In the depth of the Botswana quagmire, a team of seven anthropologists, including myself, discovered a tribe the likes of which has never been officially recorded.  Legends of a tribe of this magnitude have been passed down by generations of the Barolong people, who live in the extreme south-eastern part of Botswana.  This newly found tribe is known amongst the natives as "The Clan of the Silly People".
    As our seven member group waded through the marsh, we encountered several hazards.  First we met up with a thirty foot boa constrictor with one eye, with a patch covering the orbit area where the other eye should have been.  It was known locally as "long john silver"  Our guide immediately engaged in a wrestling bout with the large serpent, pulling it down into the depths of the green goo of the marsh.  The swamp was totally silent for the next two minutes.  We didn't want to move in fear of coming into contact with the possible remains of the deadly limb-less reptile...or the scattered body pieces of our guide.  At last the Guide resurfaced with the top half of the snake and we continued on our way carefully clutching our machetes and wearing our Deep Swamp boa repellent.
    We stopped for the night in the middle of the Okavango Swamp and had a sing-song long into the night, vocalizing such rousing songs as "Row Row Row your Boat" and the capricious "Fatshe La Rona", the national anthem of Botswana.  Then, after the boa constrictor roast, we retired to our various tents and had an uneasy sleep.  Our photographer, who was in charge of the nightly "ghost story" before bed, had told us the tale of a demented decapitator that ran loose in the swamp.  According to the story, this man was once a renowned anthropologist who came in search of the mythical tribe of which we were now in pursuit.  He did in fact make contact and after spending weeks studying them, suddenly "cracked".  He has spent the last twenty years hacking down anyone who comes in the vicinity of the fabled village.  My thesis for the expedition was that if we encountered such a maniac, then we were close to our goal.
    Everyone woke up the next morning bright-eyed, busy tailed.... and missing one of our team members.  Midongy Dauphin, a professor from the University of Queenstown in South Africa, appeared to have disappeared from our campsite sometime in the night.  We abandoned camp immediately, fearing Professor Dauphin had been the unfortunate victim of the demented decapitator.
    We soon felt we were getting close to the elusive tribe since by the end of the day, not only had Professor Dauphin disappeared, but also many pieces of equipment.  Six members of the expedition remained, which is a good total.  The "disappearing-into-the-wilderness ratio" gets higher as we get close to the desired area and we were currently running far below my initial estimates. Spirits remained high, mostly because I had only told the guide where we were heading.  The majority of the group thought we were on a highly dangerous nature walk.
    As we approached the end of the mapped territory, I felt obligated to inform the rest of the expedition team the nature of our true mission.  At the end of my explanation, three members of the group immediately turned to run and were instantly engulfed by the slimy goo, which saved us the trouble of having to bury them.  Now,  the only three remaining were myself, the guide and a suck-up little brown-noser from one of my classes, Harlan Tinkleburger.  We travelled a few more kilometres in the goo and made camp for the night.  We turned in early since one of the departed members was the one in charge of the marshmallows. We also decided to pass on the sing-song since Harlan was tone deaf.
    It was now the morning of the third day of the expedition and we had only three members remaining.  I was having second thoughts about finding this mysterious band of natives. All of a sudden, we could hear whooping and yelling and screaming and howling and bawling and finally hallooing coming directly from the left. All we could see was the greenery of bush surround the swamp. Using our really big knives, we cut through the undergrowth and followed the rather peculiar mass of sound coming from directly ahead of us.
    After what seemed like chopping all day, we arrived at some sort of settlement.  There was no sign of life, but the place was in a state of chaos.  A strange liquid was covering the ground and various kinds of food lie askew in every direction.  The living quarters were grass huts that were decorated with patio lanterns. The drums and screaming had moved on to a place further away.  Just when we were about to leave, a sudden rustling in the bushes caught out attention.  Harlan looked in the bushes and found an older looking man in severe shock, covered in toilet paper.  As we looked at this poor creature, we recognized him as Professor Dauphin, who had disappeared from our camp the first night.  He seemed to have aged 20 years in 2 days.  His hair was shockingly bright white and had difficulty finding the words to explain his condition.  He eventually started to regain his senses and told us the story of his disappearance:
    "I was preparing for bed, when out of the blue, people from the silly clan appeared.  They took me away with them and brought me here to this village.  Then they began there rituals. It was terrible;  the rioting, the shouting, the singing, the streaking, the drinking, the ridiculous patio lanterns and the most horrible of all...the interrogation!!!!!!  They had heard that our group possessed their 'sacred loot'  which they needed for this celebration.  They decided to punish me severely.  So, the torture began.  It started with recitations of 'The cremation of Sam McGee'---in PIG LATIN!!! I can still hear it;
        'Hereta reaa tranfesa hingsta oneda nia heta idnightma unsa yba heta enma howa oilmaorfa oldga;
         Heta rcticaa railsta aveha heirta ecretsa alesta hatta ouldwa akema ourya loodba unra oldca;
         Heta orthernna ishtsna avehaeensa ueerqa ightssa, utba hets ueerestqa heyta verea idda eesa
         Aswa hattaightna noa heta argeba foa Akela Ebargela Ia rematedca Amsa CGeema.'
