The Chronicles of an Eye Opener

10 June

Saw Alex at McNally’s. He said he and his archaeologist friends would be going to a place down Jo’burg for work. Asked if I wanted to tag along. Might fly the helicopter together once we’re there. Sounds exciting. He said to think about it. Checked out the photos Alex sent me. Looked amazing—the rugged outdoor landscape—everything is a beauty. Mentioned it to Da and Mam this evening when we chatted. They said it would be a good experience for me.

11 June

Met with Alex and his friends at Jacques. His friends are so cool—they were nothing close to what I imagined them to be. I thought they were a serious academic-type bunch, but no, we goofed around all the time.

Harry is a thirty-something “army brat” as he describes himself. His da’s a general stationed in Fort Knox but he didn’t fancy going to West Point to follow his father’s footsteps. Though he walks and moves stiffly like a good soldier, his personality isn’t all military-like. He told me of the hominids and Lucy, the australopithecine fossil.

Tom is an artist. He sketches things—some artifact they couldn’t bring home—whatever. They call him Picasso.  He looks forty, but he loves Limp Bizkit and shock rock. Whereas Harry explained some concepts in archaeology to me, Tom talked about John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Bono.

Meeting with these people was really fun. Of course I felt like the oddball at first—they all had a good grip on archaeology—what I knew of archaeology can fit into a matchbox—but that feeling vanished quickly. I learned a few things about Jo’burg. I was able to validate a few things I’ve picked up from joining my friends in college on their field work. 

13 June

Yaaaaaaaaay!

My boss said I could go. He said it was my prize for closing the deal on Konik. I send a message to  Alex:

Arthur Markham said I could go with you guys. Thanks so much for letting me tag along. I couldn’t be happier today even if I tried—I feel like the child with the coolest toys on earth. Woo-hoo!

He replies instantly, 

Whoa there tiger. I know you’re jumping around now but calm down. I’m glad you could come. Meet me tomorrow for the visa and all that stuff. By the way, welcome aboard.

25 June

Alex gave me my passport and visa. Flying on the 7th of July. I’m excited.

27 June

Tom’s papers haven’t been cleared. He’s got a namesake who’s on the black list. They’ll try to sort it out. I hope the top guys would. Harry had three tickets booked. He said his friend could book a ticket for Tom if he’ll be cleared in two days.

Tom is really frustrated. The fact that offices would be closed tomorrow doesn’t help.

6 July

I feel sorry for Tom. The problem hasn’t been solved, so he’s not coming. I bet he feels the same way Ken Mattingly (from Apollo 13) felt when he was told he won’t be joining his friends on the moon. Jo’burg was Tom’s moon, he said. Staying at Alex’s tonight. We’ll leave early tomorrow.

7 July

Arrived at last. Just us three—Harry, Alex and I. We’re staying at Mbabane Hotel /em-ba-ba-nee/. Mbabane is a town five hours’ drive from Jo’burg. Alex flew the Super Cub to save time. Hotel in this part of Africa is not like the hotels we have in the city. There is no wi-fi, the luxuries one might find in a hotel room are not here. However, that does not mean we checked into a run-down shack.

The doors to the west of the hotel lobby open to a beautiful view deck with chairs and tables. The distant mountains are a welcoming sight. The fresh air is just wow. In a way, the lack of gadgets and wi-fi was compensated by the scenery. The hotel is a place where you could commune with nature, a place where you can think quietly or unwind. Maybe that’s the reason why gadgets are not in this place.

We each have a room to ourselves, albeit small ones. There is no fridge stocked with food and drink, no television. The bed is not a canopy—just a simple one with a pillow and white sheets and a blue blanket. A chest of drawers stands in a corner. The communal bathroom is down the hall.

8 July

Work began today. Met with Ruby Clapton, the Jo’burg-based archaeologist. Ruby loves pink stuff--she turned up at the hotel in pink--shirt, shorts, shoes, hat. The pink archaeologist.


 The three experts  (Harry Ruby and Alex) were the ones who really worked. I did most of the errands. Get this equipment, pass that tool. They were the ones who did the real thing—going down there with the toothbrush, as Harry calls it. Whatever they were looking for, I think they found it. We just have to go back tomorrow to get more samples. Ruby, I found out, doesn't say "eew" to mud. She can get dirty and wouldn't care. I guess I shouldn't let the pink outfit fool me.

She told me they were trying to establish the proof of civilization in that part of the world, even before the English entered the picture. The drawings on the cave walls told a story, she said. I wondered right there whether everything I’ve been told about this continent was going to crumble. But then again, even Celts were considered “barbarians” by outsiders. So I guess I won’t be surprised if what I know would indeed be debunked.

