Thunderkat!!

Let’s see, it’s been a few days since I last sat down and reminisced about my time here so I have some catching up to do. It starts the day before last, we got to the field and saw that the makeshift bamboo canopy we had made (and already altered several times) had fallen down from the weight of a very heavy rain the night before. This sounds like it would be a problem, but I took the opportunity to step up and take over as engineer, which meant not only planning a reconstructed canopy but chopping some bamboo down machete-ninja style!! I’ve said it before, but machete-ing things is like the best therapy ever....too much fun : ) I only wish I had brought my machete from Belize (which coincidentally I think was manufactured in Colombia) so it could see some more action. So far my design has held up quite nicely as it is much more slanted to help with water runoff and a bit lower to the ground. So we’ll see how well it keeps; so far the the weather has been mostly nice as it’s the dry season, but even so it spits on an almost daily basis. 

It was business as usual after that, digging, screening, counting, paperwork, lunch, more digging....the work days seem to be getting longer, which is to say that Carlos and Martha keep losing track of time at the end of the day and before you know it, it’s almost 4 and we’re still in the field.  The amount of material we’ve been finding has significantly dropped off lately, save for some larger possible tools. Some of the pits they’ve been digging around the site, though, have had dry spells and picked back up around 80-90 cm below the surface and we are currently around 65-70.

Yesterday we headed over to see the guys at Javier’s site in Santa Rosa. The drive there was really gorgeous because it was clear blue skies and we left early enough to catch a glimpse of the snow-capped mountains that are not too far off in the distance. I may have gotten one or two good pictures of them, but they will be needing some retouching I’m sure, since it was a quick, out-the-car-window shot. The site in Santa Rosa is more tropical and covered with large palms of bananas and other things. The soil is way way different from the stuff we have in La Mikela which was really nice when it came to screening, but alas, we did not find much of anything. I was working with Nicolas and Pat in a Sondeo closer to the edge of the hill where it slopes off; it was not very exciting because we had a large, disintegrating tree root that invaded the center of our pit and cattle had previously walked all through where we were making it even more difficult to keep our levels measured correctly and our walls straight (the soil would compact and compact every time you put pressure on it...) 

They have some really extraordinary views from up on that hill, though, and we took advantage of the one to the southwest for our lunch break. Unfortunately by that time the clouds had come down and covered up the snow peaks, otherwise they would be visible from that spot too. On the other side to the north, where the road is, you can see the town of Manizales up in the mountains and off in the distance. We escaped with Martha and Carlos back to Pereira before the rains came, but apparently missed out in the finding of a possible tomb/burial, which is cool but not exactly something you want to find when you don’t have the time or money to excavate it.

Back in Pereira, we decided on cooking in instead of eating out, so Jen and I walked down to La Catorce to pick up some stuff and ended up making a pretty delicious (and nutritious) meal of shrimp, broccoli, and rice with a salad to go along. I think that meal was the most green things on one plate I’ve seen since we’ve gotten here haha. They don’t seem to eat many vegetables and eat a lot, lot, lot, lot of pastries, breads, and arepas, or corn tortilla cake-like things, so it was a nice change of pace and, of course, some Club Colombia was enjoyed with it as well.

Which brings us to today!

Today was an enjoyable but not very productive day....I was just exhausted for some reason, Jen and I both. It’s weird how it catches up with you at random and unexpected times, like we didn’t do anything crazy strenuous yesterday and yet I am BEAT. Hopefully a good night’s rest is the cure and awaits me this evening, but seeing as it is Pat’s last night in town before she flies back to the states and there will most likely be rum involved, I’m not gonna bet on it. We got a fair amount done though, we are completely finished with level 9 now so we will start 10 tomorrow and see how much of that we can get through. The field was loads of fun today, though, because it was only Diego, Carmen, Lous-Marina, Jen, and I....neither Jen nor I speaking much spanish and only Carmen speaking a bit of English herself made for a very interesting, comical, and informative day haha. Carmen and I have a deal now where she will work on her English with me and I, my spanish with her. Between the two languages, with a little German, French, and Portuguese thrown in to the mix (Lingua Poliglota as Carmen referred to it), we managed to communicate quite nicely.

Carmen is so funny, she was writing the paperwork for the unit for a while so everything was dug today by ‘Jane and Kate’ haha and then she decided that her pneumonic device for remembering my name was ‘Thundercat!’ like the TV show and also because it was looking like a mad storm was coming our way this afternoon and had been thundering for about two hours before we called it a day as a result of the ominous approaching clouds. Now we have some down time for which I may have myself a siesta and then I guess it’s off to Carlos and Martha’s? For now I am trying not to itch my face off; the bugs are not bad here really (especially compared to last summer in Belize) but they still linger forever and continue to itch even after they’ve healed. So now I have a nice-sized one on my face and back, as well as two fresh guys in my legs from our work in Santa Rosa yesterday. Oh joy!