How You Dey?

Greetings from Nigeria! I suppose I'll begin with a poor excuse for my delay in blogging. Basically, if the blog is supposed to be about fieldwork, I didn't feel justified to start blogging without starting to do actual work, and although I've been here now for over two weeks, and it seems like much longer than that, my work is only now getting off the ground.

Instead I've spent most of my time just getting used to operating around here, ie following around Katie (the advanced grad student from Brown who has opened up her life, contact book, and everything else to share with me, for those readers beyond the cohort, if you are out there). We spent our first week in Abuja at the home of a top dog from the American Embassy, so, needless to stay, living conditions were far beyond those than my home in Providence, with wireless internet (like I said, my excuse for the delay is poor), a swimming pool, a chef and live-in masseuse /housekeeper. Since then, it's been a gradual shift to life something more like that of most Nigerians, culminating in a week in Kano, where we stayed in the family compound of Katie's good friends/research assistants/everything else.

Like so many other places around Nigeria, the house was clearly a very nice one when it was built during the oil boom in the 1970s, but has since become only a shell--wired for electricity that comes for only a few minutes a day and piped for water that hasn't come in years. So I learned how to most efficiently "flush" toilets with buckets of water kept in barrels throughout the house, and to bathe with buckets as well, appreciating the cool water in the heat of the north. Of course I didn't learn much Hausa at all, but the family was always amused when I could manage a greeting or two, and I did pick up at least Katie's interpretation of Nigerian English, with rhthmic intonations and a few words of pidgin thrown in. Katie also didn't hesitate to introduce me to all her favorite local foods, which most foreigners (and even many Nigerians) balk at, from slimy okra soups eaten by scooping up bland sticky starches like pounded yams with your fingers, to spicy and delicious beef kabobs ("suya") made on make-shift barbecues the side of the road. (As I type I'm having a typical meal of a big pile of carbs, this time the ubiquitous Nigerian version of Ramen, IndoMie, which is virtually identical except for some extra kick common to most Nigerian foods.) Unfortunately my stomach hasn't learned to love these as quickly as my taste buds have, and that can be complicated in a country without public toilets, but this, I like to tell myself, is a rite of passage of its own, and I'll leave that at that.

On the actual fieldwork front, my expat connections through Katie had me well connected at the American Embassy and I'll begin pursuing all those phone numbers and introductions now that we are back in Abuja. I did manage one intense day of work before we left Kano, after a local professor hooked me up with a super determined and well-conntected Nigerian PhD student. Unfortunately, after waiting for hours for his good friend who could probably write my MA paper for me, he turned out to be out of town, making us take the formal bureaucratic route to talk to anyone. This eventually led to a spontaneous "interview" (that felt more like an inquisition) with the big men of the traders' association in the middle of the market as a crowd grew around us. I was completely overwhelmed and had no idea how difficult it would be to try to talk meaningfully at any length through an interpreter, especially one not trained or inclined to give more thorough translations beyond the immediate and summarized answer to my question. I don't know if any of you are having to figure this out (Láura maybe?), but even once I start recording everything to get the details later, it totally hinders any anthropological ideal of interviewing as conversational when you can't catch the interesting details of responses as they arise. But even though they all seemed totally suspicious and unhappy about my interests there, I am assured that I will be welcomed to talk to more people in the future, even on-one-one and with tape recorders, so I have that to look forward to when I return to Kano.

In the meantime, I am back in Abuja for at least a week or two, staying in another palatial expat house with too many rooms to spare. Katie is off to South Africa on Saturday so I will officially be on my own starting then. While I look forward to some more independence, I know even small things will will turn into adventures, from trying to negotiate taxi fares to knowing where to go for different necessities (ie chocolate, internet, and suya). These adventures, of course, should provide good fodder for blogging, which will also be easier here in Abuja given the more reliable electricity that is readily supplemented with the steady hum of generators. That said, I won't let this turn into a one-woman show, so hopefully I'll see some more activity on here soon or I'll even withhold my contributions in protest. I'm sure that threat is stinging, so get to it. I hope all is well out in your respective worlds, and I look forward to hearing about them soon!

PS The wireless connection at this "cafe" is too slow for me to upload my photos, but hopefully I'll find a place to do that soon.

