This week we started lab work from the previous weeks soil samples we collected in the field. I haven’t been in a lab in 3 years and haven’t done chemistry in 6. So this was a bit of a re-learning experience for me.
We met our lab technicians and discovered them all to be very friendly. Unfortunately we didn’t understand the conversation as they consulted amongst each other, discussing the best way to fulfill the tests we needed to carry out. But hey! I greatly appreciated the effort they were putting in for me. Then a senior technician walked into the room and to my surprise began consulting with us in near perfect English. He said we would normally need much more time to carry out the tests we needed too. After this fairly bleak assessment it was easy to feel disheartened, and after the first day we had only managed to prepare the soil samples for testing – and not actually carry out any tests.
However, on the second day things began to really speed up. We right away began multiple experiments at once and as it turns out, having a good workplan laid out really helps moving things along. By the end of the week we had gotten all the experiments finished that we needed to, which was just in time because it is time to head back out to the field again for more samples.