Good morning to all of my wonderful, loyal blog post readers! I’m currently sitting at my gate at the airport, waiting to board my flight home. What a privilege it was to look back and say I spent the last 11 weeks of my life living in such a wonderful country. There were so many laughs and smiles, and also tough mental challenges to get through along the way. The project I was working on wrapped up in such a fulfilling way, and I’m so excited to share.
First, I want to wrap up my work with MEDevice Kenya. It was such an amazing environment to be in, coming in every morning and making sure we all say good morning, eating lunch with everyone, and never feeling uncomfortable when asking for help. I had a one-on-one relationship with my supervisor, so, even when it started to feel a little lonely working on my project by myself, I always had her to turn to and discuss my decisions. Since I last wrote, I was able to get my second round of prototypes completed and printed using a resin printer. This provided me with the highest resolution prototype for a second round of testing. High resolution with low surface roughness was incredibly important to the success of a suction device attachment that is trying to mitigate clogging. While there were some bumps along the way in getting these prototypes completed and turned over, the tests that were performed with them provided very impressive results. I was able to get a test result that showed no clogging (zero, zilch, nada) compared to the commonly used suction tip! This was such a relieving result because it really just proved all of the hard work I did this summer was actually going to make a difference for clinicians here in Kenya, which is the dream! My deliverables were a functioning prototype, a final report, and a presentation to clinicians. The final presentation went so good, which was also so relieving. I had 2 orthopedic surgeons, a mechatronics professor, as well as all of my coworkers, come and listen to me present my work from this summer. I could’ve talked for an hour plus about it, but I had to make sure I cut it down to just enough important parts that would keep my audience engaged. By the end of the presentation, we had a great discussion about its application and potential uses in Kenya, the benefits of my design, and more clinical insight into the issues they face. Overall, the best part of that presentation was the feedback I got from the ortho surgeons; they explained that they felt heard and that the design I presented to them captured the issues they face. They were eager to move forward with the design, working with the company to get it implemented into healthcare systems within Kenya. Overall, I had a very successful 11 weeks of research, designing, prototyping, and testing. My abilities and ambitions to be a problem-solution oriented biomedical engineer have been cemented and reaffirmed.
Life! The life part outside of work has also been such a blast in these couple of weeks since I’ve written. I went back to the Toi market to dig through some more clothes and get a bag to have room to travel with all of my new goodies from Kenya. I went with my buddy Alex, who I met through the ISEED program, who is a Kenyan native and knew how to navigate the market. He commended my bargaining skills. I played a couple more rounds of golf, one with the husband of the head of MEDevice, who was around the office occasionally throughout the summer; we had quickly discovered we both played golf and made a pact to play a round together before I left, and we did just that! It was a nice round, with a warthog having lunch in the middle of the course! Eating more good food with my roommates and walking around the city was how we spent many of our last days, but the highlight of the last few weeks, maybe even the whole summer, was this past Thursday. I dragged my roommates and even some of my coworkers to the Kenya vs. Angola national team soccer game. What a time that was! The stadium was alive with passion for the game, everyone praying, hoping, chanting for their Harambee Stars to come out on top. That was the most scintillating 1-1 draw I have ever had the pleasure of watching. We were sitting in the second row from the field, so we got to see the action pretty close. All of that for $3.50! That was an awesome way to wrap up my time in Kenya, experiencing something I’ve had a passion for since I was a little boy.
I’ve learned a lot about myself and the world in my time away from home. Nearly 3 months away from my family and friends has been one of the most challenging things I’ve had to do in my whole life. I realized how important interacting physically with the people I have handpicked to be in my life is to me, and I’m so excited to get back to them, at least for a short time, before I move to Houston! I already knew I enjoyed learning languages, but learning one I knew nothing about all summer was a lot of fun. Starting from scratch and just learning the most I can from talking to as many people as possible got me a lot farther in my Swahili than I would’ve ever imagined. Everyone here also loves to chat, which I tried my best to take advantage of. Learning any tidbits of the lives of my Uber drivers or coworkers was important to me to give me insight into how people live halfway across the globe. I have learned that, even with such different lives we lead, we are all so similar in human nature. Survive, provide, have fun. I’m proud of the friends and connections I’ve made along the way, through all of the experiences this summer, even if some were out of my comfort zone. You’re only uncomfortable until you put yourself in that situation and you learn you can come out just the same or even more well rounded after, expanding those comfort boundaries. I’m going to miss the cheap, delicious fruit, all of the friendly smiles and hellos, the abundance of cheap ride options, and the diversity of life offered by immersing myself into a new society. I plan to keep in touch with some people I’ve met along the way, and hopefully see the project through to production! That’s a wrap on my GMI summer 2025 experience!
