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!

09 June 2007

Hi everyone,
Jessica and Katie here. On Thursday we made it safely to Rickmansworth where we are staying. The next day we slept in and moved slowly to get ready. We went shopping for some regular clothes so that we didn't have to wear our safari gear while visiting this trendy city. We were recommended to shop at Primark for its cheap prices. The clothes are bright and funky at 6 to 8 pounds. Amazing! We both found things, and Katie shopped as she usually does. Today we went to a neat market called Portobello Market where they had everything you can imagine for sale and it went on for a couple miles. We found some good food, jewelry, and interesting clothes. This evening we'll probably go back out into the town. Plans for tomorrow include going on the Darwin Tour at the British Museum of Natural History. Kew Gardens is also on the agenda, as well as getting up in the wee hours of the morning probably on Monday to get cheap Wicked tickets. We miss all the other Zambassadors very much and hope you all are having a great time back at home with family and friends!
-Jess and Katie

4 comments:

Dr. Alec Lindsay said...

Hello Katie and Jess!

So good to hear from you. We are back in Marquette now, and I saw Nick this morning to collect some gear he was toting - we both commented on wondering about you two. Do keep us posted if you can, I will leave the blog up for you for a while, and encourage the rest of the Zambassadors to check in regularly. Do be safe and enjoy yourselves!

Cheers

P.S. When I get back on email (NMU closed my account for too much in my inbox) I will send info on the Pirbright folks. I noticed that Lain posted a comment on one of the below posts. They would love to see you guys, I am sure!

Ralph said...

Jessica.

write often (and kt also). i don't know why, but the big city is worse for parents than zambia.

kt's dad

Annie B. said...

So glad to hear from you guys. You should send pics of your new threads.
:P

Have a great time and good luck with those Wicked tickets.

Adventure on.
-Annie B.

Anonymous said...

Hey Jess and Katie, hope you're enjoying your stay here...

I'll make this brief as I tried to post just now and it might still come up.....suffice to say, Alec is right - we'd love to see you again if you've time.

There are spare beds, good company and excellent advice (and possibly guides) here - just get in touch.

Email us on: kellyiain@tiscali.co.uk with contact details and we'll arrange something. Alec may also be sending you numbers which you can call.

Hope to hear from you soon, and if you have loads of fun - especially at Wicked!

Regards
iain (that's as in eean, not Lain lol)