15 & 16/01/10

16/01/10

So yesterday I didn’t get the chance to update, so I’ll try and do both today. It was generally a pretty standard day of excavation. I was on site again, it was very dusty. Matt was trying to dig over our side as well as supervise Joe (Matua) and Chris over the other side where they were looking for furnaces and other interesting stuff. Umm, more planning, more digging. We got to the bog ashy block we could see in the section, and so Leila and I had the fun task of digging through it. It was inches thick in some places, and had some interesting stuff in it. Including some lithics which both Matt and I were very confused about. They look like lithics, but they feel as though they are made out of some very different material. I guess maybe it’ll become clearer once that have been cleaned properly. They were so very ashy that you could barely tell what they were. I may also have enjoyed myself slightly at one point, but we all agreed not to mention it again and forget it ever happened. :P

The only other things that happened on site were us forgetting the drawing kit. No pens, no finds bags, no planning equipment. So Joe had to drive all the way back to Makutano to fetch it, and while he was away we had an eclipse. Well. We didn’t see the eclipse, but he did, because the sun was hidden behind the mountain (Mount Moropus). Apparently he had two shadows!

We were at site a bit late as Matt wanted to get through something or other around the other side, or plan it or something, so they rest of us waited by the car for a while. Finally got back to the hotel at about 6pm. They were supposed to be moving me rooms, but they hadn’t, so I had to fuff around for ages waiting to find out which room was available. Then I finally got a new key for room 105, bottom floor, which means squat toilet, but it has a shower which works which is all I care about when I come back dusty and tired! So I had a shower and then we had dinner, and then went out for a drink courtesy of Matt. But unfortunately we didn’t have a joyous evening. Joe had a phone call and some very bad news. We’d just had drinks delivered and he came in declaring he’d had some bad news as he poured some of his beer into a glass, and then onto the floor and angrily lit a cigarette. It took him a minute but he finally told us he’d been told his dad had died. Very sad news, especially with him so far away. He decided to go back to Nairobi today and apparently he left at 10 to 5 this morning! He’s the oldest of his brothers so he’s now the one who has to do everything. I feel so sad for him, but I learned quite a lot about his family in that short time because of it. One of his brothers is a magistrate in Lodwar (even further away than we are) and his children are away at boarding school. He was talking fondly of how he was there for Christmas, and that they’d all had a great family gathering, and that only earlier on in the day he had driven himself to the chemist to get his medicine (he had problems with his lungs or something) but then stayed at Joe’s house with his wife instead of going the km back to his own house. He called Joe’s wife to ask him to get him some water, and when she came back minutes later he was gone. So sudden!
And so on to happier things, like my day today. Today Leila and I had the day off from the site. Leila was doing application stuff, and I was at Kapenguria museum. We both had a lovely lie in, although we both woke up at 6 when we would have normally, and then heard loads of noise as after 6 it seemed everyone in the hotel left rather noisily. We got up and went to have breakfast at 8. It was nice, the boys had left the place in a bit of a mess, and they’d eaten all the eggs we’d cooked to have for our breakfast so we had to boil some more. But Leila made fruit salad and we had a relaxed coffee. It was lovely! I headed off to the museum at about 9.30. I had to walk left out of the hotel and down the hill, and then back up a bit to where I found the matatus that were going to Kapenguria. They were small car ones rather than big Nissan minibuses. I found one going in my direction and got in the front seat. The driver was most amused at having a mzungu in his car and kept telling people something that had ‘mzungu’ in it. I felt like a celebrity. Especially when a girl got in next to me when we stopped at the petrol station and wanted me to give her my watch to remember me by. I told her she’d have to just keep me alive in her head, to which she replied that she has a bad memory. So I said so do I and what was she going to give me to remember her by. Then she said something to a guy outside, and pointed a guy called Philip out to me and said something about him wanting me or something to that effect. I just laughed along. Then as we got going again she got out. And amazingly I still had my watch on my wrist and everything intact in my bag. They guy in the bag said something like, African are very naughty aren’t they? I said sometimes. And then mzungu are very naughty sometimes too. Hee hee, I was pleased with myself for my small bit of conversation, or at least sticking up for myself a little bit. I really wish I understood more Kiswahili so I could know what they were saying presuming I don’t understand.

So, we got to Kapenguria and I got out and paid my 30 shillings and even recognised where I was going to get to the museum. When I arrived they had been told to expect me, so I got started straight away. I went around the Heroes Gallery taking copious notes and photographs. I had got about halfway when an American couple turned up being guided around, so I stopped for a bit to let them pass. Had a quick chat to the guide whose name might be Andrew, it sounded a little bit like Andrew, but you never can tell here. Then I did the Cherangani Gallery just taking notes first, and then went for lunch before taking the photos. I went and asked Andrew where would be a good place to take lunch, so he took me took a hoteli. Apparently the good one was shut today, so he took me to another one and sat me down outside and went off to send the guy over to take my order. I had ended up sat outside the room with the pool table and was in full view of all the boys inside who I could see kept staring out at me for a while. I had chapatti and sukuma and chai. It was very nice. And only cost me 50 shillings, although I think I may have been overcharged. I went back to the museum, Andrew asked if they had treated me well, and I had a little wander around before going back to photograph the cherangani gallery. I went to see the baboon and vervet (or colubus, I can’t remember what it’s called now) monkeys in their cages. The baboon looked just as crazy as last time.

After I’d finished in the Cherangani Gallery I moved on to the Pokot one. I was very pleased with the amount of notes and ideas I managed to come up with while going around. They are all really small things that either need changing or adding to, but it builds up to quite a lot. I think everything will have to be taken out, the place cleaned, repaired and repainted, and then everything put back again but better and with better labelling. I have a feeling I’m going to play a major role in this. :-/ I only managed to get halfway around with the photos before my battery was on its way out, and there was a bee which kept following me around and so I couldn’t concentrate on what I was doing. I went through the photos when I got back and I’m going to have to redo a few because they were blurred but because I was distracted I didn’t notice. Hmph. I also had a couple of kids come in who pestered me to take photos of them. I took a couple and promised to get them printed and bring them back for them in February. So I left the museum not long after 4 as I was chased out by the bee. Caught a matatu back into Makutano centre and so moseyed around a bit on my way back to the hotel. I bought some Vaseline as my lips and hands are so dry from being on site, and some conditioner as my hair is also very dry and I didn’t bring enough with me. It was only 65 shillings, but I hope it’s good anyway. It’s by a brand called Nice and Lovely. Heh, it had better be!
I’ve not done much this evening. I went through my notes adding the photo numbers from the Pokot gallery that I hadn’t done earlier. I had a quick chat to Matt and offered to come to site tomorrow and then go back to the museum on Monday. He said that would be very useful and he’s gonna have me in charge of one side so he can be round with the furnace they found on the south side. Then I started to read through my camera manual (yes I did bring other reading material with me, but I figured I should learn exactly what everything does at some point as I found a new thing today which allowed me to tell it that I’m on holiday and where I am and stuff. It now keeps telling me I’m on my 93rd day in Kenya) but then Leila came to give me the laptop so I’ve been emailing ever since. In between having dinner and chatting to Leila. She just popped in to see if I’d finished and I’ve just noticed the time, so I’d better get online and actually get all these emails sent!