The World's Fair

As mentioned earlier, I'll be heading off to Africa soon to do some experiments and teach a workshop. One of the more interesting challenges, we face from the get go, is how to deliver the reagents in a manner so that we can ensure their arrival, and also worry less about things like stability of the reagents themselves (i.e. can we keep the stuff cold, and how long will it take to get there).

It's funny, but most people who do this sort of thing simply tell me that the best way is to take it as one of your carry on luggage, and (I quote) "hope for the best." The reasons for this are many, but let me describe my previous experience so that you get the gist.

Firstly, courier or cargo routes are not really an option. Not because the material won't get there, but because it'll take an inordinately long time to get there. For example, I once shipped a box of reagents (about the size of a stack of 5 CDs) to Lagos - because the estimated time of arrival was anywhere between 3 to 6 days (it took 4), I had to pack the box with enough dry ice to last the trip. This ended up making the box pretty big, pretty heavy, plus the fact that dry ice is technically a "dangerous good" and well... the price for doing this just escalated (I think it ended up around the US$300 to 400 mark).

However, even when it did arrive, it took a few days for customs to notify us, and then, there was the bribing (the asking price of which progressively got smaller and smaller each day that passed).

Luckily, I had took heed of the aforementioned advice and had prepared one for carry on (with one of those freezer pack thingys). This "plan B" box was what we ended up using, and it was surprisingly easy - maybe shockingly too easy, to take on the plane. Essentially, I just made a mention of the box when checking in, waved a letter that I had drafted explaining the situation, and asked if they wanted to see the novella size booklet of Material Safety Data Sheets (they didn't). That was it - no questions ask!

Now, there wasn't anything hazardous in the box per se (it had things like antibodies, enzymes, DNA constructs, etc), but I was just worried that having a box full of little tubes would be problematic.

Anyway, security measures seem to be changing all the time, the most recent one that I know of is the "no fluid" rule. We haven't done this since last year, so if anyone here has a few words of wisdom to pass by, especially recent experiences, then that would great.