On Sunday We Rest

Sundays have a whole new meaning in Bukoba. Sundays mean I can wake up after 6am and if I’m lucky, like I was this past Sunday, it means having more than just avocado and three inch bananas for breakfast. This Sunday the breakfast table had the usual toast and avocado but with the pleasant addition of fried, not boiled, eggs and potatoes. I woke up thinking I was in Denny’s.

After digesting my food, which takes about five minutes because everything is fresh and organic so it slips right through your system, I washed my unmentionables and hung them to dry on the laundry line outside and prayed that it wouldn’t rain because I was on my last pair of uhhh, unmentionables and Monday would not have been pleasant. (run-on sentences happen frequently in my post)

THE RUN

Noah, Reacheal, and I like to attempt suicide every other day and run up the hills that surround our house. Justin and Anthony would have joined us but they claim to have asthma. When I get over the fact that my lungs are screaming for air and my legs are on fire I take in the view around me. We sit atop a hill (or mountain depending on who you ask) that overlooks Lake Victoria and the landscape view is breathtaking, it keeps me running after my lungs have given and legs have turned to jelly.

When the day of rest comes to an end it’s back to regular schedule programming. This experience thus far has been a melting pot of emotions. There is excitement because this is the first time I’ve been to the continent of Africa and the feeling is overwhelming. There is frustration because I’m unable to communicate in Kiswahili as well as I’d like to with people in the communities we are working with.  Lastly there is paranoia because my medication for malaria, Malarone, is a psychotic so my dreams have been worthy of science fiction movies.

New Beginnings ...

April 29^th we left Gainesville for what would be our first 24-hour flight bound for Uganda, making several stops along the way, hopping from one Boeing 737 to another. Arriving excited, and jet-lagged, we spent the night in Uganda and departing Entebbe early the next morning. Five hours and 100 dollars later (visas are getting expensive these days) we arrived in Bukoba, Tanzania in what will ultimately be our home/base of operations for the next six weeks.

This is officially the start of the third week and I know we’re late starting the blog but … better late than never. Just to give a brief overview, we are engaged in two major projects. The first involves expanding a local tourism project that highlights the reign of a major king as well as one of the oldest iron smelting sites in Africa. As of right now the tour explains the history of the king and local cosmology/mythology. Our task is to expand the iron-smelting component as well as to conduct some additional ethnographic work.

The other project involves archaeology and the restoration of a palace that was built by the Germans for a local king in the late 19^th century. It remains a home for the current royal family and the intention is that it will be turned into a local museum and serve as a means of preserving a rapidly fading history. Over these past two weeks we have mostly been engaged in archaeological excavations at the palace, although the successive weeks will focus more on the tourism project and mapping a number of sacred places. Hopefully this will help contextualize the events and contemplations that will transpire over the next three weeks. As we go through the trials and tribulations of conducting archaeology, addressing local needs and broader anthropological questions, we hope this will prove to be as much a learning experience for you all as it will be for us.