ABSTRACT
As a child, one has that magical capacity to move among the many areas of the earth; to see the land as an animal does, to experience the sky from the perspective of a fl ower or a bee, to feel the earth quiver and breathe beneath us; to know a hundred diff erent smells of mud and listen unselfconsciously to the soughing of the trees. (Valerie Andrews (1990) A Passion for this Earth)
A PASSION AND INTEREST IN NATURE AND INQUIRY I grew up in ceylon, now called “Sri Lanka,” a small island in South Asia surrounded by oceans and rain forests, where most backyards teemed with wildlife. Most of my childhood was spent in small cities on the island and also in a city not far from the capital of the country. In the tropics small creatures manage to creep into people’s homes, upsetting many residents, but they did not bother me. I have a very pleasant childhood memory of looking for gecko’s eggs behind my father’s bookshelves (their favorite place to lay eggs) and placing them in empty match-boxes lined with cotton wool. Th en I waited impatiently until the baby geckos hatched. When they fi nally came out, I tried to keep them as pets, but to my dismay they always ran away.
