A team of four students from Polytechnic University: Doreen Thotho, Isaac Mwalabu, Bwanali Benesi and myself left Malawi for Houston Texas on Saturday, September 29th, 2018. We arrived in Houston in the afternoon of September 30th, we met Dr Veronica Leautaud at the house she rented for us. It’s the best house I have ever lived in.
On Monday Dr Leautaud picked us to meet the people in her office, what amazing people they are, we were welcomed with such smiles, that made us feel so comfortable amongst them. From the look of things these people already incorporated us into their family even before our arrival. We were then grouped into two teams: Doreen and I making one team that is supervised Dr Megan and Chloe, Bwanali and Isaac in the other team that is supervised by Jack and Grant. Our work from Monday through Thursday was more of reading the project descriptions and meeting our team supervisors to give us more insight about our projects.
Friday, we didn’t work because our office was being moved to the 9th floor of the BioScience Research Collaborative building, so we went to buy groceries for our cooking at home instead. In the evening the Houston Interns who came to Malawi welcomed us with a dinner. It was so exciting to meet these guys again. Houston was already becoming home in all thing except the weather which was a little not friendly but now we have adjusted.
Saturday morning, we took a tour to the museum of Natural Science with Kareen and Angela (Rice students). In the evening wisdom Seeker (Houston Malawian) visited us. It was nice to meet someone in USA with whom we spoke in Chichewa (Malawian language), it was a great evening we shared so many stories of back home and he told us much about Houston.