Stuck on an island...

…a small one this time, as opposed to a big one!

Someone at DICE had the bright idea of cramming one whole module into one tiny little week. Yes, that’s right – FIVE WEEKS’ worth of classes, done at breakneck speed, hotch-potch, over five mere days. Just who was responsible for this brilliant stroke of genius, you ask? I don’t know, but I really would love the chance to throttle them.

And so it was that on Sunday evening, 30 October 2005, the entire class found ourselves at Gatwick Airport, waiting for a flight to take us to Jersey for our Conservation of Species module.

Why Jersey? Well DICE has a special arrangement with Jersey Zoo, which is home to the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. DWCT has worked on a number of exciting projects around the world, such as the Black Lion Tamarins in Brazil, which were featured in an Animal Planet documentary. The zoo itself is famous worldwide for its captive breeding and reintroduction programs.

I have to admit, prior to this trip I wouldn’t have been able to find Jersey on a map. Imagine my surprise when I found out it was an island. Even after discovering that, though, I still couldn’t find it on a map. It was only the plane, as I endured a headbendingly uncomfortable flight and Sami talked non-stop next to me, that I opened the inflight magazine and discovered that Jersey is one of the Channel Islands, off the coast of France. How nice. As a result, although it’s part of the UK and its people do speak English, there’s a lot of French influence on Jersey, not just culturally but in its flora and fauna as well. A lot of the places and streets have French names. And, even more confusingly, Jersey has its own government with its own special Jersey money, too.

That’s helpful to know. It’s also helpful to find out where a place is, before you actually get there. It gives you some measure of comfort to suddenly discover where you’re actually going to.

Unfortunately, by the time we touched down on the island, night had fallen, and as the bus ferried us from the airport through narrow winding country lanes, all around us was pitch-dark and there was nothing to be seen. After what seemed like an eternity of driving through inky blackness we trundled into the zoo parking lot and were deposited at the edge of a seemingly endless expanse of grass. We hoisted up our luggage and trudged through the wet grass to a cluster of buildings which must have been a farm at some point in time.

Les Noyers, our residence is called – this is the training centre, our home for the next five days. It’s run by a no-nonsense German housekeeper called Hannah, who will also cook all our lunches and dinners for us (yaay!). It’s a nice house, cosy and homely, with stairs all over the place leading up to rooms and lofts and mysterious doors that won’t open. Each room has a special name of its own. I find myself sharing a bunk bed with Louise, in an annexe with an attached toilet. Daria is lucky enough to get ‘Huia’, the single room right next to us. Somewhat puzzlingly, the room Louise and I have is called ‘Solitaire’.


Oh lovely – I hate to say it, but this room at the training centre is sooo much nicer than my own room back at Tyler!! Warm and toasty, with one of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever slept in. And what a gorgeous view of the garden! We’re right next to the zoo compound, close enough that they say the lemurs wake you up in the morning.

Best to be abed early, then. Breakfast is at 8.00.

Grovelling for snails

I’m standing on top of a windswept hill somewhere in England, and there’s a man in an Australian ‘buckaroo’ hat trying to explain something about this area of grassland and escarpments, but the wind whipping around is so loud that each time he talks I just see his mouth open and close, and I can’t really hear anything he’s saying.

Class Field Trip No. 2. We’ve actually come all the way to Buckinghamshire this time, to a place of chalk and limestone called the Chiltern Hills. Pulpit Hill Nature Reserve is one of the largest and most important of these sites. It comprises what’s called ‘calcerous grassland’, large tracts of open grass underlaid by lime-rich, nutrient-poor soils. Traditionally, these were kept continuously close-cropped through grazing by sheep and rabbits. Now that the old ways of farming have been discarded and forgotten, the grasslands are slowly falling away under the determined onslaught of scrub and woodlands.

We’ve come here to grovel for snails. I can say that with confidence, because that’s what’s actually stated on the assignment sheet we were given: “Make sure you wear gloves when grovelling in the deep undergrowth”. I found that quite amusing when I first read it, although no one else seemed to get it. It’s not everyday you can tell people that you went grovelling.

