Editorial

every morning and afternoon, sometimes leaving at 4am to rise with the birds and sometimes returning at 1am after having spent the evening observing bats. After 1 week at the park we set off on a long journey by ferry to reach the distant island of Silba, a 4-hour journey by ferry from the mainland. On Silba Island, the students followed an open water diving course in the beautiful water of this car-free and sparsely-populated Croatian Island.

It was a privilege as a teacher but also as a parent to witness these bright and enthusiastic youngsters set out on expeditions every day. How quickly these youths adapted to community living, doing chores and other duties at the camp base in great camaraderie spirit. I am now looking forward to seeing Julian go on the next Opwall Wallacea expedition to Mexico next summer.

Click here to go to the Opwall Wallacea website. It explains what the Croatia expedition entails.

The Student’s Perspective

I cannot begin to describe just how incredible OpWall is. A 2 week expedition focusing on gathering data relating to conservation. The data gathered on the local ecology, feeding patterns and numerics on individuals under a certain bracket of taxonomy are all taken and processed into valuable data, published in future research papers and given to the local government in order to further promote, with scientific evidence, the value of conservation. My experience with OpWall was the Croatia 2022 expedition. A two week expedition consisting of one week doing terrestrial research in Krka National Park, and the next doing marine research on the island of Silba.

The terrestrial week was a huge culture shock. In less than four

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Celebrating Halloween?

Many would say : why not? Others would say: No Way. The basic question however is: should there be all this controversy over what, ultimately, has evolved into a dress-up day?

The roots of Halloween are cobwebbed in the mists of history when the borders between the known and the unknown were blurred and the unknown was the realm of ‘magic’. This was the way that the people in the past would be able to explain the unexplainable. Today we know better.

As in other instances, Christianity took over existing feasts and baptized them, so to speak. Saturnalia became Christmas and even today’s wedding rituals still harken to Roman traditions. So it was with Samhain, Halloween. The feasts of All Souls and subsequently of All Saints replaced the Druidic rituals so that all that remained over time was the ‘witchy’ lore and the Jack O’ Lantern—it is the season to be pumpkinny, after all.

While there is no harm in dressing up, some still object to that. They have the right to their opinion but dressing up need not be limited to ghouls and witches. One can celebrate All Souls and dress up as angels and saints. This has helped some catholic parishes overcome the impasse on how to entertain children without infringing of family values. Food for thought?

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