An Empirical Paradise

About a month ago, I met a group of Italian scientists coming from the University of Pavia to watch Socotri lizards. As Pavia is the same small town where I studied myself, we had good reasons to chat for a while at dinner time, in the cleanest restaurant this island offers. I am obviously not a scientist, but I had a great pleasure in listening to their interests and studies.

One of them stayed a bit longer, a zoologist from Milan. She is a very easy going woman, obviously used to field activities, an interesting person to chat with and, of course, a good source of knowledge about animals! For instance, she was the one who helped me getting rid of a small rat I had in the kitchen, or noticed that most probably mother cat Soma is pregnant again!

The greatest gift she could give me before she left (sob…) was to introduce me to the new bunch of Italian scientists, who arrived about a week ago. Some of them are again from the University of Pavia; others from the University of Rome. Some will leave in few days; others will stay for a couple of months!

A wide range of scientific branches are represented by these eight experts: hydrogeology, botanic, zoology and biology. Far from being boring and pompous laboratory rats, these people are very lively, enthusiastic about their work and tireless hunters of specimens and samples (or trophies?) to bring back to their own Departments.

The group does not stick together all day long, for the simple reasons that these hunters look for different “preys”, but they gather in the evening to exchange the daily anecdotes: not only they feel the need of an evening debriefing; it rather looks like they want to have a good time, but in a productive way! Such sessions usually happen during dinners, in which I have never been left behind. Between tasteful fish, but raw and oil-sweating chips, I even found my own place and task: my input is to update them on the present political situation of Italy, which is going through a big crisis, of which the possible outcomes are obviously uncertain (nothing worrying about it, it’s “business as usual”…). Still, it is important for us not to lose contact with our own reality.

A political scientist may soon be bored of Socotra if she/he is not feeling great empathy towards the magnificent beauties of the island. But a real scientist feels like in heaven. It is a mere matter of perception capacities. You have already seen some pictures of endemic flora: those trees look sufficiently crazy to non-experts; just imagine how a botanist would feel like under their shade! By the way, some weeks ago I met another Italian botanist who, being now retired, has built a house for himself and his wife close to the beautiful beach of Dlesha (I shall post a picture soon): his personal garden includes every single endemic plant specimen of Socotra.

The best I can do in my spare time is to get lost in the amazing nature of Socotra. Now I am given the chance to enjoy the nature with the eyes and words of a scientist, who is also a teacher and luckily possesses the sufficient pedagogic skills and human qualities as to make me enjoy things I would be unable to see by myself. This is what happened last weekend.

I went with a very experienced and fascinating hydro-geologist and his young pupil to take samples of water from the source, the river, the sea-level or even from the sea itself. They explained to me in very easy words what they were studying, to what result they wanted to get, why their instruments were giving determined data. Now I know why that mountain has that colour or shape, or why there are such kinds of stones on the seashore. I could even feel like I was actively participating to the scientific expedition. It made me recall the stage of my life in which I wanted to be a geologist. We even had the time to rest on an immense sandy beach and swim in turquoise water. Most importantly, they even offered me amazing ideas to work on, and maybe put them into practice in the near future.

I am most grateful to the zoologist who introduced me to this incredible source of knowledge and intelligent free time spending. I hope she has realized by now the big door she opened to me. Maybe the twelve-metre-long dead whale we examined on a beach did not smell good, but anyway she invited me to enter a fascinating world of knowledge, and leave behind the gloomy loneliness I was being dragged in.