The months are full. I work, play music, and I am on several boards and committees. My blog has suffered somewhat from lack of attention. For one, I have been feeling somewhat ashamed of all my travels. I have been in too many airplanes, but I still get ¨randomly¨ selected for thorough security screening. In any case, I am feeling extremely privileged, with my homes in Stockholm, San Francisco and Vilnius, and family all over the world. So, I am writing this in the Autumn of 2024, several months since early September, when I was in Prague and Mohelno, in the Czech Republic, as a professor for a course for students studying avian malaria. It was such a delightful group of students and professors, connected by our science and the common language that springs from our work. Not many people would understand what we are talking about when we discuss SGS1 and GRW4, sporozoites and megalomeronts, blackflies and culicoides. This jargon glues us together, along with our devotion to the birds and ecosystem conservation.
We were about 25 people, students and teachers, in Mohelno, kind of between Brno and the Austrian border. Hot days and long hours of lectures and microscopy practicals were punctuated by our swims in the cool river that runs through the old mill. Surrounding the village are open fields, where I would do my morning runs, and a huge nuclear power plant that dominates the horizon. The professors slept in Mohelno, in a simple house, and the students stayed at the field station. We ate lunches and dinners together. I had brought a week´s worth of vegan Indian food packages that I quickly warmed up, while the others ate the typical Czech meat and potatoes. We formed a community and friendships, that these students will maintain throughout their lives. This was all funded by the European COST program, and the Wildlife Malaria Network (WIMANET) action group. There is something remarkable and very fulfilling about working with eager motivated students. This is why I am a professor.
After the course, a close friend from Stockholm joined me for an exploration of Prague. We did an incredible amount in just a few days. We saw a ballet and a Verdi opera, Nabucco. We visited the castle and did a day excursion into the region near the German border with ancient volcanos, and the picturesque town of Louny. I particularly liked the Museum of Musical Instruments with many old bassoons and some peculiar brass horns. Prague in the summer is so full of tourists. The Prague castle was swamped, and the lines were long everywhere. There was vomit on the streets from all the drunklings. But still there is something magical about this city, with so much history, both tragic and resplendent.
