The young man began to deal with the new coronavirus when China reached the peak of the disease. "I was invited to be part of the range of specific workers in Sars-Cov-2 sample analysis. I remember that the company received around five thousand samples per day and I worked there for a month, 12 hours a day, depending on the work flow", he told, in an interview to Jornal de Angola.
It was not long before requests for help from African countries arrived. The team traveled to Gabon, Togo and Benin to start installing testing laboratories.
"When I was in Togo working at the beginning of June, my story was published in the Chinese press. The Angolan ambassador to China was the first to hear about it, and then he contacted me to congratulate me and find out how I was doing", he reveals.
It wasn't long before requests for interviews appeared in the angolan press, which brought his name to the Ministry of Health: "Then I received a call from the Minister of Health, Silvia Lutucuta, expressing interest in my life journey, as well as the project we developed in some African countries in the fight against the new coronavirus. After contacts with the heads of my company, the partnership was established to install the same project of laboratories here in the country, where we are to date".
"It is an honor to lead the installation of Covid-19 laboratories in my country, the land that saw me born and where my family and friends live. It's different to provide the same service in Gabon, Togo and China. It's a great responsibility, I've been under constant stress, but everything will be fine," he admitted.
According to the young man, the Ministry of Health has acquired five laboratories, two of which will be in Luanda and the rest will be set up in Uíje and Lunda Norte.
"At least one of the permanent laboratories in Luanda is already concluded and will probably be inaugurated later this week, leaving only the assembly of the equipment and the training process for local staff," he told the newspaper Jornal de Angola, adding that the team in Angola is composed of nine people, but only Valdemar Tchipenhe is angolan.
The young man also revealed that since he arrived in Angola he has not been able to visit his family yet. "Due to the work I do, my company does not allow me to have contact at this stage, in order to avoid the contagion of the virus. And even after finishing the work I don't know if I will have the opportunity to see them personally. The alternative has been contact by telephone and social networks," he explained.
Affirmed that this disease has brought "a lot of sadness to the world", the young man admitted that he is learning a lot from this experience and that this learning will stay with him for life. "Today I have the notion of what it is like to be in the front line of a pandemic, how to lead a team and, above all, the recognition of people," he said.
Valdemar Tchipenhe moved to China in 2014 to pursue studies: "Everything happened in late 2013, after finishing high school in Physical and Biological Sciences, in the 2nd Cycle School (Puniv) of Sumbe. My name was on the institution's honor roll, as one of the best students, and as a reward, I was awarded a scholarship from the National Institute of Scholarship Management to attend higher education in the People's Republic of China, where I arrived in 2014 at the age of 17".
The young man admitted that if he had stayed in Angola he might not have achieved the same academic and professional success. "Traveling to China was the best decision I made," he said, pointing out that he managed to create connections with various people and languages.
The adaptation phase was not easy, he revealed, admitting that it took some time to get acquainted with the climate, food, culture and teaching structure of the Asian country.
The language was one of the great obstacles, he added. "I studied for one year at Tongji University, located in Shanghai, to learn the Chinese language, Mandarin. I confess that six years after I arrived in China, I still don't speak Mandarin fluently. It is a very complex language, especially writing and pronunciation. After completing my language training, I was sent to Zhejiang Normal University in Jinhua, where I graduated in Biotechnology for four years," he said.
As for the return to his country, Valdemar admits that this is a possibility that is on the table. However, for now he will stay in 'stand-by', since the young man intends to work for two more years in the company where he is currently "to gain more experience" and when he finishes his contract he intends to "travel to Japan or England to do master's and doctorate".
