Digging in Israel

I think DW and I are just getting the hang of the climate, the food, the local hours and it's almost time to leave.

We have confirmed a ride to the airport at 6 AM Friday morning.

Today I just did not want to get out of bed. I felt like playing hooky. But I felt the others who have suffered through the last two weeks and gotten to be, if not friends, at least familiar with each others' ways. Amanda, Matt, and Olivia have kept it real all the way along with our section leader Emilia (Amelia?) styled "Em" on her Facebook page.

We have had others come for a while. Joey was here the first week. Amanda still misses Joey. We have had high schoolers from Haifa, a family from Israel came for a day and others I forget right now. Oh yes today we had a young couple from Mexico, college students in the capitol.

Anyway, perhaps displaced, but I did not want to disappoint anyone. I suppose I would have felt some loss of face. (Incidentally we have a Japanese archaeologist volunteer this week.)

We are working with a lot students. These young people are smart and motivated. Most are pretty expert language students. Matt and Olivia like to play around with different languages.

Oh yes, how can I forget Ken, a man our age who is a long time repeat volunteer. He has been working on other projects around our section so I have not worked with him as much. But he has been generous to drive us places. We tried to make church Sunday night but he had a flat so we could not go.

The dig leaders are great with people and highly energized. We have done some evening tours that have been hard on me because I hate bus rides. These rides are even worse because they are through the mountains and the roads here are more like F.M. roads in U.S.A.

The food still bugs my stomach. Yet I eat it and have not significantly lost weight. It tastes alright bland but alright. It just is hard to digest.

We are actually considering coming back next year. I wonder what the leaders privately think about that.