Since Tom was not with us—which was a shame—I took photos with my camera. The fossils that we found we incredible. I snapped photos nonstop: fossils, artifacts and formations. Harry said all those stuff date back to thousands of years..

10 July

 Almost done. A friend of Harry’s friend rang him and asked if we’d like to hang out for a while after the work is done. The excavations in Siphiso were very fruitful, and fun. Harry said that the finds—its what he calls the artifacts they’ve dug out and found—date back to three thousand years ago, Late Stone Age. Ruby said they figure the age of stuff through rock dating. The inhabitants were called Bushmen.

I could say that these people had a life before them English came. They had their culture—the drawings or paintings on the walls and the rocks tell that story. They had a culture, and it was known as the Silverleaves, because of the people's pottery. They brought with them agriculture too. 


Come to think of it, the Vikings also had a civilization, but they are considered barbaric. I think it happens all the time. Colonizers call themselves civilized. And the colonized are barbarians. Celts were called barbaric. But I don’t think we were, or are. We have our own culture, our own life, which happens to be different from the English.

It really depends on how you look at things. Maybe we think that something is barbaric just because to us it seems weird. But if we look it that way of life from another angle, we find out how wrong we are. Harry told me this by telling of his experience in the Philippines. 


He said that the people had naps at lunch. At first he thought it was a waste of time. But he came to realize it wasn't. Working real hard under the sun would definitely make a person need nap time. The farmers work early, take a break at lunch and work again. They bend all the time, he says. He tried it and had back pains. Then he understood why the farmers had to rest at lunch.

Fair play, lad! I’m learning a lot.

11 July

We decided to extend our stay in Mbabane. The work would be finished and wrapped up tomorrow. We’re supposed to go back home in two days, but Harry thought it would be grand to “experience Africa” a little longer. He called his friend and said we’d stick around and lend a hand for a few days.

I called my parents and they said have fun. It's an experience of a lifetime and I don't do this always. Da said he’d call Arthur.




12 July
Went to the site one last time. Picked up a few more samples, snapped some photos and WE'RE DONE!! Ruby invited us to her gaff for a celebratory dinner. It home was a tiny cozy place. Her pink pastel walls were lined with cross-stitched stuff. The mantelpiece showed photos of her work in various places: Egypt, Jo'burg, the Philippines: a collage. A keyboard sat on a table in a corner.

She was a whirlwind in the kitchen. She cooked excellent dishes (which I can't pronounce, but who cares. They taste awesome). The three of them had a bottle of wine, and I had iced tea.

13 July 

Alex flew us out to the little village where Harry’s friend was. We touched down on a desolate, ramshackle football field. The nets of the goals were torn; the grass was parched and yellowing. We unloaded the trunks of clothes, a basket of Ruby’s homemade brownies and a cooler. 

A ride was waiting for us. Harry introduced us to his friend Dean, who works as a pilot for a mission team. Dean drove us to a small school. Not really a “school” with classroom and a library. It was just a group of students and a teacher, under the shade of a big tree. The teacher couldn’t afford a chalk board and a chalk. She used a sharp-edged stick to draw figures on the ground, in explaining addition.

The twenty students were of different ages: from seven to maybe late teens or even as old as I am. The kids ran to meet us; the older students remained with the teacher. Apparently, Harry and Ruby have been there before. There was the greeting of “kunjani” (How are you) and the reply of “syaveela” (I’m fine). Dean introduced Alex and me.

Alex said something in the local dialect and the students nodded and smiled. He was one of them. And I was still the oddball. The students were looking at me and addressing their teacher. No doubt sizing up the kid who came along with four adults.

I talked to the teacher while the others ate snacks with the students under one of the huge trees. She perhaps noticed me as I left the group and took photos from a distance. She handed me a drink.

“Thank you ma’am,” I said. She nodded. 

“They ask why a young person come here with older persons. Like you,” she said.

“Oh. Alex asked me if I wanted to come, and I said yes.”

“Alex not come here before. He is new man.”

“He’s also tagging along, like me. He’s a businessman, you see, but he does a lot of philanthropy." She looked lost. “He helps Harry in his work,” I explained.

“It is good,” she said. “But you. No school?”

“I’m finished. I work now.”

“You work? What work?”

“In an office. I make advertisements,” I replied.

“In an office?” A surprise. “What is your age?”

“I’m 20.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Why don’t you guys have a classroom?” I asked, eager to change the subject.

She shook her head. “No money, no things.”

“Doesn’t the government help? The king?” I knew that the country was not very rich, but this situation was too much. "I heard he bought a new plane."

“King buyed new airplane,” she said sadly, “King has to look good when meeting very important people.”

