Comsi, Comsa

Well folks, my intrepid adventures on the 'Pearl of the Indian Ocean' continue. Thanks for your feedback so far, its been great :-)

Time is flying. I've been here almost 3 weeks, and I don't really feel that I've achieved as much as I should have. The first spanner in the works occured when Simon (the ONLY person on this fair island that knows anything about mosquitoes) texted me on Monday morning to say he had come down with chickenpox. Upon reflection he did look terrible on the Friday, but I assumed that was because of the amount of booze he was knocking back at a fellow staff members leaving party. As always, he told me to chill (he used to be a rasta man) and that he'd arrange for someone to drive me around on the Wednesday. I was quite geared up for monitoring the traps on the Monday as it had been raining so hard over the weekend I thought I'd need to start gathering animals two by two.

Yesterday we set off and I felt ill prepared. Resources are so scarce here that I had to improvise. That fact that I'd never seen an Aedes albopictus egg out in the field and yet I had to start counting them terrified me. In the beginning I scraped up every bit of crap from the ovitraps onto filter paper just in case it was an egg.

I almost wanted to strangle Louisanne (one of the assistants) when we were trying to transfer some eggs to filter paper and in the process she crushed the eggs and smeared the remnants all over the place thinking that she had made a successful transfer?!?!?!?!?!

As the day progressed, I became familiar with the eggs and also could see an abundance of larvae. Most sites were positive. I've got lots of samples in my office which I will either try to identify as larvae or breed to adults and identify then. To identify larvae involves counting the number of hairs, looking at the length of the siphon and all kinds of tedious stuff I dont know how Im going to cope. Oh yeah my good friend Davinia is coming to join me in a few weeks :-)

Other than the daily improv that I have to conduct with these experiments, things are good here. Even though they don't know how to queue up or have a sense of urgency when it comes to work, the Seychellois are kind, hospitable and incredibly considerate. Family life centres around the verandah, the kitchen and food (especially fish) is discussed here like the British talk about weather. What's good about staying at Mont Buxton is that by mums' house we have mango, breadfruit, banana, jackfruit, golden apple and pawpaw trees. Titante orders an uncle or cousin to break fruit for me everyday, and there is always some sort of delicious 'satini' (chutney) or salad to be made for me to eat.

Last weekend I went out clubbing twice in a row, once with the older generation and then with my younger cousin Tracy. I was a wreck. My cousin Drina had to dowse my head in orange water and her partner Thomas gave me some gastric pill which miraculously fixed me up. I try to reject going out but I'm cajoled into doing it every day. I'm glad I do go though, it's always fun. I like the fact here that there are no taboos around socialising here. I think it has something to do with the fact that Seychelles is still only a couple of hundred years old, the joyous 'we've been liberated, lets have a damned good time' mentality of the freed slaves that built this nation permeates everything. Didi (my grandma) used to force her nieces and nephews to take her out clubbing right into her late 70's and if she couldn't be bothered to do that then she'd invite a band to her house and charge on the door.

I'm seeing a different side to life I suppose, one that is less serious and embraces the here and now. I'd like to strike a happy medium in time, I cannot maintain this hedonistic lifestyle long term without some repercussions somewhere (i.e FAIL for my project). I keep everything in check by reminding myself that I've committed myself to presenting this data in Turin next year in front of the worlds best in the field of entomology. Aint no room for egg on my face at an international conference so I better get back to my mosquito hunting.

I just found out that an obituary was published last week chronicaling the life of my hero and mentor Chris Curtis: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/aug/27/medicalresearch.highereducation?gusrc=rss&feed=science By some fluke I've been chosen to chair the young researchers session at the European Mosquito Control Association conference next year, I know Chris would have been really happy about that. It was a chat with him that started the research in Seychelles and the link to EMCA which provided me with so many opportunities. Catching that article today was well timed and has reminded me that even with the glitches, what I'm doing is worthwhile :-)