It feels so weird to be on a dig on an island and yet be completely connected via internet access and even working phone service. I can’t quite seem to get used to this setup. The past four summers I’ve worked on projects in other countries where I have had occasional internet access but it was not something I could really rely on to stay connected. I keep thinking, ‘I need to post entries! I need to post pictures!’ and, in fact I have such a backlog of photos and raw entries I very well could have posted more already without editing. I’m finding it hard to find the motivation to do anything after a full day in the field/sun and I’ll admit much of the energy I have left I use to go for a run or swim. On a typical day we leave the apartment in Vega Baja around 6-6:15 to get to the Hacienda in Manatà and are usually set up and ready to work by 7-7:15. Then it’s an 8 hour workday, we start packing up around 4:00, are on the road back to the apartment at 4:30 and usually get there around 5:00 or so. Add on an hour in the morning for breakfast, packing lunch and getting ready and your looking at a pretty solid, exhausting 12 hour day!
So Monday, June 30 was the first day of excavations at La Esperanza and it was a wash-out even though it’s been mostly dry since getting here two weeks ago. We got the first two units set-up and opened the first levels for each, meaning we removed the grass/vegetation mat on top of the soil and got all the walls squared off. The weather is calling for rain and thunderstorms the next few days, but hopefully they are just passing clouds. The winds here can be really strong along the coast which help to push storm clouds along or push them south to miss us altogether, but the weather changes so frequently on these coastal plains that it’s hard to keep up! Since then, we’ve about finished these two units and have started washing and processing the associated artifacts. The unit we were hoping to find a floor/foundation in, Unit 2E, turned out to be what looks like debris from a collapsed floor from further east and slightly uphill from the unit. It didn’t yield too many exciting artifacts, just crumbling mortar, brick and other construction materials. In Unit 4 we did have some pretty great finds before the soil started becoming more culturally sterile. There are two coins that look like the kind the Spanish issued for Puerto Rico, though they do not appear to be made of silver as they should be, a marble, a silver spoon, part of a perfume bottle, a crystal bead, a variety of buttons, and what appears to be a token or perhaps a game piece. This week we’ll be wrapping up these two units, start two more, and continuing to process the things we’ve found.
