Building began Friday, with cutting of the metal. We are still on schedule, and should be done with building by mid-next week. Once the frame is welded together, we will be able to conduct testing as to its effectiveness compared to the flocculator in the lab.

This weekend we planned a trip to go hiking in Zomba, on the mountain. The president has a residence on the mountain, and it was very scenic driving up as many old houses and trees were along the road. Apparently, Zomba used to be the old capital of Malawi and thus has a more historical feel to it compared to Blantyre. Once higher up on the mountain, we saw many people selling raspberries, which was exciting. We ended up filling a one-gallon zip lock bag with them before leaving. Once on the hike, I got very confused all of a sudden, as I started to smell pine trees and see pine needles all over the ground, as if I were back in New England. Our guide told us that these trees were imported and grown for the lumber industry. It was certainly a strange landscape, seeing pine trees in the sub-tropics and raised the question of how common a practice it has become to import foreign trees for logging. Next week, we should be able to finish building our apparatus and maybe even go out for a water collection.