Monsoons, Mangoes and Markets

The day before I was flying into Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta) parts of the city was flooded from three days of continuous rainfall. Despite the initial fears of whether I would be able to fly in, things have been pretty smooth since getting here and rains have been frequent enough to keep the temperatures down, without causing too much havoc! In the picture, monsoon clouds are gathering over the city. It had been a hot and sunny morning, so when it started raining, steam rose from the pavement as the water evaporated upon hitting the ground.

Monsoons have been making occasional appearances in my interviews in the marketplaces too, where people have cited the rains as reasons for price fluctuations rather than oil prices, etc. that the newspapers have focused on. So rain is good to think with right now...

In other news, mangoes are delicious as ever and I'm discovering that it takes a lot longer to transcribe interviews in Bengali than I had imagined.

I almost forgot.

Photos of the exodus...

Green and Blue Versions of the Same Person

Now that the internet has finally arrived to Casa Zotz...

The Rainforest? That sounds wet.
Due to a few tropical depressions/storms/hurricanes (one of which was ironically named Arthur), we cut our field season short after five solid days of rain, flooding roads, campsites, and even latrines (don't ask). However, for a first run at excavation and coordinating logistics, everything was largely successful.

!!BATTERY DEAD!!
My foray into surveying with total station was a mix of excitement, frustration, yelling, and an intense desire to destroy expensive optical equipment. I suppose that sounds more negative than positive, but I actually got into a rhythm that worked before the rains washed away my motivation. Here is what I saw 90% of the time for a few weeks:

To E or not to E
Other interesting things came up during our mapping and preliminary excavations. It seems that the site I'm working on is an excellent case study to examine the transition into the Classic Maya Period (ca. AD 250), especially looking at environmental and perhaps sociopolitical changes in the region. Here is a look at the team of excavators:


Although the site is not heavily looted, there are a few places where looters have uncovered some very well-preserved architecture.


Also, it looks as though a solar observational building complex (a.k.a. "E-Group") exists, possibly to observe the sun rise over a large seasonal swamp, visible in Google Earth and shown from ground level below.



And finally, we explored a very large platform complex, with evidence of water management, that merits further attention next season. It rises sharply from the edge of the swamp:


And contains some very well preserved architecture. My adviser noted that the buildings at the sight have a sort of "melted" quality that indicates a depth of time since its last use.


Baatz'.
Overall, it was a very positive first field season. Now we turn attention to preparing reports for the Guatemalan government and presentations for the Symposium of Archaeological Investigations of Guatemala at the end of the summer.

Saludos,

J. o. t. J.

Time for Methods not Theory!

Waiting for my flight to "the field." (Well actually, to Singapore from where I'll be heading to Bangalore and then finally to Calcutta sometime next week...) But still, exciting to finally be heading out rather than sitting around trying to write a final paper while mindlessly staring into space. Having said that I'm trying to shift gears from "theory" to "methods" and feeling overwhelmed... Fieldnotes? Interviews? Participant observation? What??? Oh dear.

Have Survived Jungle, Please Send Beers

Dear Cohort (and anyone else who maybe reads our blog, Hi Mom!):

Sorry for the long radio silence; things were so crazy at the start of our trip that we never saw internet again after leaving Providence and then, obviously, we were in the jungle for a long long time. But we´re back, now with extra bug bites!

We left camp this morning and spent several hours driving/stuck in mud up to the truck´s axels, but now we´re recuperating in the relative luxury of a hotel in the lovely island town of Flores, Guatemala. Showers have been taken, real food eaten, and a few cold beers have even been consumed. I might be a little guilty of tracking mud all over the otherwise clean floors.

We have some gooood jungle stories and retroactive blog posts saved up, but will probably have to keep saving them until we get ourselves organized and back to Guatemala City (sometime in the next couple of days, maybe). Mostly, I just wanted to let you all know that we survived and that our field season was successful. Here are some topics to look forward to in future posts:

-Bugs, bugs, and more bugs
-Other jungle animals
-James´s jungle beard
-The effects of hurricanes on archaeologists
-Stuff We Done Dug Up
-Etc.

I hope you all are doing well, wherever you may be—I miss you all greatly and look forward to many stories of you adventures!

Besos,
Caitlin and James

A Roof with a View

No great insights to share, but I thought I'd post a few photos from the rooftop patio at Braulio and Bacilica's house (where I'm staying). Unfortunately, these photos don't really do the Cordillera de los Andes justice...








El Alto homes are frequently a mix of adobe, brick and plaster...like my neighbors' home.