un sabbatique fantastique en Afrique

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. ...

This is not a story about a fumbling 1980s adolescent romance in tropical waters (for those that remember Brooke Shields in her early career). Unsurprisingly, Blue Lagoon is not a unique place name, and this particular one is a National Park not far from Lusaka, in Mumbwa province. It was close enough for an easy weekend trip, and was billed by different websites as good for birdwatching and an ‘undiscovered gem’. I had also wanted to visit because my father had mentioned a loose family connection: it had once been a cattle ranch run by a friend of my great-uncle, Colonel Critchley, and his wife Erica. My historical curiosity was piqued, both by this link and the thoroughly colonial-sounding moniker. I imagined a man in khaki, a large moustache, perhaps a monocle and an attitude to match. The reality was in fact much larger than life, and the caricature my mind had drawn. Lieutenant Colonel Ronald (‘Ronnie’) Critchley had come to Zambia – then Northern Rhodesia – after WW...