ABOUT MYSELF
I am Chris Dzuwa from the Republic of Malawi. I study Structural Engineering at the Malawi Polytechnic. I am so excited to be present at the Rice 2017 SEED summer program as this will expose me to different people with different skills. I left Malawi on the 10th of July, just after having my final exam paper the previous day.
FIRST SEED WEEK BEGINS
Monday
Our week started on Monday, June 12th, 2017. I was introduced to Rice and Brazilian students. In total, the team was comprised of 15 students from different disciplines, the majority being mechanical engineering students. I made friends with Caz, Kalen, Jake, all from the USA. Our first activity involved having a campus tour and i enjoyed the experience. We visited several places around the campus. Rice is very different from the Malawi Poly both in size and activities. The campus at the Malawi Polytechnic is 4 times smaller than Rice as such no buses are available to take students around the campus.In the afternoon of Monday, we visited the Houston Zoo just to have fun. I enjoyed the experience again and it was so refreshing.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, the whole schedule for the summer program was presented to us by Dr. Wetter green. The program is expected to run for 7 weeks and the break down of activities for every week was presented in detail. Around 4.00 pm, we did Cultural presentations. Everyone was given the opportunity to talk about their country and i am glad i did. I explained about the small culture in Malawi, i.e. How people interact with each other at a family or community level, friends, the kind of food they eat and what gives them entertainment. What i liked most is the Brazilian food called ‘Feijoada’, it looks so appetizing to me.
Picture showing Feijoada
Wednesday
On Wednesdays, we were given a task about the Okapi, an African animal whose habitation is North of the DRC. The picture below shows an Okapi.
Thursday
What i liked most about this day was the game we started our day with. Someone had to say a word and you had to write what you heard from that person. It turned out that a lot of people grasped a little about what their friends said. We continued the day with activities like brainstorming ideas for the Okapi enrichment device.
The Weeks ends in style
As i am writing this, it is Friday, June 16th . Our day started with blogging, exactly what i am doing now. Mmmmh!, yea this is great. I believe today will be great. During my second weekend in Texas, i want to spend my time at the Houston zoo and will possibly have a tour around the city.