TIA BABY!!
So what was I doing in Africa? Well, I'd heard on the grapevine of a job supervising a research excavation on some olden days stuff in Tasmania. After further inquiry I found out it was actually TANZANIA in East Africa and not a island off the south coast of Australia. Naivety on the leader of the project, Dr Daryl's part allowed me to worm myself onto the caper. I thought to myself, well, I've been to Morocco in North Africa, I've been to South Africa and Swaziland in, er, South Africa, but I've never been East or West in Africa. Since East Africa only carries the dangers of Malaria and AIDS and the West carries the dangers of your vehicle being stopped by armed insurgents in Technicals and having your arms being macheted off by drugged up teenage boy soldiers, the East seems to be a much nicer prospect.
No drugs and machetes here...
The project was dealing with a 'lost' village at a place called Engaruka in Northern Tanzania. This village consisted of several field systems of complex furrows and water channels along with mysterious stone circles and a mountainside terraced with house platforms. This whole thing had gone out of use about three hundred years ago, but they was little evidence of who the people were who had lived there. The Masai who lived in the area now only moved in around two hundred years ago and their oral histories had no recollection of the people of the village. It's not as Scooby Doo and mysterious as it sounds, given that these people were farmers it was probably a climate change that brought around their disappearance and they just fucked off to a wetter area. We were there not to discover who these people were, that would be almost impossible anyway, but to work out the sequences of construction between the house platforms and field systems. Whew, that's the boring archaeology out of the way, come on, wake up, I'll try not to mention it again too often.
Yawn...
We (the supervisors were myself, Kirk and Ted. The project was led by that Posh Bastard Daryl) flew into Nairobi as that is where the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) is located. It's in a lovely leafy suburb of Nairobi and it gave one the impression that Nairobi was a idyllic place, an oasis of green in the dusty desert. It was only an impression. Nairobi isn't called Nairobbery for nothing and a walk through the park could result in either getting raped, robbed, injected with a syringe full of AIDS or all of the above*. The opening account was written sitting in a hotel called NIBS (Nairobi Institute of Business Studies, the students ran the hotel as a project) which was just around the corner from the BIEA and despite Ted's protests was cheaper than the YMCA. Despite this saving, I was electrocuted by the shower. I hadn't been wearing the plastic slippers provided and the TV had a two pronged plug for a three holed socket.
'Has this shower had a HSE inspection?'
Having said that, NIBS did the best Nyama Choma that I'd ever had. Well, it was the only Nyama Choma that I'd had until that point, but that hardly matters does it? Nyama Choma is an East African speciality, basically it's a load of cooked meat served with some chilies, sometimes some grilled bananas. You order it by the kilo and Ted, Kirk, Sarah (an American woman who came along despite having A MASSIVE FUCKING INFECTED HOLE in her leg from an insect bite...) and I ordered two kilos of unspecified meat. This brought on the first of many fevered meat dreams.
'What animal is this?'
'Who cares, just keep eating!'
The BIEA was where the expedition was to be launched from as the site was in Northern Tanzania and was easier and closer to reach than from Dar Es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania. Besides, all the equipment was located at the BIEA, what were you expecting us to do? Dig the site out with our fucking teeth? The few days spent in Nairobbery were busy with meeting some of the students who we would be working with and packing the two Landrovers that we would be taking with us. These first students were from the University of Nairobbery and had just completed their anthropology degrees. I'll tell you more about these in a later post, but we were also working with students from Dar Es Salaam University and they were to arrive at a later date. After quick introductions during which I promptly forgot every one's name, myself, Daryl, Ted, Kirk, Sarah, Johnpius (another graduated Student from Dar Es Salaam) and Benson (our site surveyor) set off for the long journey south to the wilds of Tanzania in the Landys. What was waiting for us there? Would we be mauled by tigers? Eaten by Polar Bears? Assaulted by boxing kangaroos? Find out in the next part of TIA BABY!! PART TWO... (Don't hold your breath though, I'll be away for a week...)
On the road motherfuckers!!
* For Mary's sake, all of this is a joke.
