Desert Living

Sorry all to those that have faithfully been checking this blog only to be met with old entries and no current adventures. I haven't died or been lost to the great beyond, I've just been living without the modern day advances in technology that most of us take for granted. I get approximately one day off every week, but that includes driving and sleeping, which amounts to little more than 10 hours of free time a week in a location where internet access might be. And being the person that I am, I don't really want to waste half of that time typing, so this is my mid-season break and therefore, your much anticipated update.

I have been living in a small Bedouin village in the south of Jordan for the last five weeks. The village hosts a population of approximately 200 people, three general stores that are about 4m by 3m and contain dusty cans and candy that have long since expired, as well as a girl's school and a boy's school and two mosque. It doesn't look like much, but the inhabitants for the most part are friendly and look at us as weird, but accept us nonetheless.

Our camp is set up on the outskirts of the village and consists of 15 Israeli Army issue tents that comfortably fit two people, cozily fit four and are stated to fit ten. There are also three brick buildings that really don't fit that description seeing as they're so small and have no roofs, but they serve as the bathrooms, showers, and kitchen. Considering where we are, it's a pretty nice set up. I really, truly like camp like. It's very simple, but incredibly peaceful, especially at night when everyone else has disappeared into their tents and you can look out across the camp and see the quite night or the amazing stars. It really gives you another outlook on life.

Just a quick run down on the schedule since it doesn't vary too much. Wake up is begun at 3:45am when Hawyit (not sure on the spelling) comes around and lights everyone's lanterns outside our tents. This tends to wake me up even though he is very quite about it. Then at 4 or 4:15am, Tom, the camp director comes to every tent and says: "Good Morning! Rise and meet the new day." I bite my tongue and politely refrain from telling him where to shove it (for those of you that went to Wood Middle School, think Mr. Sonnamen and his Beaverland pitch everyday). The half awake students and staff stumble out of their warm beds into the brisk morning air, wash up and head to first breakfast. First breakfast consists of Nescafe (instant coffee that's awful), Lipton black tea (that needs to be made Bedouin style - enough sugar to cause instant cavities - to be palatable), and PB & J on pita. At 5am we pile into trucks with 4WD and head to the Wadi (basically what once was a river bed millions of years ago and is now the floor of sandstone cliffs). A 30-45 minute excursion along bumpy paths and sandy traps, deposits us at the site. Here we break off into our different teams (there are three official groups and a four un-official group - guess whch one I belong to) and set to work. Work last from 5:30-6am to 8:30am when we have second breakfast (sometimes called "elevensies" or "lunch"). This breakfast has a little more substance to it with the addition of humus or fuul (a bean dish) and hard-boiled eggs and recently the addition or tuna with corn. The food isn't back, but it never changes and I can't really eat hard-boiled eggs anymore (at least for the foreseeable future) and I'm beginning to hate pita. From Breakfast we head back to work for another few hours and then break for Watermelon at 11am. Another hour of work and then clean up. We quick for the day at 12:30pm, pile back into the trucks (here being in the back is great - like a rollercoaster without seatbelts), and head for home. A quick army shower in the frigid water (there is no water heater) and it's time for lunch. After lunch, we have the only real free time of the day and my favorite time. This is and hour and half when people nap, read, do laundry, or chat. It's very peaceful. The lull is broken at 3:30pm for Tea, which comes before Lab at 4pm. Lab is two hours and can be followed by a lecture or an hour of free time before dinner. After dinner, there is either a lecture (if it wasn't before dinner) or free time till people drift off in groups for warm blankets and well deserved rest. So that's a typical day.

We work six days a week. From Thursday to Tuesday and get Tuesday night through Wednesday night off.

The site that we are working on is an Iron Age site that dates from about 1000BC to 500BC and was perhaps inhabited by the elusive Edomites. It's a copper production site and contains tons and tons of slag (the by-product of copper smelting).

