another day, another peso

Another day in La mikela- work work work. We are trying to get things finished as fast as we can so as to wrap up the excavation by the time Nydia and I head out. We’re essentially leaving at the end of the typical field season anyhow and it gets tough, because Carlos and Martha start up teaching again at the university so it should be pretty close, but good overall timing. Weather permitting and fingers crossed!

Kids came through on tour from local grade school, which basically meant utter chaos and little progress! It’s cool that they are being exposed to archaeology and the work we are doing, but it was a lot to manage as there were about 80 of them and we ended up having to take time to explain to them about the work instead of actually working. Well, I couldn’t really explain much seeing as I’m not fluent in spanish; I basically wandered around since I couldn’t work or talk to the kids haha. Oh well, hooray for public archaeology/awareness! At least it was a nice, DRY and sunny day in the field.

Carmen and I ended up also leaving early after lunch to head to Manizales. I felt bad bailing out on work early since it hadn’t been a very productive day thus far but I had also really wanted to check out Manizales and plus we had a mission to complete: going to the museum of one of the universities there to pick up this book for Pat that can only be purchased there in person. So, really we were thinking of Pat.... at least partly haha.

After the visiting the university we walked to one end of town to get a cafe and look at this old wooden structure popularly known in Manizales. The coffee shop was right across the street from the structure so we could sit and enjoy a little warm cappuccino while taking in the view with baileys for me, yum! And Amaretto for Carmen. It was back to her house for dinner after that; we had almost left just in time to avoid the rain, but ended up catching a bus back instead of walking to stay dry. Her mom and her mom’s cousin (who lives with them there) had prepared a DELICIOUS dinner starting with soup and banana, a main dish of trout, rice, sweet plantain, and a tomato/carrot salad. So good! Nothing like a home-cooked meal : )

short n' sweet

Today we had to leave work after lunch once again due to the massive amounts of rain. I think today was the hardest, most intense rain I’ve experienced since being here. Carlos says that this much rain is really unusual for July which tends to be much more calm than June, but so far I think it has rained more during this month of my time here than June. I was literally out in the rain, shoveling out trenches on three different sites of the excavation to keep the water from pouring over the walls of our unit. I was wearing my rain jacket, but I was more or less soaked by the end of it; Diego was helping bail out buckets of water from the trenches to keep them from over flooding as it was. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew was sitting pretty under the break tarp sipping coffee and observing us go to town; they must have thought I was crazy to be out in that rain....guess I’m a little overprotective when it comes to my excavations. I couldn’t help thinking about how Tony had reprimanded me for digging the first small trench along the southern edge of the unit because, as he reminded me, these were archaeological sites....mind you, the ‘trench’ was no more than 6 inches down and all of that layer is just crummy pottery that is not important to our project so I went for it haha! What Tony doesn’t know won’t kill him ; ) Have to say it worked quite well.

It worries me a little though, the rain, for my departing flight next Wednesday because I am on the 7:00 flight out of Pereira which usually comes from Bogota or Cartagena earlier in the morning, meaning it doesn’t sleep the night before in Pereira and is more likely to experience delays or issues flying in to Pereira in the morning if the weather is bad. That, and Tony sent me an email with instructions for the transfer in Bogota that were a little nerve racking since the airport there is both under construction and difficult to navigate in the first place, however, I am hoping for the best! What else can I do? 

side note: I am trying to get this as up-to-date as possible, a few more posts are on there way I promise...longer and more exciting posts. Stay tuned!!