April 29th 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 19th 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.
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