The specific reason we’re here is a certain species of snail called Cypaea nemoralis. I’m not even sure whether it has an English name. This little invertebrate has generated much excitement and fascination within the realm of evolutionary studies because it’s such a perfect, easy-to-observe case study of selection in action. Selection in Action! That actually sounds quite sensational. There’s an incredible amount of variation within this one species. For a start, it comes in three main colours: brown, yellow, and pink. That’s right – chocolate, vanilla and strawberry flavours. Then there’s the different number of bandings, from five stripes all the way down to none. Who could resist such pretty little trinkets?



We slap on the rubber gloves and start grovelling in the undergrowth. We’re blessed with kind weather today – although the wind is whipping all around us, the sun is smiling down, and it’s an unusually pleasant day. We’re supposed to be three to a group, but I’m one extra person, and I decide to impose myself upon Sanjay, Shashwat and Sami. We mark out a plot of 10 square metres and before you know it we’re entirely focused on snails, snails, and more snails. And there are lots of ‘em here. All you can hear are cries of “Adult, live, yellow, five bands!” and “Subadult, dead, pink, no bands!” and variations upon this theme. Sanjay, Shashwat and I are grovelling, and Sami, looking like a shady character in a B-grade gangster movie, is frantically running around trying to jot all the data down. It’s engrossing work. You’d never think you could get so fixated on snails.



It's actually quite nice here, on your haunches, rooting around in the undergrowth. It's a place of cool quiet dankness, mossy and moist. As long as you're careful to keep away from the clutching brambles you're alright. And we’re all happy to be out in the field again, doing some real work. We chat, we laugh, we sing Bollywood songs. We even manage to squeeze a bit of birding in – kestrels, and even some red kites. Time in the field passes by like nothing at all, and before we know it, the shadows are getting long, and it’s time to wrap up and head back.


Who would’ve thought that counting snails would be a pleasant way to spend the day?

The Great Corridor Cook-up

I don't know how I got myself into it.

It started out innocently enough. "I'll cook some Taiwanese food for you," Jay had said. Jay is Taiwanese. His room is right at the end of our corridor. He had mentioned the possibility of cooking several times before, and, of course, as with anyone who offers to make me food, I had immediately said, "OK!".

But then somewhere along the way Jay came up with the bright idea, "You want to help me? Hey, you should cook too!" and then it evolved into, "How about this: I cook one Taiwanese dish for you, and you cook one Malaysian dish for me."

Uhh...OK. Fair enough, that I can do. I decided to make the simplest thing I could think of: nasi lemak with udang sambal tumis. I'd done it before, and as I vaguely remembered, it had turned out pretty OK. I was never much of a kitchen person though and I think the last time I'd really cooked was probably something like five years ago. Yes, I'm a bit rusty. So OK, nasi lemak it was, and we agreed that Sunday night would be the best time to hold this exchange of traditional dishes - provided, I informed Jay, that I could find the ingredients I needed. Especially since I'd been left on Friday with only about 10 pounds in my pocket, and nowhere to get more money over the weekend.

The next day I saw Jay and he said to me, "Oh yes, I saw Nina and Sandrine just now so I invited them to our party on Sunday." And, just as I was about to squawk, "What???" Mark walked in, and on cue Jay said, "Mark, we're having a party on Sunday. Make sure you come."

To which Mark replied, "This is great! People keep cooking for me all the time - all I have to do is show up in the kitchen at 8! See you later!"

Jay was pleased. "So, that's three people who know already. Who else haven't I told?"

Oh God, I realised, he's going to invite everyone in our corridor to dinner. We'll be cooking for eight people. And I don't even know if my food will turn out right!

I reminded Jay again that my participation hinged on me finding the ingredients I needed, then I took to my heels. I was going to have to act fast.

