Subject: [vallist] Number 1: A trip to Zanzibar
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 18:43:09 +0200
From: Michele Vallisneri
To: vallist@egroups.com
>>> A DAY IN THE LIFE OF MICHELE <<<
Number 1
Parma, August 18, 1999
--------------------
Contents
* Some remarks, voices from the list
* Echoes of Zanzibar
* The humour corner: wrinkled pigs, green pigs
--------------------
--> Dear friends!
Here I am again to jot down the first "real" bulletin for you... EGroups
was exceedingly efficient in delivering my "welcome" messages, as a few
of you were so kind to point out; I was quite aware of it, as I was
frantically trying to curb the flood somehow (for all I knew, messages
were being delivered at a pace of two per hour...)
Since I still have a fear of clones (I'm bio-ethically conservative), I
took the liberty of excerpting below a couple of e-mails that were sent
to the list.
Listpatron Kola Krauze enthused :) about the list and introduced
himself:
<< This is *so* cool! Now at last I get to flame lots of people at
once, type 'I agree' at the end of extremely long emails, and other cool
things like that!
<< I guess I'd better introduce myself to the list. I'm 6'0", 25 years
old and I live just north of the river Thames in London, close to
Battersea bridge. I have a wooden floor in my flat. I don't have a
mustache. >>
Notice how Kola gives a fine characterization of himself with just a few
details. Listpatroness Paola Pomi answered my apologetic e-mail:
<< Ciao Michele... and ciao to everybody [...] You must not apologize,
we have all got the mail box full, and we just smiled when we realized
that someone like you made something not perfect. I'm just joking... >>
Anyway, if you have been patient enough to bear with me, I thought you'd
be interested in a few impressions about my African vacation, plus, a
bit of something that I always find very funny, whenever I think about
it.
Cheers,
Michele
--> Echoes of Zanzibar...
Forget all thought of brave adventurers from the XIX century, defying
tropical diseases and dangerous encounters (of the anthropophagus, or
maybe anthropologist kind): my vacation to Zanzibar with Elisa was rife
with commodities and pleasures. For we stayed in a "village", one of
those peculiar outposts of the West into rougher lands, that allows the
traveler to experience the joys of a nature that is almost pristine and
virgin without its discomforts and dangers.
The sea was beautiful, of an almost unimaginable shade of light blue;
its water warm and welcoming; the sand was very white and extremely fine
(it is not made of silica, basically _rock_, as ours is, but of powdered
corals); the sun was strong, high and kingly; the palms harbored juicy
coconuts for us to drink through straws; and some other trees were home
to a curious variety of monkeys (_colobus_), that almost everywhere else
have been superseded by more modern species, but that stayed here in
Zanzibar since they were (literally) "insulated" from evolution.
And yet, after all these marvels, we retreated not into a dark, unsafe
hut, but into a nice, comfortable room, to have a warm shower... our
meals included the awesome local fish (yum!), and strange, lovely fruits
--- and they were served in a cozy restaurant where all remembrance of
gastroenteritis had been banished years ago.
The more adventurous between you will certainly object to seeing Africa
this lopsided way, and rightly so. We could not experience the
indigenous way of life, or even begin to realize how an existence there
could differ from our own. Yet what we felt, the tender, loving embrace
of nature, distilled from all its offending thorns, was an immensely
enthralling and reassuring feeling of rightness and blessedness: "this
is a wonderful, prodigious planet, and happy is the life of any man that
is born to it!"
Zanzibar has been host to a significant tourist business for a few years
only, so that its natives are still very kind towards foreigners and
unaware of the discomfort they will come to feel. All the people working
in the resort were absolutely charming, if occasionally a bit ironic. As
an example illustrating both aspects of their attitude, from the first
day they endeavored to teach us some rudiments of Swahili:
jambo! = hello! (they told us) mambo! = how are you? poa! = fine,
thanks!
I was amused to find out that "jambo" is pidgin Swahili, meaning "you're
sick!", and to use it correctly as a salutation it should be conjugated
into something like "hujambo?" ("are you ok?"). As it is, "jambo" means:
jambo! = hello, I'm a tourist, I'm dumb, so I'll say hello in Swahili,
but now let's switch to English, please...
"mambo" and "poa", instead, are "cool", slang Swahili; just what young
people would say there when they meet. I bet they have lots of fun
hearing us try to use these combinations casually... I bought a pocket
manual of Swahili, I'll let you know about my progress.
What was most pleasing and relaxing with these people, however, was the
leisurely pace of their life, which we instinctively adopted. It is
quite common, when traveling on the streets of Zanzibar, to see them
sitting in pairs, chatting quietly in front of a small pile of fruits
they purpose to sell, or just waiting, for their friends, for some
entertaining Westerner to pass by, for the sun to set. Just waiting...
"Pole pole" (to be variously translated as slow, sweetly, in due time,
tomorrow...) became our motto, as we forgot hurry and anxiety, and let
ourselves be lulled into a placid routine marked by slow-food meals,
unfretted swimming or walking on the beach, pleasing discourse with
fellow vacationers.
And it is with a bit of this feeling that I write these notes, reclining
in my bed, trying to shoo off work, and errands, at least to tomorrow...
my science cries disconsolately for attention, after having been left to
itself for a few weeks... But I turn away, and find some solace and
diversion, if only for today, in writing to you, my friends, about those
beautiful days in Africa.
[see attachment to see a couple of Westerners in Africa, afloat and
quite happy to be so...]
--> Wrinkled pigs...
This is old, but a classic... (from Feedback, New Scientist, July 12,
1997)
Two weeks ago we reported an exam howler from the University of
Nottingham. Now we learn that students from the University of Bradford
have also been advancing unusual scientific theories in their exam
responses.
One student in the department of life sciences claimed that "organisms
can have two methods of reproduction, one sexual and one bisexual",
while another stated that "Chlamydomonas (a single-celled plant)
locomotes by waiving its flagellum from anterior to bacteria; Hydra,
however, gets around by waiving its testicles." [nota italiana: "waive"
(rinunciare a, lasciare) e' qui confuso con "wave" (agitare)]
An interesting grasp of genetics was displayed by a third student:
"Gregory Mendle was an Australian vicar who invented genetics. He based
his observation upon experiments that he did with pigs. He crossed
smooth pigs with wrinkled pigs and counted their offspring. He is also
reported to have crossed green pigs with yellow pigs, but I do not
believe this." Strangely, neither do we.
[http://www.newscientist.com/ns/970712/feedback.html]