Bwanji!

In May and June of 2007, 13 undergraduate students from Northern Michigan University are taking a field course in Zambia. Most of the students are majors in the Biology department, and all of them will be doing short field studies of their own design while on the ground in Zambia. The group will be making a stop in London on the way, spending four days seeing Zambia/Africa-related British sites (Burton's tomb, Livingstone's artefacts at the Royal Geographic Society, the British Museum of Natural History, etc.) and adjusting to the time change. The course is being led by me, Dr. Alec Lindsay, a professor in the Department of Biology at NMU, and Dr. Jackie Bird - a parasitologist in our department. We have made this blog so students can hopefully post notes thoughts, pictures and discoveries to the world. This should allow classmates, teachers, family and friends to share in their insights and keep track of their travels. Not only that, but viewers of the blog can add comments to posts - please do! We would love to hear your thoughts. Zikomo!

24 May 2007

Victoria Falls & Research Projects

I started my research project today at Victoria Falls. We started looking for ticks however the weather was so hot and it was to late in the day, so we decided to change my project so now I will be looking at parasite found within different species scat (feces).

When looking for scat we also encountered a cobra, which I will not lie got the heart racing but I was able to get close enough to take pictures.

The sites are just amazing here and this have been such a great experience, I even ate a caterpillar at dinner it kind of tasted like a fried mushroom. Until next time with more interesting stories.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey princess I will catch u a few catipillars and we can have a cook out when u get home. It is hard to believe u got close enough to a snake to take pictures that must have made you a little nervous hey. Well take care of yourself hey we luv ya. Rev and Sheila

Anonymous said...

It was all those years of grandpa's cooking that prepared us to go eat bugs in the wilderness! ... Don't worry your not missing anything around here. The weather hasn't even been all that great. Well have a good weekend and try not to get eaten by anything.

Anonymous said...

Hi Jess,
Sounds like your having fun. Did you like your catapiller? The weather is starting to warm up over here. Can't wait to see your pictures of the cobra. We miss you.

Love Emma