Fuck off Arusha!! We don't need your batiks or Muzungu T-Shirts!
How does one get to Engaruka, I hear you cry. Well, it's pretty simple, you take the road out of Arusha, follow the metalled road out to Mtu wa Mbu (the name translates as 'River of Mosquitoes'; probably not the best advertisement for a town in a Malaria hot spot...), go through the town and then on the left you'll see a dirt track. Follow that, unless the rains have washed away all traces of the road, for about 2 hours. Make sure you have a four wheel drive as a Toyota Yaris may not be able to cope with all the rocks the size of a house, soft sand, crevices, and giraffes that you'll undoubtedly meet along the way. Calling out the AA is not really an option: 'Yeah, we're stuck in some soft sand on the road to Engaruka. Where abouts? Erm, well there's some scrub land around us. There's some massive mountains in the distance. There was three giraffes but they've moved now. There's some kids waving and asking for money. Can you get our position from that?'
Turn left at the giraffes...
So after two hours of bouncing around like a tennis ball in a washing machine in the back of the Landrover because Posh Bastard refused to slow down, we arrived at the edge of Engaruka village. Daryl then refused to pay the $10 entry fee that the village council were charging for tourists. He was well within his rights since the barrier was not recognised by the Antiquities Authorities and was a local cash raising initiative, but I still feared we'd all be speared by Masai spears in the dead of the night. After a Mexican stand off that lasted for what seemed like ages we were allowed into the village and found our way to the campsite that would be our accommodation for the next six weeks. It was dark by the time we arrived and we had to set up in the pitch black but somehow we managed not to put the tents up upside down.
Did anyone see where I put that tent peg?
Over the next couple of days we met Israel, the guardian of the site and local wide boy. Over the period we were working in Engaruka Israel managed to shift his entire family into the service of Daryl. He guided, his wife cooked, when she wasn't available, his brother took over, some young lad who must have had familial connections ran around clearing plates after dinner and I'm fairly sure it was Israel's older relative who owned the camp site. On arrival, Israel took myself, Kirk, Ted, Benson and Johnpius around to have a look at the archaeology. We stumbled upon some Masai lads who gave us some of their soup, made from tree bark and dung by the taste of it. They were the warrior caste, called Moran. Basically, all the men of the village between eighteen and thirty years old leave and live together out in the wild, eating roots and berries, killing lions and generally training to be warriors. It's a pretty good system as it gives the Masai an ever present warrior army and separates the testosterone fuelled youngsters from the elders and the rest of the village, therefore cutting down on power struggles between young and old. It got me thinking, we have a similar set young lads in the UK, between 18 and 30 who also spend their time out in pubs, drinking and fighting. Except over here we call them Morons.
Drink this soup or we'll fucking stab you...
After a couple of days of flouncing around the site looking at the archaeology we were joined by the Kenyan student; Grace, Mary, Linda, John Junior and Steve Ugali, along with Charles the Tanzanian antiquities representative who had more testosterone than the entire male staff of English Heritage combined. Later we were joined by the Tanzanian students and we began working. My team consisted of John Junior, Irene, Catherine, Edith and Linda. As you will notice, I was surrounded by birds for the first few weeks and women being women, they were obsessed with soap operas. The particular soap they were obsessed with was Shades of Sin, a Latin American show that was screened across East Africa. This filtered it's way onto site through osmosis and we were all renamed after characters in the soap. I was Papushka, Catherine was renamed Mamushka and John Junior became Paco. These names stuck for the duration of the excavation. What else can I say about the students? They were great overall, very funny, friendly, hardworking and very polite. None of them complained like the whining York students when they had to climb up a fucking mountain everyday in a Death March led by that Posh Bastard Daryl. Oh no, the students at Heslington East whined when they had to get out of bed to get to work for half past nine. How would they have coped if they had to have got out of bed to be on site at 7.00am after walking for nearly an hour up hill to do a full days work.
No shirkers here...
I'll take a break here to talk about the food on site. Given that it was a student excavation run on a tight budget the food was expected to be quite bad. 'Quite bad' would do it too much justice. Let's say 'downright fucking terrible'. Each and every meal, Lunch and dinner, was made up of beans along with cabbage (at least I think it was cabbage...). To bulk out this culinary combination we were provided with rice for dinner and for lunch, Ugali. Now for those that don't know, Ugali is an African specialty. I had had it before in South Africa, where it is called Mielie pap. I tried it in one of those moments that tourists have: 'let's try what the locals eat, it can't be that bad!' It wasn't at the time, but then I only had it for one meal. After six weeks of forcing this glutinous slop down just in order to get something in my belly after a full day's work I'd rather eat a bowl of my own shit and vomit than another plate of Ugali. You think I'm kidding? At least shit and vomit would taste of something. Ugali has literally no taste, even sticking my dusty fingers into it improved things. It was great for dieting, I'd work a full day, walk back down the mountain starving hungry, see the Ugali waiting for us and instantly loose my appetite.
Bleurghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
OK that's enough shit for this part, I'll return to Africa soon with tales of what we did on our days off and my holidays through Zanzibar...
