‘For my thesis I researched the influence of the malaria medicine Coarten on a person’s odour profile, and thus on how appealing mosquitoes find people. Together with someone who was familiar with the local area, I distributed nylon socks to the residents. They had to wear the socks for 20 hours, after which I collected them and put them in the freezer, ready for later research. The idea is that mosquitoes find a particular scent attractive and I was studying the effect of age in this respect. Between the studies, I also travelled widely in Kenya. For example, I visited the Rondo Retreat, a resort designed in a style that takes you right back to 1920. That was really cool. Every day at 4 o’clock we were served tea and cake on the veranda and there were apes in the nearby trees who would be sociable and come and take a look. So you really felt like you were back in the colonial era. Luckily, we did have modern conveniences, such as a fridge.
As well as the bungalow we had our own guide. On one occasion we got up at 5 a.m. to go into the Kakamega Rainforest. That is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. It is bursting with greenery and wild animals. We walked a little way into the rainforest and stood on a large vol- canichill. Standing there, I saw the most beautiful sunrise of my life. Travelling itself was difficult because the traffic is truly chaotic. It is very frightening. You see buses with tree trunks ten metres long strapped to the roof. People overtake by accelerating rapidly and there is no trace of any traffic regulations. Once, we wanted to turn the car around on the street because we had missed a turning. Suddenly a pikipiki, a sort of motorbike, appeared from behind a truck. The drive scraped along the side of our car, fell heavily and rolled a fair way across the road. We quickly stopped and I gave the man first aid and took him to a clinic. He was lucky not to be badly injured.’