un sabbatique fantastique en Afrique

Not long before leaving for Malawi, we had an email telling us not to worry about bloodsuckers. We would be hiking on Mount Mulanje only during the day, and attacks by either bloodsuckers or those seeking revenge had been all at night time. Relief ensued. Hold the phone! Bloodsuckers?? Were there not already enough creatures that could extract either blood (thanks anopheles spp ), or body parts (thanks large mammal spp )? We had not heard of these, and were definitely not taking the appropriate medicinal prophylaxis. Not unique to Malawi, but spread across this part of Africa are stories of mystical beings that come at night and use witchcraft to drain their victims of blood. Malawians grew up with these vampiric myths, their parents also using them to scare them away from one activity or another. These tales alluded to actual physical beings, but also to more metaphorical ones: people who leached the spirits, energy or money of others. Dismissal is easy from a dist...

In 2015 Banksy’s amusement park Dismaland opened its rusty gates for a limited season. Dubbed a ‘bemusement park’ unsuitable for children, this anti-theme park was complete with a dilapidated fairy caste housing the aftermath of Cinderella’s coach post-MVA. On a sunny Saturday morning, we headed out for a family morning at Lusaka’s local amusement park. While there were no car crash scenes at the Lusaka amusement park, nor deliberate art installations; an injection of irony and hipsters may well have made the experience not dissimilar to a walk-through Banksy exhibition. Despite the disrepair, the grass was green, the jumping castle empty and there was a steady flow of young Lusakians at least 10-15 years older than Frankie. It is likely that the ferris wheel and concrete statues of non-African animals were not the drawcard for the youth. It was rather the plentiful shade, braai, boom-boxes and importantly, a lack of parents. As none of us were needing to enter the datin...

A close friend from Melbourne informed me of big purchase he recently made. I won’t mention the actual figures, but the words ‘extend’ and ‘mortgage’ were used and the price tag made me gasp. Keep in mind though, he made this purchase for his daughter, and it is almost Xmas, so we shouldn’t be too judgmental. He of course bought a mango. Inner city Melbourne has its boutique organic green grocers, home delivered vegie boxes and the mandatory big supermarket chains stocking fruit with plenty of food miles. Lusaka is actually not too dissimilar…except for the mango prices….but we’ll get to that later. It seems that having ‘a farm’ is pretty common here. Whether that be a small plot big enough for some vegetables (usually at least maize), a bigger enterprise employing farmhands (usually including maize) or a hobby farm on the outskirts of Lusaka for those with the kwatcha, again often with maize. I have the impression that many people rely quite heavily on a good maize crop....

Background Ok, you can forget about all the fancy books concerning birds of Southern Africa. Yes, including Roberts Birds of Southern Africa , which while it claims to be the ‘most comprehensive single volume handbook on the African continent’ is…well…a little too comprehensive and doesn’t adequately explore the birds of Zambia. Aspinwall and Beel have admirably dedicated a book solely to Zambian birds in ‘ A Field Guide to Zambian Birds not found in southern Africa ’. However, their illustrations leave much to the imagination and don’t provide readers with quick, accessible tool to identify birds. For years ornithologists have therefore been desperately calling out for not only a definitive text on Zambian birds but for a modern method to rapidly identify birds of Zambia. In this prospective, observational study, we set out to characterise birds in the landlocked African country of Zambia and develop a robust digital pipeline for rapid and accurate bird identification. ...