The project

Alrighty! In Africa I found one should just expect the unexpected. We didn't have enough rooms for all the guys so we had to be moved around, but I finally was able to settle into the room I'm in. What is kind of awesome is that all the college kids actually are very expectable. My partner and I share very similar humor and everyone is so funny. I'm also learning how to say GURLLL in Setswana (you know, the important things). But I'll have a separate post about people later.

So the project. My partner Hendrick (Dricky) and I are working on analyzing the wind flow in Botswana and the feasibility of wind energy as a sustainable resource. We've set up two fans on long poles to log data to see what the wind patterns are like and the velocity of it.

Our data logger continuously takes data on wind velocity and gust

Dricky and I under the wind logger

Doing some work.

Dricky and I are also working with Dr. Mpholo from the landlocked country of Lesotho. He has a PhD in EE from Cambridge and is a professor in Lesotho. He travels to Upenn frequently and it's pretty neat listening to him talk about his wind research and travels. I'll try to take an awkward photo of him and post it haha.

The first two days has just been trying to set the wind loggers up and get the software working. Tomorrow is our third day and we'll be doing some reading and research on theory as well as figuring out how much energy is actually consumed in a typical building in Gaborone. We're slowly getting our work done and set up.

The people and culture seem pretty relaxed here (or it's just us lazy college kids). Things are a bit slowed down, but everyone is extremely intelligent. The change is really different from American culture, but yet it's extremely similar. People like Game of Thrones, the NBA, WWE, and TAYLOR SWIFT. YES. MY PARTNER LIKES TAY TAY. We're feeling 22.

So that's pretty much the intro to the next month of my life, and I've not had this much fun in a really long time. It's really empowering and makes me think that if there is something that needs to be done even globally, we really should just invest the time and effort to go do it. The world is vast and I'm happy my first stop outside of the United States (Canada doesn't count) is in Africa. There is so much to see and life is only worth living if you are grounded in how you relate with all life and people everyone. Well, with my 2 cents of wisdom I'll talk to you guys later!

I leave you with a picture of a grumpy technician who called me a woman because I couldn't bend metal with my bare hands like he could.

"You are a ngwanyana"

PST MAYNE.