After they repeated this over and over  and over again, the noogie/wedgie operations were performed.  I kept telling them I knew nothing of which they speak.  However, when I saw them bringing out toilet paper, I made up a story and told them there 'loot' was in the volcano. They then left singing the...the...the...song.
    Naturally, we were quite interested in hearing this song, but after relating this much of his horrible experiences, the professor took off into the jungle.  It was later reported that he had been seen in the company of the demented decapitator.
    The professor had left us without answering some of our very important questions.  For instance, what was this strange substance the tribe was looking for?  After discussing the recent events with my two colleagues, we decided to pursue "The Sillies", though it may cost our very sanity.
    Just as we were setting off in pursuit of the mysterious clan, Harlan had a brainstorm.  After I was revived from the shock of Harlan having an independent thought, I asked him what his query was.
       "Why did the Sillies pick Prof. Dauphin? ", Harlan asked.
    Kicking myself for expecting a more substantial thought wave from Harlan, I explained that it appeared to be a random choice as far as we knew, but we would look into it more closely after we caught up with the tribes treasure hunting party.  Harlan, the pickle brain that he is started shouting praises of my intelligence and suggested that I should be given the prized Golden Monkey, a prestigious award for anthropologists due to my superior intuition and theories of this newly found tribe.  He continued praising me in like manner, but being well trained in the art of Tinkleburger Blocking, I cannot recall all that was said.
    When the beady-eyed little freak was done kissing my feet, (not literally, of course.  I don't think even Harlan would go near those mud soaked stinkers), we collected a sample of liquid left on the ground and headed off in the direction that the professor had indicated.  We felt it best to get as far as we could before the darkness of the quagmire enveloped us again.
     When we had stopped for the night, our guide went to sleep and Harlan and I began the examination of the strange fluid that we had retreived from the soaked ground in the village.  Using the only technical equipment we had, Harlan the Guinia Pig, we discovered, by forcing Harlan to drink the mixture, that is was indeed a drink, with a very peculiar taste.  It seemed that everytime Harlan took another swig of the stuff it tasted different.  Fortunately, Harlan did not suffer immediate side effects.
    I then examined the rest of the liquid.  I refused to injest it since it had been collected in Harlan's barfbag.  Although he claimed it had not been used, I still had my reservations.  The concoction was a purplely-burgendy colour with fizzy bubble and a residual pulp of some sort of fruit.  It smelled like it had been rotting at the bottom of the swamp since the mid-Precambrian period.  The drink did not seem to contain any alcohol or fermented fruit, despuite the fact that Harlan was becoming a bit tipsy.  There was no time to answer this problem tonight since I wanted to retire before Harlan wanted to roast weanies.  I could think of one big Harlan weanie I wanted to roast.
    Now on the fourth day of our quest, the three of us:  the guide, Harlan and myself now headed further toward the last known location of the elusive "Sillies".   We had not gone far when we heard the now familiar and horrifying sound of whooping and yelling and screaming and hooting and hallooing and now a new sound...Kazooing!  The sound was coming closer and closer and nearer and nearer and finally we could see the entire group coming fast towards us.  Not feeling quite ready to engage these primitives yet, we, the terrific trio, about-faced, and ran.  And ran and ran and ran and fell and ran and ran and tripped and ran and jumped over the stream and ran and ran and then tumbled into the trap that held us until the fearsome tribe caught up.
    They brought us to what I suspect was their village.  They refered to it as "The Party Place".  These people were hideous.  Their hair was standing up on end and their noses resembled that of a pig.  On closer inspection, I saw that they had taped their noses in "pig style" with vines.  Several different ones had blue-painted faces and tongues.  Others were simply running around the campfire like wild animals.
    Our captors brought me to see the village council.  The leader sat in the centre of the large hut surrounded by her advisors.  The Chief bekoned Harlan, the guide and I to sit down.
    "Welcome to our humble settlement," said the Chief, in a very greeting manner.  "I am Head Hancho.  It is I who lead this rable."
    I introduced my team and told our host of our search.
    "Well, I'm glad you found us.  Now you can have Mega fun like the rest of my people.  This is my associate, Vice Head Hancho.  It is customary here to give names appropriate to appearance.  So what brings you, Toomuchbugrepellent, and your friends, Suckup and Lostlongago to this very unique utopia?"
    I explained, between fits of laughter, that we were searching for the secret of the very interesting sort of beverage that we had discovered in their previous camp and wondered what significance it was in their rituals.
    Headhancho was glad to appease us with the answer, "Ah...you see, this beverage is a very important part of our culture.  It is used in every sort of celebration we initiate.  In fact, the makers of this fine liquid are a symbol of admiration to us all.  We call it...................................................................................

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