Month: December 2016

Dispatches from Abroad: Home for the “Holidays”

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Less than two weeks ago, I was sweating on the equator, where there’s no snow and the Christmas decor of Santas, elves, and reindeer seems vaguely out of place. Now I’m back in Massachusetts, where there’s a little of the white stuff (although most melted out in yesterday’s driving rain) and re-learning my way around the American landscape I’ve been away from since late July.

Apparently, one of the big issues facing the good citizens of our republic in this transitional era is whether one should say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”. Fivethirtyeight.com even did a post on this vexing question. Living as I do in the northeast, I’ve usually gone along with my local majority, which shares exuberant Christmas displays with “Happy Holidays.” But the ground appears to be shifting a bit here in Massachusetts.

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Dispatches from Abroad: Ciao Belém – foi um grande momento!

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Perched in the São Paulo airport, in between Belém and Houston, thence to Boston, my 14-month sabbatical is coming to what seems an all-to-soon close. But it has been an awesome year, capped by a really excellent two-and-a-half weeks working with Rogério Silva, mostly in the rainforest at Caxiuanã. But Belém deserves mention, too. A sprawling, filthy, and yet exuberant city of more than 2 million people perched near the mouth of the Amazon River, it has a waterfront with pedestrian esplanades, museums and forts, working docks, and an iron market with all sorts of delicacies from the Amazon basin. And at least one superb restaurant. In this post, I share four of my most notable memories of Belém: a cool breeze, the flanelas, the iron market/waterfront, and a dinner out.

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The unBalanced ecoLOGogist: Up The River and into The Woods

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Having spent the better part of two weeks moving down the Amazon River from Tabatinga to Belém, I’m now in the midst of the last 2-1/2 weeks of my year-long sabbatical leave, working on all things ants with my friend and colleague Rogério Silva at the Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi. Rogério and I have been working on ecological similarities and differences between temperate and tropical ants. He’s visited me twice at Harvard Forest and now, with support from the Museum in Belém, I have an opportunity to learn first-hand about the ants of the Brazilian rainforest.

But first we have to get there.

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