite indications that it functioning just fine. Both answers were uncertain, and both meant ordering another part and probably waiting an eternity for its arrival. There was a strong chance I’d be back in the USA before anything new would come, and without a working laser cutter, no Bilispec card parts. Without these parts, no way to train the Poly in making the cards, and without those cards, no point in training Queens how to verify their function with Bilirubin standards. It seemed all of my goals were now utterly blocked, so I’d already set to figuring out where else I could lend my help instead.

Once Andrew and Francis returned from out of town, I gave them the news. Francis sent one last email to the technicians, mentioning that we probably need to order a new power supply now.

Their reply: “but what about the power supply we sent you?”

Francis ran up to the package room at the Poly and asked whether there had been a second crate for us. Sure enough, it was there. It had been upstairs the whole time! We knew both a power supply and tube had been requested in the first place, but when we’d checked for packages, we’d asked for a package. We only received one, and accepted that. There’s a lesson about assumptions in there. Also, why on Earth the clerk didn’t mention a second crate at the time? I don’t know. But there it was.

Fast forward: we’re all ecstatic, the connectors have been re-soldered, the tube is in place. We power up the machine, directing the tube at a piece of crepe paper taped before the first mirror. The laser fired. Fire. The little paper burst into a flame! Blowing that out quickly and waving off the smoke, I thought to myself I’d probably need to pick out a different test material, but the important thing was the laser cutter was now working.

What a relief!

Rock climbing again tonight. Looking forward to blowing off some steam.

[05 July 2018]

Settling down now in the Polytechnic, I have been introduced to my first challenge: the laser cutter is currently a very heavy, very expensive desk. I’ll need to get it working again, before I can make the parts we need for the Bilispec cards here. I’ve been told the laser tube has gone bad.

Truth be told, I’d never even opened the back of a laser cutter before, much less learned anything about fixing one. But I’ve got a manual, and some bright friends. We’ll just have to take it one step and a time and figure it out. We had been waiting on the laser tube to arrive for a long time; for a long while all we knew was that “it’s in Malawi.” Quite different from two-day shipping and bar-coded tracking numbers which update a tracker you can see on the web. Back home I would have had UPS on the phone and hunting around in whatever warehouse it was last scanned into, but here, we just had to wait and see. Well it arrived late last week, but of course something wouldn’t be right, or this would all be too easy! The tube appears to be a smaller diameter, and the connectors are all wrong, but we’ve been assured by the manufacturer that this is the right replacement. We’re just going to have to improvise.

After fashioning some rings to hold the tube in place, the rest of the machine still needed prepping. The water for the cooling system needed to be replaced, and tracking down distilled water was not as easy as you might expect. I’m so used to getting it at the grocery store, that I completely trusted those 5L bottles that say “distilled” on them, but they actually had more dissolved solids than some of the other drinking water! Well, we drained and flushed all of that out, and eventually found some real distilled water at a laboratory supply outlet.  Once that, the exhaust, and the compressed air systems were all up, it was time to fire the up the laser!

Powered on, the machine whirred to life, and… nada.

The laser doesn’t fire.

I’ve got a list of ideas… but it’s going to a be a fun week of troubleshooting!

On another note, last night all the Rice interns went rock climbing! Apparently the local mountaineering club put together a rock wall behind St. Andrew’s Secondary School, and every Tuesday evening they get together and climb! We were able to rent all the gear we needed and join for just a thousand kwacha, or roughly a buck and a half. It felt so good to get up there and puzzle out these routes. I really missed this sport! The physical challenge has always been fun for me, but that puzzle is the best part, I think. The steps to take are obvious – they’re color-coded even – but how you take them is everything, and there is no solution manual, no easy way out. When you’re up there, you have to feel out what your body is capable of, and after falling off the wall a dozen times, the answer can come to you in a moment of inspiration or experiment, and suddenly make everything click into place. Out on a real rock face, the top has its own reward of a beautiful view, but it’s definitely having body and mind challenged together, and having beaten that puzzle, that makes it so addicting.

27 June 2018

The weekend is over, and the safaris were unforgettable. Malawi is a beautiful country, and it’s wildlife and landscapes are both enchanting and inspiring. Of course my family was excited to hear about all the elephants and hippos, but I’m sure it’s nothing new for the Malawi blog! I would definitely recommend a visit to Majete, for anyone who finds themselves in the area, though.

