In England with PGP

 Dear Currier,

PGP in the 12th Century Village of Castle Acre

Castle Acre Priory

We hope you had a great spring break. It brought us a welcome contact with Currier when PGP came to stay with us in the other Cambridge. She detected many similarities between Currier and the Cambridge Colleges despite Currier's lack of a giant chapel.  Indeed as we traveled around it was hard to avoid huge churches and her holiday had a definite ecclesiastical bent as we visited Kings College Chapel Cambridge,  Ely Cathedral and the ruins of the 11th Century Cluniac Monastery of Castle Acre in Norfolk.

PGP listening to the audia guide at Castle Acre

We decided that this is because so much of English history is tied up with the church and indeed the various stages of building of Kings College Chapel closely follow the history of the War of the Roses and the marriages of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, whose initials and crests can be seen carved into walls and woodwork. We traced the increasing corruption and decadence of the 16th Century Roman Catholic church in England in the ruins of Castle Acre Priory and saw destructive impact of the reformation which reduced the priory from one of the most richly decorated in Europe to its present magnificent skeleton.

Patricia wearing her red nose

On a lighter note we also supported the fund raising efforts of UK charity Comic Relief by celebrating Red Nose day.

Good luck with the last half of the semester. We hope that you have exciting plans for the summer and we look forward to hearing what you have been up to in September.

All the best

Elizabeth and Richard

The Tip of Africa

Dear Currier,

Table Mountain looking south towards Cape Point

African Penguins, Western Cape

Hi from Cape Town, South Africa. We are at Stellenbosch University just outside Cape Town for 3 weeks. Richard has joined a human evolutionary biology group here and I am on holiday! It is a really beautiful area, very like southern California. Stellenbosch is very like Santa Barbara and the whole area is covered with vineyards. We have resisted the urge to spend every spare moment wine tasting and have turned our attention to the famous sites.

African Penguins mate for life

Cape of Good Hope on a calm day

Last weekend we visited Table Mountain, nesting African Penguins - the only penguin that lives in Africa and had a wonderful trip to The Cape of Good Hope. The scenery was stunning, the vegetation unique and we thought about what it must have been to be Vasco da Gama rounding this often stormy point where currents from Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet not having any idea what was ahead.

Cape Point - where the cold Atlantic and warm Pacific currents meet

Next weekend we hope to visit Robben Island and some inland sites and then it is back to the UK. But that is not all bad! We are so excited that PGP is visiting us in the other Cambridge during Spring Break.
We hope you are all enjoying the semester. Unbelievable to think that the academic year is almost over.

With very best wishes.
We miss Currier!

Elizabeth and Richard

Hello from Uganda

Dear Currier,

We hope that you are having a good start to the second semester and are enjoying the snow which I hear has been tremendous. Here it is 80 degrees and sunny! We have been very busy, Richard with his chimps and me with the Kasiisi Project but have managed to carve out some time for relaxation. We visited Semuliki National Park on the Congo border where Richard has a colleague studying the chimpanzees. A beautiful drive around the foothills of the Ruwenzori Mountains with terrific views over the Congo forests took us to a much lower hotter place but we survived by visiting the swimming pool at the local tourist lodge.


Motorbike Taxi Fort Portal




Richard and Pani - the Chimpanzee Project baby and Emily's daughter





Kasiisi Project Scholars




Bananas Fort Portal

  It was great fun to have Currier tutor Akshita Deora here for the first time. Akshita manges our scholarship pogram and this was a chance for her to see how we select and supervise our  scholarship recipients. We selected our 8 new scholars for 2011 and met and caught up with our current scholars who are attending secondary school, college and University.

Next week Richard goes to Tanzania to do some filming and then we both head for Cape Town at the end of the month.
We miss Currier but as you can see we are doing out best to keep our spirits up and we look forward to see you all in May for commencement.

All the best

Elizabeth and Richard



Emily (Kibale Chimpanzee Field Director and chair of Kasiisi Project scholarship committee) and Elizabeth reviewing a scholars report

Showing a teacher how to use binoculars before a field trip

Elizabeth and Prof. John Kasenene - Director of the Kasiisi Project in Uganda

Bananas - Fort Portal

Caroline Riss: Kasiisi Project Field Director; Elizabeth; Akshita Deora: Director Scholarship Program; Emily Otali: Chair Scholarship Committee

Akshita with Kasiisi Project Scholars at St. Leos Secondary School



Happy Holidays from snowy Scotland

Dear Currier,

We wish you all a wonderful Holiday and a very Happy New Year. We hope that with exams over you can relax and enjoy this richly deserved break.
We are also enjoying a break - one in the winter weather which has grounded us on the West Coast for 2 weeks. Cold is predicted to return in a few days but we hope that the airports will stay open so our kids can join us for Christmas. We are really looking forward to a rare chance to spend the holidays with our UK family and there will be 16 of us sitting down to Christmas dinner this year.
We are setting of for Uganda in early January so the next posting will be from somewhere a lot warmer.
With best wishes
Elizabeth and Richard

Fall in Scotland

The view from our house

Torridon Mountains from Gairloch

Lots of wonderful beach walks

Badachro

We have settled in for the next 2 months in the little village of Badachro on the Gairloch in northwest Scotland. We are so far north- opposite the northern end of Skye -  that it does not get light until 8 a.m and is dark by 5. Long quiet evenings give us lots of time for thinking and writing so we are getting plenty of work done.  But we are also taking advantage of the gaps between rain and gales to do lots of birdwatching. The light from the low sun at this time of year is magical, the colors wonderful and  the views breathtaking.

Barra likes Scotland too!

Bird watching with the island of Skye behind

Hope you all have great Thanksgiving - we will certainly miss the pumpkin pie this year.

Summer Travels

Richard in our new Kayak with the Torridon hills behind

In front of the house in Scotland

 Dear Currier, We have been very dilatory about our promise to keep you all up-to-date with what we are up to on our sabbatical. The days just whiz by. We are both so busy writing and traveling and Richard has been giving lots of talksOur plans to spend the summer in Uganda had to be changed at the last minute but we had a good time visiting our family house in the north west of Scotland instead.
Richard spent a week at the International Primate Society meetings in Japan in September and then we went off to Tanzania for 3 weeks leading a trip to Gombe to celebrate the 50th Anniversary  of Jane Goodall's arrival at this famous chimpanzee research site.
Richard did his PhD research here in the early 1970's and was delighted to find a few old friends, both human, and chimpanzee still around.

The  site of the Homo Habilis skull

Before Gombe we had a wonderful trip through the Serengeti and the Ngorogoro crater seeing terrific wildlife but for Richard the highlight of the trip (even more exciting than seeing the place in Ujiji where Stanley greeted  Livingstone with the famous words "Dr. Livingstone I presume) was the cement post in Olduvai Gorge that marked the site where the Leakey's uncovered the fossilized skull of Homo Habilis - the first human ancestor that Richard believes used fire.

On the way to school, Stone Town, Zanzibar

The trip ended with 4 days in Zanzibar - an enchanting place with a rich if sometimes brutal history. It is here that, for centuries, slaves captured in Central Africa by African and Arab slavers were shipped to Arabia and the far East. The mix of cultures; Arab, Swahili, European, Indian and East Asian which grew from trade routes between Africa and China operating since the 14th Century makes it a wonderful place to visit and the food is great. Zanzibar for us Brits is full of fascination as the starting point for many explorations of East and Central Africa by Europeans. Livingstone, Stanley, Burton and Speke all began their journeys across Africa from Zanzibar.