The alternative view is to try to build up capital, import the goods you cannot get locally, buy into the global economy and sell it back what it wants, sunshine and sea.  Thus the hotels are getti…

The other animal of interest was the mountain chicken.  And this was not a chicken – what was it about giving Montserrat animals the wrong name?  The mountain chicken is in fact an amphibian.…

My week on Montserrat was busy – I had to meet the various teams of environment department workers who were responsible for the different biodiversity programmes.  I was to meet an old friend…

Despite this, the feeding of US TV through  the cables and satellite receivers is affecting the culture – the kids see more of the TV than they do of their parents, it is their nannies and tell the…

We were told to concentrate on natural resources, and I think our paymasters were expecting a report that covered just the conflict between fisheries and tourism.  As I gathered more information an…

Matt had procured a fantastic villa for the project.  Although not far as the crow flies from Brades, it was round a circuitous road that hugged the contours.  Just beyond the sprawling village of …

The island was visible almost as soon as we took off and crossed the old canefields of Antigua.  We approached Montserrat from the east and I was able to see out the window the great massive of the…

Now at last I was able to visit, but I was to work for another incredible conservation organisation, the Durrell Foundation.  As a teenager I had read all the Gerald Durrell books; my favourites be…

For the rest of the year, the trade wind doth blow.  Mainly from the north east, these pummel the east or windward sides of the islands.  The Caribbean side lays in the lee and most of the towns an…

The chain of islands that make up the eastern Caribbean are very new in geological time.  They were formed when the small Caribbean Plate started to rub up against the Atlantic Plate.  The Caribbea…

Alongside the stress on the people, the volcano obviously did untold damage to the environment.  As well as being an intensively farmed area on its lower slopes, its upper reaches and several valle…

Life of the island was turned upside down, even geographically.   The southern third was left as an uninhabitable exclusion zone, a further third declared an intermediate zone where no-one can live…

By the Wednesday, we were getting tired.  We saw little hope of moving the St Vincent project on, and Keith persuaded me that I should go and meet with my counterparts in Kingstown, the capital, so…

He took me to his workplace the next morning, possibly the finest place I have ever worked in my whole life.  The Natural Resources Management Unit (NRMU) of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean S…

One of the biggest environmental problems of the world is that of erosion.  The seas bite at our coastlines, the wind blows away our soil, floods scour away our houses.  Land is talked of being los…

I ended up taking lunch at the one place I had seen open earlier.  The Calumet Inn was a handsome building, made up of a light quartzite (from the town of Jasper which I had passed through earlier)…

I wandered back to the hotel – it seemed a long way back round the end of the airport, and settled again before Keith picked me up late afternoon.  As he always did, he asked how I felt and we chat…

Keith left me to my own devices for much of Sunday, and I was able to get acclimatised.  Although it was only a six day trip, no-one in St Lucia was going to work when they didn’t have to.  I rose …

It was getting close to lunch time so I headed back to the car, stopping off to obtain my own little piece of pipestone from the gift shop, and I drove into town.  I had not had much breakfast and …

While the historical quarry wall had been the centre of the industry for years, nowadays permits were given to smaller quarries on the flats nearer the visitor centre. Pits arranged in two clear st…

So I had been asked to come out to St Lucia where Keith and his boss worked, and she, he and I had tried to see where we would go.  To be frank, I could see no way out at this stage.  In fact after…

My feet were firmly placed on the metal rail protecting me from the canal.  My bottom was firmly placed on a seat, and my drink was firmly placed on an upturned rum barrel.  I was firmly placed in …

The stream I was following topples over the quarry edge in a pretty cataract, and it zigzags manically in amongst the quarry workings.  The removal of the rock appears piecemeal, of course.  The ro…

The trail was a well marked tarmacced path and not very long.  I could see the small escarpment that was the main quarry just beyond a range of trees.  Between me and it was a rare site in modern A…

If you want to read the first post in Oware, Click here. We drove up to the Shangri La and I had another good meal in Ghana  – Accra was a great place to eat.  He scared me half to death wit…