Currently, there is one group that is working on a section where smelting occurred and tends to turn its archaeologists into black ash creatures. Another section is the Gate House that contains several different occupation layers. There is debate over whether the Gate House was set up to guard people from getting in or to guard slaves from leaving. The thrd section was working on a weird house-like structure that contains evidence of copper production, but that is from a different time period than that of the main production. The group that was working there (my old group, that technically I've been re-acquainted with) finished and has since moved on to The Tower. The Tower is named, because that's what archaeologist believed it to be for decades. Since we've begun to uncover it, we've begun to doubt that it really was a tower and it has since been nicknamed "The Villa." Tom, now believes that it might have been the home of one of the wealthy "owners" or this copper producing site. Time will tell (or maybe it won't, such is the way with archaeology).

If you hadn't guessed it already, I am (or was and will probably be again) a member of the fourth, un-official group. Dr. Najar, the Jordan head of the project, needed a few students to work on exposing sections of the fortress wall that surrounds the entire site. Myself and two other were ejected from our home and giving away. We named ourselves Group O for Ostracized, because we worked near our old group, but were no longer really a part of them. The advantage though is that I was left in charge when Dr. Najar disappeared for a day here or two days there, etc. Eventually he just gave me a square to myself and three Bedouin and said it was mine. Nice huh?

When the wall was done, Group O helped to make the Tower ready for Group F (which became Group T when they came to the Tower). We took pictures and mapped the site out and began the process of uncovering the building from the debris of collapsed wall that covered it. After this was done, we moved over and prepared Group A's (soon to be Group R) new home which is another possible villa. A few days ago though, there was nothing extraneous and Group was reassembled into Group T (formerly Group F). It was sad to lose the mobility and chance to do different things everyday, but we shall re-form when the need arises.

Every weekend we travel to one of the two main cities in Jordan, Amman (the capital) or Aqaba (the resort town, although we've yet to be there yet). Since it was Ramadan (the holy month when you can't do much during the daylight hours and everything is closed) for the first three weeks that we were here, we went to Amman twice (cause it was likely to have something open and a good place to day trip from) and did a day trip to Madaba (a predominately Catholic city near Mount Nebo where Moses looked over at the Holy Land that he was denied entrance to) and the Dead Sea (that famous salty lake) another week.

The first time that I came through Jordan, I didn't really feel too fondly for it, but this time around, I think that I am enjoying it more. Traveling with new people that see things in different lights helps you to see things differently. One of my favorite places is becoming the downtown area in Amman. The first time around Em and I thought that people were going to kill us and felt a little uncomfortable, but going down there with crazy Vietnamese, Chinese, and Greek-Italian colleagues, I realized that it's a really cool area. You can bargain for everything and people will sell the ugliest things (not to mention that my friends will buy them).

Madaba contains a famous mosaic map that postcards make seem larger than life, but in actuality doesn't have much left. There is also a great restaurant in the town that has fabulous fresh fruit smoothies and yummy sandwiches that are very cheap.

The Dead Sea is a salty body of water that is disappearing at a rate of 10cm a year and smells awful, leaves a oily film on your skin, and is stated to help clear up a variety of help problems (probably cause the salt burns them all away). It's not my favorite place if you couldn't tell and I opted to play chess and kick the ass of my friend Marcus three times instead of pay to go in (once was fine in Israel).

This week we are in Petra for three days. It is mid-season for the excavation (time has gone by so fast) and so they are giving us an extended sanity break. Having three days to wander through this Nabatian wonderland at my own leisure has allowed me to realize just how big the place is and that I probably will never get the chance to see everything. But it's great to leave the too touristy areas and travel the backside. Marcus and I have been hanging out with the Bedouins in the park and exchanging tea for cookies.

The Bedouin are some of the most hospitable people that I know. They will give you everything that they have before they take anything for themselves and mostly never ask for anything in return. The Bedouin that I met back in July with Em, invited me to dinner and I took five of my friends with me. We had a great time telling stories and listening to terrible jokes and poems that Mohammed had texted to his phone. I was adopted into the Ammarin tribe and we all received Bedouin names.

That about sums up the last month. Sorry that it's the condensed version, but I have tons to do and wanted to make sure that I had time to post something. Miss you all. The next posting will probably be in a month when I have two days between the end of the dig and my flight home. Till then, cau