Sorry, no photos...

Ok, I promise I’ll get photos up this weekend!!! I just don’t have time to do anything about it during the week. And if I do, all the volunteers are using up the internet and I can’t get enough internet to upload pictures.

This week has already been pretty eventful, even if things are moving really slow in my square. Yesterday and today it was pretty hot – like 95°. Yesterday when we were walking down the Tel, we saw a lot of smoke coming from one of the nearby hills. Most times it’s just a lot of dust from tractors and farmers working in the fields, but not this time. It was a pretty rip-roarin’ fire – two, actually, and I think they combined into one. We didn’t hear anything about it, so I’m not sure what happened. It was far enough away that we weren’t in any kind of threat, but it was still close enough that we could see the actual flames from the road.

Today I’m really tired. We’re moving sooo slooow in my square it’s almost boring. But we move so slow because we’re finding all our destruction material with lots of vessels. Today I was moved around the field because they said I wouldn’t be able to move fast enough to remove some of them by the weekend, so we covered them up and I was kicked out of my square for about an hour and a half. My square is also growing into the entire “back room” of the domestic house, which happens to be partially into three other squares. So I’m slowly devouring my field. Haha. Sounds cool, but this makes my paper work super complicated. But they made the decision to give it to me and take it away from the other supervisors, so they must trust me/expect that I’ll get it done the way they want it to. I guess that’s good, but it’s an awful lot of responsibility.

I have also established Friday as cookie day (we have a cookie break and the supervisors bring the cookies for the volunteers) and orange pants day. I have a pair of florescent orange shorts I got as a hand-me-down from Eric and they’ve become quite a topic of discussion. Hahaha. I also wear my tie-dye socks on Friday. Just something fun I decided to do. Maybe I can also make Wednesdays cookie day, because Wednesdays can be very trying.

Anyway, I’m doing all this through lecture and it’s getting close to dinner. Mmmm…I’m hungry. I’m hoping for not chicken…haha. Anyways, getting sleepy and tired of looking at a computer screen. Pictures for Saturday!

Week One: Complete!

Man, what a tough first week. We moved A LOT of dirt! I’ve been put back in the same square I was in last season to finish the excavations in there. But I’ve been having a lot of fun.

Monday was crazy dirt-moving day. Literally, we moved buckets full of dirt from 6:30am to 12:30pm. Picking and shoveling. We had to clear a 30 year old dump site to smooth out an area to put wheel barrows so we could actually start excavating. That took up until breakfast. Then we removed 5 balks (the enormous walls of dirt we leave between excavated squares). Each balk was 1m wide and most were at least 2m high. That's a lot of dirt! Tuesday we removed the last 3 balks, but they had to almost be excavated, rather than just ripped out because there was a lot of “important stratigraphy”, meaning there’s lots of important stuff in them. Which was totally true! We were working on one balk and had only taken three swipes with a pick and a whole pillar appeared!! Then we moved down and there was ANOTHER ONE! Super crazy.

We worked on clean up and stringing squares on Wednesday and finally started excavating yesterday. My square is moving real slow but my one volunteer (I only have one) is learning quickly. Today Lyn and I were told that Lyn can’t move any further in her square until I finish this one section of mine – that stupid silo from last year. We have no idea where the end of it is, but because it post-dates the destruction, it has to be excavated first. So I got Lyn’s two volunteers and we switched them out every so often so they learned how to meticulously articulate. Haha. One of them found a zoomorphic figurine (a ceramic pot in the shape of a horsie!!!). Totally cool.

Monday I hope we start moving faster. We really need to get to the bottom of this bin because Steve, Sam, and Gary are hoping to finish digging through the destruction layer and reach the floor the end of next week, not later than maybe Tuesday or Wednesday of the third week. I have another square I have to excavate after it, so I need to book it.

Tomorrow the volunteers head to the Negev (the real desert of Israel). They’ll be going to the Dead Sea. I don’t envy them. Except Arad. I loved Arad. They’re going to Arad. But Lesley, Marcella, and I are planning to take it easy this weekend rather than plan an excursion. We worked real hard this week, we want a nice little break. Though I do need to get to an ATM for cash so I don’t keep using my card all the time. I’ve only used it three times for small payments (between $15-35), but I’d like to have some more cash. I need to pay for the tshirt I got for the dig.

We may go with the survey team to see some of the tons and tons and tons of tombs, caves, cisterns, and wine and olive presses they’ve already found so far. We’d also like to go to the crusader castle on the next hill and then to LaTrune monastery for a honey comb and a bottle of wine! Maybe I’ll see if someone’s going to Jerusalem on Sunday just to get to an ATM.