As it turned out, I was lucky. (Or unlucky??) There's an 'Oriental Grocers' down the road from Canterbury West train station, just as you reach town from campus. They call themselves Thais 'R' Us. (Yes, I know.) I'd walked past it many times and always wondered about it, but never ventured in. As it turns out, it's quite a nifty little grocery store. It's run by, yes, you guessed it, as the name suggests - Thais, but it proudly advertises Chinese, Indian, Malay, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Korean, etc. etc. And it's actually not too bad. I picked up some santan, rice and shrimps, and then - what do you know, as I was scouting for ingredients to make the sambal tumis, I came across Brahim's Instant Sambal Tumis Mix. There is a God.

I happily staggered back to Tyler with my Oriental groceries. Jay was going to be impressed.

When I finally emerged from my room on Sunday at 6.15pm ("Dinner is at 7.30," Jay had said, "So we start cooking at 6.30."), I found Jay already in the kitchen, with at least three different dishes already prepared. He was in the middle of cooking yet another dish. Suddenly I was very, very glad that I'd decided on nasi lemak.

As I bumbled around the kitchen squawking and panicking ("Jay! Is this OK? Jay!! Do you think this is enough?") the other people in our corridor started trickling in, one by one. It looked like we were going to have a full house. Jay had told everyone, and apparently every single one of them had decided to show up:-

Munira - Jordanian. Once she corners you in the kitchen she'll talk your ear off. Loves cooking and has decided to make me the new guinea pig for her experiments (I'm not complaining)

Nina - Mostly Italian, but with a little Slovenian, and also some Palestinian thrown in

Sandrine - (The Saint)

Mark - Right on time

Hannah - Irish

Ioannis - "How did you know I'm Greek??"

Such anticipation, such pressure...I knew something was going to turn out wrong.

And, as I'm always right, it did. The nasi lemak was undercooked. This, however, I can confidently say without a smidgen of guilt, I blame squarely on Jay. We'd had a difference of opinion as to how much liquid to add to the rice. Well, first of all he'd decided to mix my long-grain Thai rice with his small-grain Japanese rice, further compounding my confusion. But we couldn't decide on what the liquid-to-rice ratio was:-

Me: "Jay do you think this is enough coconut milk?"
Jay: "Oh, yesss! It's enough!"
Me: "But don't you usually put two cups of water for every cup of rice?"
Jay: "No, no, two cups of water for two cups of rice."
Me: "Are you sure?"
Jay: "Yes! I always cook one cup of water with one cup of rice."
Me: "But I always cook two cups of water for one cup of rice."
Jay: "Nooo."
Me: "Are you sure?"
Jay: "Yes, yes, see! It says two cups."

He showed me his tiny little rice cooker. It's a cute little thing, pastel yellow in colour, smooth and rounded ("It's like a little Pokemon!" Nina had exclaimed when she first saw it, right after "What is this?"). I peered suspiciously at the label on the rice cooker, forgetting that I couldn't read Chinese. Amongst the rows of indecipherable symbols was squeezed in, in English: "2 CUPS". Hmm. OK Jay, if you say so. Against my better judgment, I decided to trust him.

As it turns out, Jay was horribly wrong. And I was horribly embarrassed. My nasi lemak was horribly undercooked, and I was mortified that all seven of my corridor mates would have to force it down their throats. I wanted to shout out, "No, I'm Malaysian, I know how to cook rice, honest really!" but consoled myself by apologising profusely and assuring them that "This isn't the way it's supposed to be..."

Thankfully, Jay's cooker was so small that we had to cook the rice in two batches. I determinedly added one extra cup of coconut milk to the second batch ("Wow, you put a lot more this time," Jay observed), and it turned out heavenly. It wasn't quite enough to make up for the shame of the first batch, but still, it was a small consolation. And, to give much credit to my corridor mates, they all shrugged it off as "Oh no it's fine! Stop apologising!" and resolutely shoveled it into their mouths.

And, apart from that one unfortunate caveat, the evening turned out lovely. I must say, for someone whose mother said "I can't believe you're actually cooking now!", Jay can whip up one mean dinner. He singlehandedly provided us with four different but equally delicious dishes:-

Chicken, mushrooms, "and my secret sauce";
Peppers, carrots "and my secret sauce";
Eggs and tomatoes;
Chicken wings, soy sauce, "and my friend's secret sauce".

