Bearings, bevel gears, and burrs; Oh my!

Bearings, bevel gears, and burrs; Oh my!

Yesterday (the 3^rd), was a big day for the team. First, we went to AfES to meet with the team that works there. During this meeting we also brought up how our team will not be able to start a new five-year partnership in Malawi due to financial constraints. Daniel was beyond understanding of the situation and expressed that he was sad we would not be able to continue working together in the long term. However, we will continue to stay in touch with AfES since we have a long history and a strong partnership together. Daniel and the team will meet again a few more times before we leave. We got to hear all about the new projects that have been starting like the beekeeping project near Lake Malawi. It was great to hear that their impact in Malawi has been growing!

After meeting with AfES, Daniel and the team went to meet with the AfES Committee and the Chief in Kumponda for the first time. Some of the committee members were not able to be there since there was also a funeral that same day. During the meeting we explained to the community our goals for the trip and we asked about the borehole and adding the generator to the maize mill. The committee said that the borehole was working well and no one has been sick from drinking the water. They also expressed that they liked the new addition of the generator but they mainly emphasized how they really want the maize mill to be finished on this trip. Once the meeting was complete, part of the team got the maize mill from Mr. Masamba’s (the head of the committee) house while the other half started testing the borehole water with the Petrifilms and the test kit the team made in country (Thanks cultural education team!!)

After the short visit to the community we continued our search for the conical burrs that we need for the maize mill design. We drove around Blantyre and the surroundings visiting store after store. Every time we visited a store we were given a recommendation on another place to look but none had burrs. We went back to the lodge feeling a little defeated.

The next day was dedicated entirely to finding the burrs and the other miscellaneous materials that we needed. We started with our usual pattern of store, rejection, recommendation. At one machinist shop that someone recommended that we visit, we split up. Emma, Maggie, and Anthony waited to talk to the boss and JoJo, Liz, and I went to purchase some bearings from store we had visited earlier. At the bearing store, we met the very kind semi-retired owner. Although we had asked other employees there earlier about the burrs, we decided to give it another shot. He began calling some friends and was unable to locate where we could get any burrs; however, he said that if we knew a company where they could order them from for us they would do that. Luckily enough we had found a website that sold them the night before and we gave them the company’s phone number. The company picked up right away (note: we tried calling a bunch of times but they didn’t pick up.. we must have been doing it wrong) and had only one kind of burr in stock………. and it was perfect!!

With our quest for the burr finally complete we celebrated with some spicy Malawian chips that the owner offered us and headed to the machinist to give him our designs for some parts to be machined. He invited us in the back of his shop and we followed him around as he looked for some old parts that he could reuse for us. Miraculously he found pieces that were the exact right size to be the casing for the burrs that we bought earlier! We decided that his store must be magical because he always seems to have what we need.  

We were so relieved that we found the burrs and once we got home Jojo and Anthony celebrated with some bubblegum milk from Shoprite (the milk tasted like Altoids).  

-Torrey and the Team