Hi everyone! I hear a lot of people at Faith Lutheran are reading the Blog :)) A couple of days ago when Jim Gimbal was bitten by the scorpion 3 times, I mentioned in passing that I had donated my bite cream to the first aid kit. (He now Duct tapes the bottom of his pants every day.) My bite is fine and has disappeared all together. Like I said before, the Medical Center has all kinds of cream and it seems to be 12 sheckles ($4) every time. Great deal everytime. Anyway, remember I said they put it on his bites immediately??? That may have helped him out.
We just got great news! We can turn in our laundry this Thursday, so we won't have to take home a whole suitcase of dirty clothes. Yeah! These clothes are really dirty. They have a dry feel when you put them on because there is so much fine dirt in between the fibers. In between the Haifa site and the Concordia site there is about 6-10 inches of the stuff and it is gray. Linda Miller calls it moon dust. As you step, it puffs up in the air about a foot each time you step down and our noses get clogged with it.
I forgot to tell you yesterday, Daniel ran buckets for his crew emptying out the cistern near his original square and I ran buckets for Linda and Chris in D-3. As the floor dropped lower and lower, I was almost lifting buckets of dirt and rock over my head onto the wall in order for them to be dumped (about 20% of the day). The rest of the time I was taking those buckets and dumping them out into a wheelbarrow in the sun (30% of the day). In the morning I was dabbling in the mosaic area with Nancy (about 20% of the day), and I volunteered to help set up breakfast (about 20% of the day including eating). (French toast, YUM.) I wonder where the last 10% of the day went??? :))
Today Dan continued to work up in his area and I worked with Linda and Chris again. Jake stayed home after the nasty fall he took, putting ice on his sore spots. He says he feels good enough to work tomorrow. Just when we were slightly levelling out the floor and getting ready to move on, Chris found a curve in the floor. It turned out to be a /tabloon/ not sure about the spelling. It is a very large opening in the floor that was used to cook in. It is a pit type structure (exactly circular) that is lined with clay and may or may not have a clay bottom. The Haifa team has 2 and now Dr. Schuler is not left out! He has one too!
Anyway, we worked on pulling out all of the dirt and "stuff" from inside. It turned out to be about 2 meters deep, just as Dr. Schuler said it would be. Just one tiny area turned out to be in bad shape. After emptying it, it looks like you are standing in a gigantic clay pot. It is about 4 ft. across. (Sorry, no scientific, metric measurements;() It was Chris' "lucky" day. I was sifting most of the morning and he took over and gave me a break out of the sun and guess what? The first bucket he sifted had a metal button in it :o He had the magic trowl, magic broom, magic bucket, etc.... It just goes that way. He even found a roof tile in the middle of the /tabloon/.
There's interesting stuff going on in Daniel's area, but I have no idea what they are doing. Glenn was sent in to uncover, discover, and generally do detail work in order to find out what type of building they have found that runs along the outside of the church behind the curved apse in the front of the church. It is his last day here today. He leaves around 9:00 tonight. We will miss him at the back of the line hiking up in the morning.
My sister, knowing how much I love coffee, asked how the coffee is here. It's instant or Turkish coffee. We make due. I did try Turkish coffee in the wonderful restaurant in Amman. It is like espresso with sugar in it. I really don't like sweetener in my coffee, but it was drinkable. Yes De, the instant is like swill :(( Dan missed fried eggs and I miss brewed coffee. My Folgers coffee bags have gotten me through though. There are a few things to look forward to when we come back home.
Love to you all. I am showering and getting ready to go have dessert with Dan and some others.
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