Okay. So the king bought himself a new Lear Jet to look good. No wonder some bystanders at the hotel cussed him.

After snacking, Harry told the story of Tom Sawyer and the slave boy named Jim. The kids liked the spirited adventurous Tom, and they delighted in the thought that Jim was able to run away from his white masters and the white boy helped him. I took a photo of the group: Harry sitting on a log and of his audience seated enthralled before him; of the young happy faces and the gladness it brought to the teacher’s face. I snapped more.

When the story was finished, a little girl approached me. She pointed to the camera slung on my shoulder and took out something from her pocket: a headless Superman doll. She spoke shyly in African.

“She wants you to take his photo,” Ruby translated.

I snapped a photo of her. She ran to me and had a look. Seeing herself on the screen made her smile. She spoke again and Ruby replied. Then they ran to join the others. Alex strummed his guitar. Dean, Harry and Ruby sang Red River Valley.

“You made her talk,” the teacher said, “She no talk since her momma die. She is happy.”

“Oh,” I said, unsure of anything to say, “why did she die?”

“No know. We were telled she die. Maybe bad men kill her? No know.”

It is now half-past 9 in the evening, and we’ve come back to the hotel. I have transferred the photos into the laptop. The memory card is empty once more, ready for tomorrow. As I finish writing this, I think of the girl with the headless Superman. I had no idea that a simple photograph can be an ocean of happiness.

14 July

We didn’t go out today. Harry and Ruby encoded the findings in the computer. I read Maeve Binchy’s book that I brought with me.

Earlier this evening, Alex and I went out for a stroll around the vicinity. It was a sorry sight: a boy was sleeping on a cardboard on the roadside with no clothes on except his shorts. As we rounded the block, a girl of about fifteen approached us. She had the look of someone who had walked through a hard life long enough to strip the innocence away. Her face was sallow, but she was all joy. She spoke in her fractured English. She offered to sell herself: four bucks for sex with a condom, six for without.

Alex shook his head. We retraced our steps. Dinner was waiting for us.

15 July

We went back to the school today. Alex brought a football. The students crowded around him, eager to see and touch the new toy. He kicked the ball high in the air, letting it land where it would. Everyone roared in delight. They ran around, kicking the ball. I had no idea that a black-and-white football could cause such happiness. A football.

16 July

We flew in some medical supplies from Jo’burg to Mbabane. I got to fly the Super Cub from Mbabane to Jo’burg—with Alex’s assistance of course. He looked at his map and told me where to go. Dean flew the other plane, so it took us just one trip to get everything. Again, things that are for granted in the city are bars of gold here.

We took some to this hospital where they care for people with AIDS. Dean explained that lots for people are infected here. And the babies get infected too, unfortunately. Coming back from the lab—a tiny makeshift room at the end of the hall—I saw the four adults (I am considered a kid) interact with the patients and the staff.

Could a simple hello mean so much? Or a touch on the head? Looks like it. The bodies are ravaged and slowly shutting down. Only their eyes remain clear and determined. Some are resigned to their fate.

The little boy who snuggles into his father reaches out. He is attracted to my watch, when it shone, having caught sunlight through the window. I take it off and hand it to him. He twists the dial on my watch and it lights up. He laughs. I am reminded of my little brother back home.

“He’s little boy,” his father says apologetically, “give to you when not like.” The father peels the paper off the cupcake and hands the snack to his son. The kid munches on, laying the watch aside.

A nurse approaches with a syringe. The boy looks at his father in fear. His face pleads, do something, don't let her hurt me. The father murmurs to him, and he reluctantly holds out his arm. He winces as the needle makes contact with his skin.

“Tell your son he’s brave,” I say. “Strong,” I rephrase as the father looked lost.

He tells the boy that.

“You can keep my watch,” I tell the boy, “as a gift. For being strong.”

His father translates.

The boy happily puts the watch on his wrist and twists the dial. It lights up again. It was my camping watch. I bought it in the store down Fifth, with the designer’s name etched carefully on the side—alarm, compass, light and all. Three seconds later, I realized the irony of it. A watch for a dying boy. As if he needed a reminder that the clock is ticking, that his days are numbered.

When we left, I felt stupid.

18 July

I’m back in my gaff. We’ve arrived home yesterday. The trip was fruitful—Harry got the artifacts; he’ll show those to the guys in the Institute. And I’ll send him the photos once I get them printed.

Looking back, I realize that the trip to Jo’burg was more than an archaeological fieldwork. It was an eye opener. I can’t help thinking of the little boy in the hospital, wondering if he knew what would eventually happen. I don’t know. I didn’t ask his father.

But one thing is certain: the way I see the world changed forever.***