Years ago, I was invited to participate in a panel at the 5th US-Japan Youth Forum in Tokyo. One of my fellow panellists was Kjerstin Erickson, who founded a successful non-profit organization, FORGE, at the age of 20. On stage, she was an amazing and inspiring speaker. But in person, too, she was an extremely honest, intelligent and thoughtful person to bounce ideas around with. She was also a lot of fun! We had a great time visiting one of my favourite things to see in Tokyo, the Elvises in Yoyogi Park...

Last year, Kjerstin posted something on Facebook about her new startup - Simbi, a website for people to trade skills and services, without any money changing hands. Members offer or requests services - anything from edits to illustrations to yoga lessons to babysitting to IT support to gardening to language lessons - and instead of paying in money, everything is paid for in a virual currency. This currency can then be exchanged for more services! The currency has no cash value, so all the effort you put in only goes towards helping other individuals. Also, everyone starts out equal, which is how the world ought to be. 

It's a very simple idea, and pretty intuitive, too, so it's been really successful. Just a year after it was founded, Simbi is now a brilliant and thriving online community, populated by a huge number of people, all of whom share a common set of values. I really recommend it to everyone and anyone.

The point of this story is firstly to encourage you to join Simbi! But also to introduce my first fieldwork video :)

A few days ago, I sent a few of my unedited video clips - taken this year in Burkina Faso - to another Simbi member. In no time at all, he put a lovely short film together for me. It's only a minute and a half long, and it shows caterpillars in Burkina Faso being prepared by my Burkinabe neighbours, Argita and Momoni, and you can watch it here on YouTube. I hope you like it!

Here are a few screenshots from the film, and also one of the Simbi manifesto:

The audio files of the IFF workshop held last month are now available online, via YouTube, with thanks to Mara at the Future of Food programme of the Oxford Martin School. A playlist of all audio files can be found here on YouTube.

For a few days, I'm 'in between'. I finished being an employee last week, and I'll start being a graduate student next week. But for now, I'm neither. So I decided to spend yesterday at the fantastic Museum of Natural History in Oxford, taking photos of some of the creatures I've become so strangely attached to during the past few years. I was able to use the museums's SLR camera and photographic software to take photos of some specimens from the Hope Entomological Collections, and also of my own specimens. This meant that I could take 6-10 pictures of each sample and merge them together, so that every part of the insect is in focus.

First, here are three photos from the Hope Entomological Collections. The wasps and hornets that I came to know in central Japan:

Then, here are a few photos of my own samples - insects from Lui Kotale, Democratic Republic of the Congo:

And last but not least, a detailed portrait of a giant hornet, freshly retrieved from some hornet liquor (product of Kushihara):

The picture above is actually 36 separate images, merged together to ensure that the entire head is in focus. Next time I have some free time I am hoping to take one of the whole hornet, part by part, and merge them together..if you like that kind of thing, then watch this space!

Back from the most beautiful forest I've ever been lucky enough to work in - nr Salonga National Park, DRC. Here's a camera trap video taken in the early morning on one of the trails, and one of my all-time favourite videos.

All credit to the LuiKotale Bonobo project, run by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Studies, where I've been working as a bonobo habituation assistant.