Soap-making fast, internet slow..

AT LAST! My name can be up there with Bear Grills, Ray Mears and Crocodile Dundee-soap from the most basic of materials and simplest of methods has been achieved. Not that I am claiming the invention, I’m just pretty chuffed I managed it.
Initially i had hoped to make soap from banana skins but this wasn’t as simple as first thought. First of all, unless I turned into the banana version of BubbaGump (banana salad, banana cocktail, banana soup...) I was never going to eat enough bananas. Secondly, storing all the banana skins was leading to my own fly farm and thirdly (and most importantly), the villages that we go to don’t have access to bananas. In fact, there was not much around in the way of fruit.
What the villages do have a lot of is hardwood ash. Mapani wood is used to fuel the fires and also gives off a wonderful incense like scent. We also use this wood on clinic to cook our food and so I have been collecting this once cooled to experiment with back at base.
After a few conconctions, some hard learnt lessons about fumes and some good luck I finally made a brown, pretty solid soap! If anyone wants the recipe, email me or message on the blog and I will send it. I have had to work in the very scientific cups for measuring to be able to replicate this in the bush but definitely hoping to develop this when I get back.
I passed my new found knowledge on to a group of 16 year old Zambian school kids. This was a very different teaching experience; the language barrier, the children are ridiculously well behaved and also they have not had any science lessons at this point in their education. However, what they lack in science knowledge they more than made up for in insight asking me great questions about health. I started with a deep breath knowing that science is a cruel mistress and may not work on demand. Once those frothy bubble came about, the kids were more than impressed and I could stop sweating! The school kids are now thinking of setting up a little enterprise, making soap for the village shop so hopefully they will learn business skills too. It’s exciting for me to see the project being taken on and developed by the kids.
My next group is going to be community health workers. These are people who are nominated to help the community to be healthy and as a port of call when someone is sick. Hopefully they are not too disappointed when they find out we are making soap and not soup, like they did last time (the home economics teacher turned up).

Update Part III: Science Girl in Zambia

So update nearly over! I am writing these posts from Livingstone, Zambia where I will be based for the next 6 months. All will become clear....
I have been given a great opportunity to take a leave of absence from my post-doc to work for a medical charity called On Call Africa (www.oncallafrica.org.uk) . This charity will provide mobile medical clinics, health education and try to improve the links with government, district offices and the rural medical outposts that we will be working in. My role will be to provide a basic lab facility which will function by using rapid tests. Not having a huge understanding of these tests, diseases, conditions it’s going to be a huge learning curve. I will be updating the charity website so if you want to find out more about that then please check it out. A lot of these villages are extremely remote and are very limited with regards to resources. A village I visited yesterday (Mapatezia) is only a 6 hour drive from a bustling city with shops and restaurants but because the “road” is so poor and transport is non-existant, little can get in or out, including soap. This is important as we want to provide health education so this is where my chemistry knowledge comes in. Well, I should be more honest than that..my chemistry have-a-go attitude and contacts. Through the networking breakfast, I have been put in touch with two chemists, studying PhDs in St Andrews. They are also establishing their soap making company, Darcy & Lola.
Over the next few months I hope to be updating you with my science adventures, as I try, with the generous help of Su and Lisa from Darcy & Lola, develop a soap using as basic materials as I can. Experiment number one: can I make potassium hydroxide out of banana skins and what can I contain it in? Remember everything has to be recreated in the villages so nipping down to Maramba market to get a stainless steel pot is out. Have a good think, you have time as internet access is not so easy. Then let me know your suggestions!

Update Part II: Science and the (Glasgow) City

A previous blog or two, I mentioned that, as part of IYC 2011, myself and some colleagues would be attempting to host a networking breakfast for women. It was a great success, we did get the freebies from the RSC as well as veet, tunnocks wafers, IYC badges, Glasgow nail files....Although our internet link with the University of Limerick failed, our own presentation and workshops (Women in Business and Women in Interdisciplinarity) were very successful.
Originally, we had thought we could get 250 people to come, then we cut it to 100 after some advice and costs. Seven days before ‘show time’ we only had 6 people sign up to it. Six. [Insert small panic.] Disappointingly not one of those 6 was a female academic from our own institution. After an aggressive advertising campaign, we had 96 people signed up by the end of the week and we breathed a huge sigh of relief-re-enactments from The Apprentice avoided. We did get a female academic attending for a brief while but what I don’t understand is why was it so difficult to get people to come. Was it because of the dreaded word ‘networking’ or was it because it was advertised as a ‘woman’s event? I personally loved the idea of women trying to support each other or just celebrating their position as a woman in science. Although every feedback form gave high praise some revealed that they would have preferred if there had been a similar event with men. Another said “this event has not changed anything.” What was the expectation? Overall, I think the workshops and discussion groups highlighted the problems that women felt they faced (some even admitted that we contributed to) and areas where action needed to be taken so maybe that has changed something. A discussion to generate an initiative and support is much better than an initiative on its own.

Update Part I: TerrificChem!

It’s been a while I know but where to start? It’s been a ridiculously awesome two months for science, girls and rocks! I will start at the beginning, with part one, which is the adventure of PacificChem 2010.
Once every five years this heeowwge conference is held and I had drawn the short straw and was forced to go to Hawai’i to attend it. Slightly overwhelming, approximately 250, 000 people attend this conference and are treated to great science, entertainment in the name of science and the opportunity to pop down to the beach between lectures.
I saw one of my science heroes, Prof Stephen Lippard, deliver a lecture with the backdrop of Waikiki beach. I had a sore face from smiling at him like he was Mother Theresa-I must have looked deranged but he seemed perfectly used to it. Quote of the conference :“My aim is to cure just even one person of cancer before I leave this planet.”
I could go on and I will drop stories in throughout my blogs no doubt (just to rub it in your safety specs!) but one chance encounter did leave me thinking...I bumped into an old colleague (who will be endearingly called The Nefarious Dr L ) and we decided to catch up over dinner with his other workmates. He now has a fantastic job in a sun soaked country and living his science dream. Upon trying to find out how he bagged this job, he said it was due to networking. Deciphered, this meant going out on the lash at conferences with lecturers. Now there is no doubt that The Nefarious Dr L is extremely intelligent and deserves said job but could I ever find myself in the same position; getting gin soaked with Prof Lippard to build a bond, pardon the pun? In short no, I don’t think so and don’t think I’m about to go on tirrade about women should allowed to get drunk and not get judged, not at all, but maybe there could be some sort of other opportunities to build relationships for those that cant hold their liquor- is it possible? Or is a wee imbibement required to let the PPE come off and really get to know the ones you want to work with? And that leads me nicely to installment number two...Women Sharing a Chemical Moment in Time: Glasgow.