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Cairn in South America; Teaching in Uruguay 1999

April 1999

Jez and Martin spent two weeks in Uruguay in April 1999, teaching on the fourth Latin-American School of Neurosciences. This course was held in Montevideo, and was organised by Jose Sotelo and Juan Benech. Most of the students were from South America, but there was quite a strong European presence amongst the teachers, including (in no particular order) David Ogden, Euan Brown (both UK), Ernesto Carafoli (Switzerland/Italy), Antonio Giuditta (Italy) and Reiner Martin (Germany). It was officially described as a Summer School, although April in South America is actually pretty far into autumn. Flying south at this time of year has the slightly disconcerting effect of going directly from spring buds to falling leaves, making one wonder whatever happened to summer, but those of us who live in Northern Europe are already very used to this sort of feeling.

Cairn also provided some of the equipment used on the course, including a monochromator-based fluorescence photometer and a flash photolysis system, and we brought an Optopatch as well, although we didn't get a chance to use it (but it was the subject of one of our lectures). We are very grateful to the British Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) for paying for shipping of the equipment to and from Uruguay, and also for meeting part of our travel expenses, which allowed two of us to attend rather than just one. This was particularly useful, as it allowed much more time for discussions, especially with other teachers and local scientists, a number of whom expressed a keen interest in our products.

On our return journey, we spent a couple of days in Rio (we were flying via there anyway) as the guest of Prof. L. C. Cameron, who was another of the course teachers. Although neither he nor most of the other people to whom we spoke have immediate funds (otherwise we'd have had a lot of orders!), meetings of this sort are an invaluable way of acquainting people with our products, and can be an excellent source of business in the longer term, so many thanks once again to the DTI, whose generosity we hope to repay via the taxation system in due course.

So what did we think of South America? Martin (who landed himself with the job of writing this) finds he's really missing the place. The sad and disgraceful truth is that both he and Jez are carnivores, and even worse, they've both been known to indulge in this filthy habit on material that has not been fully cooked. The quality of the meat was far superior to anything we are used to in the UK (and at a much lower price), and we suspect this might be because South Americans feed their cows on grass rather than on bits of other cows, although this is only a very provisional hypothesis of course. Furthermore, quantities are such that vegetables are unnecessary. Mind you, Jez and Euan did ignore the guidebook warnings about Uruguayan mixed grills, which should indeed only be ordered if you haven't eaten for several days beforehand. However, the guidebook neglected to point out just how mixed these grills can be, and Euan had great fun identifying the various body parts that had gone into the production of these culinary extravaganzas - or at least he did until he found something that looked rather like a tail but didn't contain any bones, after which they both seemed to lose their appetite somewhat. The cerveza was pretty good too, and tended to slip down rather too easily, as the accompanying pictures of one of the teacher-student evening gatherings make distressingly clear.

Which finally brings us to the students, most of whom were from South America, although one brave soul had come all the way from Beirut. Of course we'd have to say that they were great even if they weren't, but no lies are necessary here. It was a real pleasure to teach them, and on occasion, for them to teach us a few things! To give a nice example of that, Euan has worked extensively on squid, and he mentioned that they are notoriously difficult to keep alive in aquaria for more than a few days after capture, and not even the giant ones are thought to survive in the ocean for more than eighteen months. Upon which, one of the students (Rodrigo Varas from Santiago) said that was odd, because he'd been keeping a squid in his aquarium at home for over two years now. This should be verifiable too, because when a squid finally curls up its tentacles, it's possible to age it by examining growth rings in part of the ear. We'll keep you all posted on the outcome of this one, although we may have to wait quite a while yet!

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