Friday 21 May 2010

Hi everyone
So this morningI got back from a very fun transect. I was walking along a ridge that was one metre wide for about 3km. either side were almost sheer drops of 500m+ covered in forest trees. In some places there was literally a tiny 1m path with horizontal trees eitehr side.
The views were amazing. one my right was the worlds second largest volcanic crater, and it was HUGE. there are 3 or 4 villages inside it...
On my left there was a very cool looking village, in the middle of a plantation forest.the smoke rising off it with the islamic singing was really cool.

I have this afternoon and tomorrow off and then Im staying at a lake halfway up the highest mountain on the island, Nztingui i think its called. Hopefully should be a ton of owls there.
Ive been getting great data except for a few cancelled morning transects due to waking up at three and the weather being shite.
I LOVE that most biological surveying of this sort cant be done in shit weather.
Waking up on a mountain summit at three to do more climbing sucks so if you wake up and the tent is being shaken by the wind its loverly to just go back to sleep.

I spent a lot of yesterday talking about culture differences and sexism with my comorian colleague.interesting stuff, if a bit wierd. They aernt big on womens rights here to say the least.
Aparantly I should hide the fact that I can cook here.for a man to be seen cooking or doing any domestic chores is aparantly social suicide...


Sorry if my typing is a bit bad btw, I am typing on an ancient french/arabic keyboard and its not great.

I think I am going to see if I can find something to eat now
Love to all and thanks for reading
Sam

2 comments:

  1. Hi,
    it sounds absolutely amazing, I hope you are getting some photos of giant crabs and villages in volcanic craters. Please do not get any ideas of men not cooking/washing up, unless you want your wife to have mud all over her face, I think I can see why they do that now!

    Have you seen any owls yet?
    We have finally had some decent hot weather, it is not supposed to last but I am enjoying blue bell walks and gardening while we have it.
    The new con-dem government is beginning to show it's colours, they have brought back badger culling, although there is no scientific evidence that this helps tb in cows, but hey it is a fun- cruel- blood sport practiced in the traditional country side so why worry about a few thousand badgers, and while they are about it they are planning to bring back fox hunting, come to think of it perhaps you shouldn't bother to carry on with the cooking, women may be about to lose the vote at any moment anyway. Apparently their new manifesto ( not the one they had before the election, but the one they just made up) is the most radical thing since the 1872 suffrage act?? in which posh gits like nick clegg were allowed to vote along side the posh gits like david cameron for the first time.
    cameron has also pissed off his own party by holding a vote to allow ministers into the 1922 committee ( a bunch of old right wing back benchers who used to get together to moan about the ministers) the only slightly odd thing is he won by a narrow margin and ministers were allowed to vote, even though they are not members of the committee and were bound to vote for themselves. if national political reform is similar to this high quality democracy i think new elections might have a franchise of one- david cameron.
    Anyway as you can see nothing as exciting as your adventures is happening here, I am really enjoying your blog keep it up M xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lol quite a comment there
    Dw about the badger culling, as it turns out there are smeg loads of badgers and culling doesnt harm the numbers much. Also conservation agencies often find it useful as it means the farmers calm down a bit about other conservation things, making it easier to conserve sps that are actually endangered. but hey still better things to be doing

    ReplyDelete