Working with Mzuzu University and other News from the Beach

-So Alex and I had a meeting with the lecturers at Mzuzu University’s Fisheries Department. Mr. Elias Chirwa welcomed our ideas about forming a closer relationship between the Maru Research Center and their department particularly in regards to sending some of their students down to the Research Center “on attachment” to do field research with us.

- Joy and I leave for Cape Town on Sunday. While there we will be meeting with my former master’s degree supervisor, Merle Sowman. She is a hugely active and capable researcher and program implementer at the University of Cape Town who is currently involved in a UNFAO project that will promote awareness about the importance of community-based management in coastal and aquatic zones in Malawi. I can’t wait to learn more about it.

- I’d like to thank all the Peace Corps volunteers working with the Maru on our underwater survey program. We’ve trained three volunteers so far and two more are in the works. With their help we will be able to expand survey sites and the data analysis that we do on them.

- Belated congratulations to all Malawian’s on the anniversary of the death of Rev. John Chilembwe, who died 97 years ago while fighting for the independence of Malawi from colonial rule.

- And one more fish picture. This little fella is proving a bugger to identify definitively. For now we call him Pseudotropheus sp. “silver” though Maylandia sp. “silver” may be closer to the mark.

Working with Mzuzu University and other News from the Beach