Ghana had one more kick to give me.  On the way out of Accra, I had more experiences which made me begin to believe I was never going to leave the country.  I had a couple of days work in Accra.  I…

I bypassed the centre of town, drove past a small strip of eateries and car services, and came round the north side to where the entrance to a small park was marked by a modest paved road.  Althoug…

Next day, the Sunday,  was another perfectly sunny day and I headed east along the Interstate and into Minnesota.  With this I had now been in three states, for as well as Minnesota and South Dakot…

I could barely conceal my glee as we went down the stairs together.  QS thought it was a shock and a shame, like he did about everything in Ghana that went wrong.  Like he did that night as he dro…

I couldn’t believe it.  My passport was now lost in an African Administrative system.  I went back to UST totally dejected.  My struggle with Kumasi was near an end but I was being thwarted on my …

This last couple of words is not meant to insult the South Dakotans, though.  Very little has been actually easy about setting up these idyllic towns, and Brookings was the best of them by far havi…

In the mean time the sun had dipped over the horizon and the temperature was less dipping, more plummeting past freezing.  We headed back to the car park, loaded the dog in the trunk and drove back…

The throng that passed through with the young man dispersed; it had been exhilarating to see such a mass of people moving pugnaciously in one direction; I was glad I was on the sidelines.  I conti…

Eventually we were off, but rather than show the sights off on the way (granted there weren’t many but I am always interested in what places are like) we dashed along a main highway towards Bosumt…

For as we wandered round the lake, even though it was a bitterly cold fall afternoon and the sun had barely half an hour left in the sky, the Oakwood park lakes were busy with fowl activity.  There…

We entered the gate to one of those amazing American parks, where the amenities are all pristine, the car parks and roads perfectly tarmacced and the verges cut to a standard short clip length.  Th…

Unfortunately, it turned into one of the scariest nights ever in Africa.  On the way to another bar, a lorry drove past Sam’s car, packed with people.  Something hit the window next to her and the…

The project I was working on at the time was trying to see how people who lived neither in the heart of the city, nor in the true countryside, but in the fast expanding twilight zone in between, w…

Someone new had turned up at the airfield and came over with our groundcrew man; Gray had promised him a ride.  So we pulled the craft back on to the runway, waited for our plane to taxi on out and…

Gray mentioned to me that he had made a promise and we had an appointment.  It being a Saturday afternoon, a college football game was underway at the University Stadium.  I had already spotted it …

The stay in the BC would often be less than twenty minutes, but it was enough.  I would be happy coming down the stairs of the office, passing by the entrance to the BC library below and back to t…

I talk often at the number of chance occurrences that have happened during my time abroad; one day you are contemplating passing another weekend with a good book or more work, when someone turns u…

Having another geographer flying the glider meant we could focus on things which interested our geeky selves.  Gray described the layout of Brookings city, and the planes.  I tried to orientate mys…

Gray climbed into the back seat and closed up the windows – all but one which he used to signal to his ground crew.  He had a brief word to the control tower on his portable radio, then, all …

Ada and Kwaru were sometimes pests, sometimes amusing.  We would sit and chat.  Every morning, the routine was the same, I would rise and shower, and come into the kitchen area to make a cup of co…

I watched a few games and then felt confident enough to play against Kojo.  I tried to think things through, but was too inexperienced to remember all the catching techniques and lost heavily.  I …

Having never worked in a hangar, I hung back while Gray cleaned his windscreens, tested the flaps, ensured all the wires and controls were operating, and then he released the cables that were holdi…

We also had a wander around the botanical gardens.  Although small, it was in full colour – the fall was probably in its finest week before the snow which had threatened earlier in the week f…

Kojo and the guy played a game.  It was now pouring down with rain and the seller was not planning to go anywhere until the storm had moved on.  They placed four beans in each of the cups and Kojo…

I thought that would be the last I saw of this guy, but two nights later, I was out on the veranda watching the rain tipple down as usual, and he came out of the gloom into the hut.  The guard had…