All in all, a very satisfying dinner party. Good food, good company, and good conversation. We should do it more - as long as someone else does the cooking.

(Munira: "Oh Sheema you are sooo not taking a picture of me!! Here, I'll take it, and you stand over there. Perfect - one big happy family.")

Little gems

Last week I explored a different route from town to campus. Shortly after you emerge from that tunnel underneath the railway tracks you reach a sort of field, a public park almost, and here the path diverges. Usually I keep going, through the field, as the path takes me all the way back up to Tyler. But the path to the left says ‘University’, and everyone seems to go that way, so finally I decided to try it myself. It zigzagged through several banal suburban streets before depositing me somewhere on campus that wasn’t really near anywhere. It left me feeling a little nonplussed. I think I’ll stick to my usual route.

The path I take to and from Tyler tells little stories of its own. Off to the side of the field stands a tiny tree, festooned with colourful strips of ribbon that flutter delicately in the cold wind. The plaque stuck into the earth at the base of the tree reads simply:

This tree is planted in memory of
Catherine Rosemary Jane Treader
Aged 24
Who was tragically taken on
31st May 1999
“We love you and miss you”
Family and friends

You walk a little further on past this, and just as you leave the field and turn right, you come upon Glebe Cottage.

Glebe Cottage took my breath away the first time I saw it. I remember standing there, transfixed, having just come down the hill from Tyler. I’d got lost somewhere past the Old Beverlie pub, and had had to ask in the post office nearby for directions. The directions I was given, as it turned out, brought me right across the street and face to face with Glebe.

Not that it’s particularly grandiose, or imposing, or even handsome. But there’s something about this little cottage, tucked away into its little corner, that has reached out and grabbed me. There’s something about its myopic old windows, and its funny lopsided door, that I find hard to tear myself away from. I’m ready to move in right away.

Every time I walk past, it looks empty. I have no idea who the owners are. The only thing I know about it is that it’s in a little village area called Hackington, about halfway between campus and town, and there’s a little church nearby called St. Stephen’s that looks very, very old.

When I first saw this church I thought to myself, That’s a very old church, and, I must explore it sometime.

I finally found the opportunity today. I wandered through the graveyard first – to an archaeologist, any church with its own graveyard is cause for excitement, as each headstone has years, sometimes centuries, of history behind it. The headstones here date back to the early 19th century. Scattered among the more sedate Victorian slabs you can find the occasional, more traditional, Celtic cross wrought with intricate knotwork. I wonder how many people realise just how pagan that symbol really is?


After a few moments I ventured timidly into the church proper, to find myself greeted by a hive of activity. A whole phalanx of villagers was hard at work cleaning and sweeping and scrubbing. I had walked straight into, as it happened, their annual cleaning of St. Stephen’s, “an autumn cleaning as opposed to a spring cleaning,” explained one of the women who stopped to say hello. I was told that I was welcome to have a look around and take pictures, “as long as you don’t take any of us!”

For such a tiny church St. Stephen’s has quite a distinguished past. It was built in three stages. The oldest bit, the nave where all the people sit, was built in 1050 AD. Just think about it: 1050 AD. Forty-five more years, and it’ll be a thousand years old! That’s definitely got to be in the Domesday Book. The chancel, where the altar is, was added on in the 1300s along with the tower, and finally around 1650 they added on the two transepts, little alcoves off to either side of the nave which give the English church its typical cruciform shape. Just thinking of the amount of history this little church has behind it makes my head spin.

The memorial slabs inside date back much earlier than the headstones in the graveyard, to at least the mid-18th century. The stained glass behind the altar depicts Jesus (centre) along with John, Mark, Luke and Judas…did I get that right? Or was there a Paul in there? I always inadvertently think of John, Paul, George and Ringo. No, but look at the stained glass – it’s gorgeous. You can even see St. Stephen being stoned to death.

I wonder if anyone can tell me more about who he was?