A successful outing

Today I had a successful day. Nothing big was achieved, although it was a fairly good day at school. The success came in the form of a shopping trip.

Our current IPC unit has an extensive list of resources needed, one of which is PH testing strips. When I was at school I'm fairly sure we called it litmus paper. There were a few alternatives, but they are quite complex, so if I could find what I needed it would be good.
Not having easy access to a science teaching supply store, I thought that a medical supply store might just have what we needed. So, this afternoon, I headed out on my trusty moto to the area known to some of us as "pharmacy corner". Yes, there are literally dozens of pharmacies and medical equipment stores all located on the same couple of city blocks. I tried a couple of smaller places without success (no doubt hampered by my lack of Khmer language) and then a bigger pharmacy. Still no luck, so I headed down the street a couple of stores and walked into a place with a name that seemed to have good potential. A young man opened the door for me and offered to help, but litmus paper just wasn't working. When I talked about testing acid and alkaline, another young man behind the counter seemed to know exactly what I was looking for, and told the first young man where to find it.

Hooray! It seems like a small thing, but finding this will make our unit of inquiry that much more interesting for the students and definitely simpler for the teachers. Yes, that's what I'd call a successful outing!

Cambodian Ingenuity

A few weeks ago I was tidying my office at home, when I managed to snap all the supports on my stacking paper trays. This was very sad as part of the support remained inside the tray and I couldn't get it out, while I had no way of separating the trays (they weren't the kind that lock together.

Today I purchased some new trays, thinking I could use the old ones at school in situations where I didn't need them to stack, but needed to keep stuff together. Anyway, when I got home I had an idea, and so I headed to the hardware section of the local market, with sample in hand. I showed a few people what I wanted and a few said no, so I keep looking. Anyway, one man pointed me across the aisle to a lady who was selling all kinds of hinges, and door fittings. She very quickly found some door hooks which were exactly the right diameter, pulled out a pair of bolt cutters and chopped of the ends to the correct length. Perfect, so I got her to do another seven. I probably paid foreigner price for it, but it was worth it to be able to use the file trays properly, saving valuable bench space in the classroom, and these won't snap in a hurry!