Chemicals????

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I spent the afternoon looking around the lab for chemicals I needed for a specific test...and failed miserably...they are in the process of remodeling the building and everything is scattered everywhere. I enlisted the help of a UNIVEN grad student, and the two of us set out on a campus wide hunt for the chemicals....after an hour or two of rummaging through store rooms and boxes and the occasional bright red "Biohazard bag" ("Don't worry Jim...its not REAL biohazard"....I have no idea what "real biohazard" means but even the fake stiff makes me nervous...I decided that the chemicals probably weren't in the bag and set it aside uninspected). We eventually concluded that the chemicals were not in the microbiology department and moved on to the chemistry department.

The student led me outside to a solid wooden door set into the side of the building's foundation. Taped to the center and 2/3 of the way up was a horizontal sheet of white-lined paper with the word "CHEMISTRY" written on it in faded black marker. We knocked and tryed the handle only to find it locked. As we began to walk away we heard a rasping cough and a chair sliding acorss cement within, and several seconds later the door opened. A cloud of cigarrette smoke came billowing out and I barely caught a glimpse of a white lab coat disapearing back into the darkenss. The student and I made our way inside. Standing behind the desk was a thin woman in a white lab coat. Her hair was grey and cut in a sort of mulet-ish way, spiked haphazardly on top and long in the back. She had on a white labcoat, or atleast it used to be white, it was covered in a painters pallet of earthtone stains and smears. She was defintly the source of the smoke, and as she put a cigarette to her lips I caught a glimpse of her teeth...one yellow square, one yellow triangle...right in the middle of her mouth. She put the chipped tooth to good use, inserting the filter of her cigarrette into the notch for safe keeping and extended her now free hand...."Loucille." As I shook it she brought her right temple to her shoulder on the same side and squeezed my hand a little too hard...

"Hi, I'm Jim Heckman and I'm" (shitting my pants, while maintaining my best "Impress the adult in authorty tone") "working with the Dept of Microbiology. I was wondering if I could use some of your chemicals."

"Ahhh...and where are you from"

"The US....Virginia...Medical School" barely got it out

"Thats near Kentucky. How is Kentucky? Niiiice?"

"I've actually never been, I've been close though...its about 6 hours from me"

to the grad student.." Johannesburg is three hours from here isn't it? And he's never been six to Kentucky"

Before I could say anything she asks me what kind of research I'm doing...so I tell her

"Looking at the causes of Anemia in kids under 5"

"And what causes it"

"Well..malnutrition, hookworms and maybe H. Pylori, at least thats what we're looking at"

"None of those things cause anemia..." She removed the cigarrette from its snaggle..."You're in medical school...you shoudl know that Malnurition causes Anemia in children..."

"Yeah...I...wait" no time

"This is Africa....things here are different than in the US where everything is available hand and foot...what do you need.."

I was quickly falling through the cracks in this conversation and was glad she had returned, however abruptly, to my main goal...so I gave her a quick list of the chemicals I needed....

She finished her cigarette, removed a freshone from the pack on her desk, lit up, "Lets see what we have in the other room.." took a monster drag and exhaled, using the cloud of soke to indicate exactly where the other room was.

She walked past us and we followed her into The Ohter Room which was in fact a windlowless basement full of chemicals dating back to the early 1930's. There were several overflowing buckets collecting water leaking from pipes in the ceiling and an odor I'm sure wasn't healthy. She stalked about the rows and rows of chemicals picking them up, shaking her head, muttering and slamming them back down...smoking all the while...I began to wonder if any of these were flammible and if so...how many were "REAL flammible"...at one point she slammed a bottle down on the shelf thinking it was closed like all the others...she was wrong and a geyser of bright red liquid squirted all over her lab coat (another color of the rainbow), her shoes, and the floor. She gave me and the spilled a chemical a pay-no-mind look and went on her way....

tis went on for about 20 min and eventually she found what I needed. She loaded a assorment of bottles into my arms. "Now. Go heal the World." She pushed the student and I out the door and it shut behind us.


I'm going home now to take a hot shower and wonder where the hell this woman came from.

Everything is going wonderfully and I have a bunch of handwritten letters that are going out this friday to those I promised...

Jimmy

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Comments

[Kelly Holderness, NH]

great blog entry
Wow, that is one of the best blog entries from all of your travels thus far. I like the short story installments. Thanks for the updates... it all sounds very challenging, yet cool.

[Sean Durgin]

Hey Jim
Sounds like you are doing some good work over there Jim. Can't wait to hear your stories when you get back.