My first couple of days at the Polytechnic Institute have been full of new and exciting things. First of all, I met the Poly students who have been working together with our Rice 360 team in the design studio. Day 1, everyone was already scheduled to make hospital visits outside of Blantyre, so I joined the Mathermal and Suction Device teams and we all hopped into a minibus together, bound for two district hospitals: on the first day, Zomba, and the next, Thyolo.

This was an eye-opening experience, which cannot be fully conveyed in a few small paragraphs. We really do take so much for granted, back home. Can you imagine sitting on a hospital bed in the Texas Medical Center, and being told that your temperature hasn’t been measured because the thermometer is broken, or needed in another ward? This is only a tiny example of the challenges doctors, nurses, and patients face here. Much of the way things are done seem hopelessly guided by well-worn twin ruts of under-staffing and lack of supply. These are forces which we may know of but whose consequences are nonetheless difficult to anticipate. From a problem-solving design perspective, I feel like so many of their challenges are just assumed not to exist.

This trip broke that perspective bubble for me. In these two visits to the district hospitals, we were given priceless first-hand exposure to their daily reality. The generous nurses and staff took time to discuss things at length with us, giving us insight into how things are done here, and what sort of environment, expectations, habits, and needs we were designing our devices for. The more we heard them speak, the more my belief in extensive needs-finding and local input grew. This sort of discussion was absolutely critical to good design! How many of my previous assumptions would have led me to miss what would be here a fatal design flaw? My time here was spent critically thinking about suction pumps and thermometers with the other teams, but I felt my perspective broadening in a way that will likely influence all of my future work.

I can’t wait to see more, and to learn more. This is definitely a mental change I was seeking. It’s one thing to hear about other people’s situations, and quite another to see them and talk to them directly about it. I am very thankful for this – for having the chance to open my mind this way.

It’s time to go back to the studio and get to work. Looking forward to lending a hand.

3 am is a great time for reflection. A week ago, I was able to ponder the plot to season 2 of Stranger Things. This morning I looked back on all the memories we made with the interns at the Poly. It’s such a bittersweet feeling. On one hand, I’m so happy to have met all of them. Their genuine nature and good humor brightens the environment in the studio. On the other hand, I’m regretful that our time together with them was so short. When we had dinner with the interns, Dr. Gamula (Dean of Engineering at the Poly), and some of the Poly lecturers, I looked around the table at each of them and knew they were people I wanted to see for more than just two months.

Alas, each journey has an ending point. Today we’re flying out of Chileka International Airport and heading to sunny Houston. I’m really going to miss seeing all the hand painted shop names and the minibuses crowding together. Really, I’m going to miss the friends we made. There’s my team, Nafe and Isaac, who have such hardworking attitudes when it comes to every aspect of projects. They’re unafraid to try new things and have sometimes truly ingenious ideas. Isaac had ingenious ways of designing the device and would always think of new improvements. Nafe’s zeolite experimentation actually gave us the push we needed in writing our regeneration procedures.

The other interns also have a special place in my heart. There’s Alfred, who has a way of making any story a captivating adventure, and Gloria, who has the most contagious laugh I have ever heard. There’s Taonga, who’s one of those people that says hilarious things without ever meaning to, and Demobrey, who has as much music smarts as he does academic. Finally there’s Matthews, who takes care of everyone like an older brother, and Timothy, who is definitely going to be a CEO one day. As much as we were all working together, I think I learned more from the interns than I ever expected.

I’d like to think goodbyes are only temporary. The world is only as big as we try to make it. With Whatsapp and the internet, I’m sure this isn’t the last that we will hear from the Poly interns and it definitely won’t be the last time I visit Malawi. My two months in the warm heart of Africa have been truly eye-opening. I’m so thankful to have had the opportunity to do this internship and that’s largely due to the support of the Rice 360 donors who made this trip possible. I’m glad to have support from these donors as well as the Rice 360 staff who have prepped us so well.

Thank you for following my journey these few weeks. Zikomo kwambili, tionana! (Thank you, see you later!)