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sartorias
Ten things I've done that others might not have
In no particular order, and split into a few posts because as anyone who's emailed me knows, I can't write a few words when I could write a hundred.
1) Lived in the Serengeti National Park
My dad was a professor in the Wildlife and Fisheries department at Texas A&M until he died in 1992. When he was a grad student, we moved to the Seronera Research Station in the Serengeti for two years (1974-1976) while he conducted a study on, er, something to do with birds and grasses. I was five at the time; the details kind of escaped me. Therefore most of my unique experiences have to do with the Serengeti - I could probably just put down "Ate dinner in the Serengeti" and have a close-to-unique experience.
The interesting thing about living on a research station, or at least living on the Seronera research station at that particular time, is that everyone was identified by what they were there to study. We were the bird people, and there were also the lion people and the grass people. I also got to meet Jane Goodall - she came through and the station people had a reception for her. She escaped to the porch with us kids early on and spent most of the party out there. I met Marlin Perkins from Wild Kingdom when they shot a sequence on elephants. He sent Jim and the crew in first to do all the dirty work, then flew in to shoot a bit of dialogue and flew back out again.
2) Contracted malaria
One day I was looking pretty sick, running a fever and all that. My parents took me to the flying doctor. For those of you who aren't familiar with living in the bush, a flying doctor is one who is stationed somewhere in the back of beyond, whether it's Africa, Australia, or wherever, and who uses a plane to cover the territory he or she is responsible for. Not exactly the ability to get an ambulance to your door quickly, but better than not having a doctor at all. Anyway, our flying doctor was stationed in Seronera, and was a Dutch woman whose name I've forgotten. My parents took me there where she examined me and pronounced it either heatstroke or malaria. And then I threw up all over her and she diagnosed malaria. We think I contracted it during one of our supply runs to Arusha, which is in the lowlands, because the mosquito that carries malaria didn't live in our area of the Serengeti. Mom says that we'd been pretty lax about taking our antimalarials up to then, but after that we took them religiously.
It seems to have been a fairly mild case, since I got better after a few days (all I remember is that I didn't eat dinner for two days, and when you're five, that's a big deal), and I've never had a relapse. According to the Red Cross blood-donation people, if you've had no relapses for 12 years you're considered cured, although they still don't want my blood because I've spent over six months in England during some window of time and therefore there's a .000000000000000001% I might have mad cow. Moo.
3) Gone inside West Kennet Long Barrow
Knowing the people on my friends list, if they've been to England, they may have done this. I studied in Wales for a semester in undergrad, and took an archaeology class. For one of our field trips we went to the Salisbury/Stoenhenge area and visited a few sites there. The most imrpessive, to me at least, was West Kennet Long Barrow, because you get to go inside the Neolithic tomb itself, sicne it's not as well known as Stonehenge and is therefore not overrun by tourists. Still best to go as early in the morning as you can, because there's a steady strong of visitors thereafter. Mom and I went back to England a couple of years ago and went back to the barrow, so I finally got to see it without being surrounded by fifty undergraduates.
To be continued...
sartoriasTen things I've done that others might not have
In no particular order, and split into a few posts because as anyone who's emailed me knows, I can't write a few words when I could write a hundred.
1) Lived in the Serengeti National Park
My dad was a professor in the Wildlife and Fisheries department at Texas A&M until he died in 1992. When he was a grad student, we moved to the Seronera Research Station in the Serengeti for two years (1974-1976) while he conducted a study on, er, something to do with birds and grasses. I was five at the time; the details kind of escaped me. Therefore most of my unique experiences have to do with the Serengeti - I could probably just put down "Ate dinner in the Serengeti" and have a close-to-unique experience.
The interesting thing about living on a research station, or at least living on the Seronera research station at that particular time, is that everyone was identified by what they were there to study. We were the bird people, and there were also the lion people and the grass people. I also got to meet Jane Goodall - she came through and the station people had a reception for her. She escaped to the porch with us kids early on and spent most of the party out there. I met Marlin Perkins from Wild Kingdom when they shot a sequence on elephants. He sent Jim and the crew in first to do all the dirty work, then flew in to shoot a bit of dialogue and flew back out again.
2) Contracted malaria
One day I was looking pretty sick, running a fever and all that. My parents took me to the flying doctor. For those of you who aren't familiar with living in the bush, a flying doctor is one who is stationed somewhere in the back of beyond, whether it's Africa, Australia, or wherever, and who uses a plane to cover the territory he or she is responsible for. Not exactly the ability to get an ambulance to your door quickly, but better than not having a doctor at all. Anyway, our flying doctor was stationed in Seronera, and was a Dutch woman whose name I've forgotten. My parents took me there where she examined me and pronounced it either heatstroke or malaria. And then I threw up all over her and she diagnosed malaria. We think I contracted it during one of our supply runs to Arusha, which is in the lowlands, because the mosquito that carries malaria didn't live in our area of the Serengeti. Mom says that we'd been pretty lax about taking our antimalarials up to then, but after that we took them religiously.
It seems to have been a fairly mild case, since I got better after a few days (all I remember is that I didn't eat dinner for two days, and when you're five, that's a big deal), and I've never had a relapse. According to the Red Cross blood-donation people, if you've had no relapses for 12 years you're considered cured, although they still don't want my blood because I've spent over six months in England during some window of time and therefore there's a .000000000000000001% I might have mad cow. Moo.
3) Gone inside West Kennet Long Barrow
Knowing the people on my friends list, if they've been to England, they may have done this. I studied in Wales for a semester in undergrad, and took an archaeology class. For one of our field trips we went to the Salisbury/Stoenhenge area and visited a few sites there. The most imrpessive, to me at least, was West Kennet Long Barrow, because you get to go inside the Neolithic tomb itself, sicne it's not as well known as Stonehenge and is therefore not overrun by tourists. Still best to go as early in the morning as you can, because there's a steady strong of visitors thereafter. Mom and I went back to England a couple of years ago and went back to the barrow, so I finally got to see it without being surrounded by fifty undergraduates.
To be continued...
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I love reading these! (Even in reverse order, the way they showed up in the FL)!
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Something else I didn't put in was that our house was burgled by what must go down as the most courteous burglers in history. (We weren't home at the time.) I'll have to write that down sometime, but my left wrist is killing me after all this typing, so I'd better hold off on that for a while.
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Wow.`
Re: Wow.`
Re: Wow.`
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