Days are numbering, clock is ticking, home is calling.. Time to say goodbye to Houston. Goodbye to OEDK; you have been so wonderful no wonder you have always been a place we loved to spend most of our time in. Thank you for being so friendly during the entire period we have been with you; there is no single intern who has sustained any injury or hurt by any of the tools that you have.. Goodbye to Houston’s amazing places; places we have visited, and have not yet visited; just remember that you are on my list. By amazing places I mean places like Rice Village, Museum of Natural science, Houston Zoo, Aquarium, NASA, etc. I don’t have all the time to mention places like the Rice Recreation Centre, (the home of swimming, gym, basketball, American soccer, etc..), the beautiful stadiums where we watched Houston Astros play Pittsburgh Pirates in a baseball game, and Houston Dynamos play New York Red-Bulls in a football game, the restaurants, the Rice University Campus.. I don’t think photos alone can capture and/or explain this whole experience; I don’t think I can make a good tour guide.

I don’t know if I already told you that I went to NASA; I don’t know if it was this week or last week or some weeks ago. The NASA Trip memories are just so fresh that a day can hardly go without thinking of NASA. But one thing I remember is that the day after our NASA Trip, Dr Douglas Schuller, an Associate Professor of Business and Public Policy at Rice; (Jones Graduate School of Business), took us out to the nearest Mexican restaurant for Lunch. We basically tasted every dish that was on the menu that day. The food tasted more like our Malawian food, no wonder we were reminded of home.

Can I talk about food once more? On Saturday afternoon, Malawians living in Houston organised a farewell party for us. This was another amazing time. Ask what two things that spiced up this day and I will talk of Malawian local food, the crazy dance by RICE interns, the sharing of experiences,  swimming competition, braii,..

Thank you so much for the hospitality and the support. Goodbye!

Again on Sunday, it was awesome bidding farewell to Lakewood Church for being a part of the family during the time we were in Houston. How time flies, can’t believe we have spent seven weeks here. It just looks like we have just spent a week or so.

 

 

Anyway, this has not only been the week for bidding farewell to Houston, at SEED it has been all about project implementation. It’s been a week of building and/or testing the devices, making necessary documentation, Presentation. Simply put, it’s time to harvest what we sowed. As team Ring the Decibels, we are so glad our efforts have paid off; the device works just fine. Documentation was so important in our team as we plan to make this open source, so that anyone anywhere can produce similar devices or make improvements on this by simply following through the instructables. The goal is to make all the necessary steps as simple and as clear as possible, that even a layman should be able to develop a working device at the comfort of their homes. So far, we have made six devices; five of which Dr Wettergreen plans to take to Malawi, and one will remain in the OEDK for the lab technicians/Assistants can replicate.

 

 

Indeed this was the week where  every team worked tirelessly in the kitchen to make sure what they were preparing was well cooked. Thanks to Adulfo and Grant, our Teaching Assistants who gave themselves fully to helping the teams that still had difficulties figuring out where to go and/or how to get out of what seemed to be “the dead end”. Apart from spending the entire weekend in the OEDK, they usually went home after 7 pm, for the sake of polishing up the prototypes.

Final things final. So we had our final SEED lunch right after the project presentations.  Various groups of people attended the presentations to witness what SEED 2019 has brought on the table. I love what Dr Wettergreen, “SEED has been there for ten years now, but the goal remains the same: to build people and build projects”. I believe this is not the end but the beginning of a new chapter of developing more projects even as our teaming skills are being built up. It’s time to do more, explore more, give out more. Challenges are bound to come, but that should not stop us from moving forward working on projects we have little knowledge about. The goal becomes more clear along the way of pursuing it. After the presentations, we had our final SEED lunch. I will certainly miss these moments where we ate together, and joked about food; the prominent joke being how  subjective the definition of lunch is!

To the Huffs, thanks so much for the support and encouragement. I admire your passion and commitment towards the projects. I don’t know if this would be good time to say goodbye. I just hope we will keep in touch

Kind regards

Clement