Well, that’s all the excitement so this week! Good luck and mozel tov to Maddy and Bob and I’m awful jealous of Eric, Aunt Kay, Uncle Joe, and Bridgie! I hope Eric can figure out how to Skype conference it to me! I’ll get up at 5am to see it, because that’s what time it’ll be here in Israel when they marry. Till later!

I WANNA GO TO THE TEL NOW!!!!

Waiting around for the MEN to come back from putting up the breakfast tent, because apparently the women folk can't do it. haha. But I wanna go up to the Tel to see how things are looking after the winter rains. AND to make sure none of the pots from my square last year were robbed out. We hid them, but you never know.

All the volunteers arrived yesterday and this morning they headed up to Jerusalem for their first tour. I slept poorly last night. I couldn't get to sleep right away and then I woke up real early and tried to fall back asleep. That nap in the afternoon was a bad idea...even if it was accidental. But everything is pretty much set up and ready - just need to get to the Tel. Though we don't know what our squares are yet - only what field we'll be in.

Steve gave us a very nice workshop yesterday, helping us get organized, figuring out our goals, tips for running a good square. It was extremely helpful! And he set up specific points for each week that we'll need to teach our volunteers so we're all teaching the same thing at the same time. That way if we need to switch around volunteers - which will most definitely happen because of the amount of dirt moving we'll need to be doing throughout the following weeks - they'll all be on the same page. Gezer is both a teaching dig and a real excavation, so we need to be organized and standardized but very willing to slow down and help.

Lesley, Marcella, and I are planning our weekend trips. We want to go to Haifa. It's on the coast, which means Lesley can do her scuba diving, and Marcella and I will probably try snorkeling. There's also a ZOO, and we really really want to go to a zoo. We are of course making our way back to Tel Aviv for a lovely day at the beach. Jason (and his new wifey Jessica!) invited us to go with them when he goes to visit his cousin who lives in Tel Aviv. Coolios! And of course, what would a trip to Israel be without a visit to Jerusalem. We're thinking of staying in the same hostel Jason was at a couple years back to get some taste of Jerusalem night life!

Ok, well...I can't really think of much else to write until something actually happens. You probably won't hear from me again until the end of the week when I finally have some time from not doing supervisor work. Till then!

NEVE SHALOM! YAY!!

Whoa, it was weird trying to sign on so I could update my journal. Had to try and figure out the Hebrew. Now everything's back in English.

Anyways, I've arrived safely to Israel! I was actually the first to get here, besides our "House Mother" Terry...who's actually a guy, but we affectionately refer to him as the House Mother. But I had called him and he said I could either wait 2 hours at the airport for the group flight arriving after me or take a taxi to Neve Shalom Kibbutz. I decided to wait so I could go with people I knew and were comfortable with. I waited 2 1/2 hours and didn't see anyone, so I took a taxi. The driver had never heard of Neve Shalom. Thank God I could give them better directions, it's next to LaTrune. I called Terry back when I arrived and he said that if I had just waited 10 more minutes I probably would have seen them all. Nuts.

But now everyone's arrived and I must help bring things into the dig house. Byes!

Off to Israel Again!

And today is the day of departure. I'm nearly packed, but I think there's a few essentials I still need that I'm getting today.

My flight leaves at 7:50pm from JFK and I arrive nearly 12 hours later in Israel: 7:30am EST/2:30pm Israeli time...which I guess would be Eastern Mediterranean Time (EMT)??? Ugh, I hate long flights. I wish there was a stop off somewhere because I can't stand sitting there for more than 6 hours. Great, that's only halfway. So I guess I'll be popping some Tylenol PM or Benadryl to help me sleep through much of it.

I'll be leaving July 19th. Uh...I don't remember those times, except that I arrive at JFK at 6:30am. Which kinda sucks. I'll be sleeping all day to get rid of the jetlag only to keep a messed up sleep schedule. Maybe then I'll just stay up as late as I can? Or maybe just nap until 11? I dunno, we'll see.

I'm super excited about being there. I'm not sure but I don't think I'm on the group flight. AH! I think that's leaving from Atlanta. I hope there's at least someone with me, but you can't see a passenger list. I think there may be multiple group flights? I dunno. At least I have Sam's number just in case.

I'll be updating on here with pictures of fun, travels, and digging, though probably not anything of what we find...since that's technically publishing it. If anyone has Skype, email me or IM me and I can give you my Skype address. Or you might be able to get it from my mom. Actually...ask Eric. lol.

Well, I'd better get back to packing and stuff. See you all in 5 weeks!