5/31/07 Continued

This is a special post dedicated to Mr. Jay Goldenberg. Tonight I went out to dinner and had the best calamari to date. I told my professor that I needed to have a taste of it here in order to report back to you and he knew just the place to go. You go in and the squid is on ice and you pick the one you want. We had it grilled and it was absolutely wonderful...the best texture, not too chewy, just amazing! So if you decide to visit me next year while i'm here :) I will take you there and this time I will treat!

The restaurant also had amazing grilled eggplant and tahina. Boy do I love the weekends in Egypt.

I took a few photos before going out to dinner of my room. I will take a picture of the balcony tomorrow.

Here is my new big bed, a far cry from the twinner over at the villa:



Here is the closetish thing that im not going to use, because i actually come home in two weeks and don't feel like repacking again! I basically wear the same 2 outfits to work every day and then pajamas when I get home...no need to unpack when i'm leaving in another 14 days.





Here is me before going out to dinner, with the door open to my balcony...again i am being magical and doing the mirror reflection shot, but in order to do this i had to turn off the flash and there wasn't enough light in here so it's kind of a bad picture. I more or less wanted to show off my new scarf that I bought last week though. I love it.





And finally here is my air conditioner and how happy it makes me:





It is more than just savior from the heat. Because I can turn this on i can keep my windows closed which means no dirt and dust can blow in and cover all of my stuff, as it has been the past month, and also no mosquitos can get in.

Another perk to living in the apartment is that it is just me, Richard, and for the next few days this other woman Camilla. While I was told it was okay to walk around the villa in shorts and whatever tank tops if I wanted, i still kind of felt disrespectful since muslim men and women do live and work there. The only time i wore shorts was in my room with the door closed. Now I can wear them and not worry so much, because no one is here.

I am a bit frazzled right now because I know that I will not sleep in very late. Even this morning I woke up at 5:00, 40 minutes before my alarm went off. It is going to be a long day tomorrow if I wake up at 5:00 and have nothing planned to do...although 5 am my time should mean that plenty of you are online to entertain me....so keep that in mind! I can also now leave my computer on more since I don't have to worry about it overheating.

I may actually venture a walk on my own tomorrow to this nearby store, but we'll see how I am feeling.

That will end my post for today.

Thank you to the people who actually go out of their way to keep in touch. It really means a lot when you take the time to see how I am and let me know you are checking up.

5/31/07 Post Move-in

I just finished moving into the apartments and all i can say is, what an upgrade. My room even has its own air conditioner and balcony. I feel extremely spoiled. The bed is HUGE and comfy, and I am a very happy Kelly, although it does take a bit away from the whole gritty archaeologist lifestyle. There's still plenty of dirt for me to deal with on site though, it's nice to be able to retreat to comfort, especially because the heat has been so bad. I will post pictures later on this evening.

In not so happy news, my cough is back and worse than before. If I were to really consider any reasons why I would choose to not come back here or continue work in Egypt it would be because of how it feels for me to breathe...and that's saying a lot. Few archaeologists would turn down work at Giza, but if I knew I had to feel like this for more than a few weeks, it would definitely be a factor in my decision. I find myself even less able to understand smokers if their lungs feel, in any way, the way mine do now....yuck.


Well i'm going to load up on benadryl and take a nap. Then it's shower time and out to dinner. It is the weekend here in egypt..a glorious 36 hours off. There will be no exciting trips tomorrow though. My professor decided that in the interest of my health, that I should stay in and take it easy...it is also for his health too, whatever is in the air gave him an allergy attack as well. So far it seems to only be him and I with all the problems so maybe it's an animal bone thing!

I will post more later, probably bye for now

5/30/07

I was pretty crabby throughout the day and for various reasons. One, I did not sleep well last night since it was so hot. I also managed to break my fan at about 9:30...only I could break my fan on the hottest night of the year in Egypt. Per usual, my professor came to the rescue and made sure i was taken care of. The fan didn't help much though as I laid in bed, heat ridden an sniffley.

Here is the other reason I was irritable today:




I had to sort many of these. These sieves are full of fish bones...thousands of them...literally, i had to count them all.

So I start off with those messes. Organize them by type:






And then I look to our comparative collection, this being one single fish, and actually this is only the skull bones in this picture:




If you can get any sort of idea from these pictures, it is just a lot of very teeny tiny pieces to work with..and like I said, I had to count them all...but I couldn't just count mindlessly because, as you can see in the sieve, there are also plenty of rocks and nonfish elements. These are not to be counted and so, I must count bone, see rock, throw rocks, count more bone. Throw in some hot weather and 7 flies buzzing in and out your ears and you have the perfect formula for a kelly the grouch. I took periodic breaks to make a dent in the fly swarms and then I explained to them that if I had to get up again that they all would be very sorry...they did not listen, and true to my word, they all joined their brothers and sisters in insect afterlife. I imagine that if I were in Dante's inferno, one level of hell for myself would be giant flies with Kelly Swatters.


I was actually by myself for a large portion of the time, with the exception of the security guards...it was actually a little unnerving because if something went wrong I had no means of contacting anyone, plus i don't speak arabic. Richard had gone home early because his allergies were so bad and he did not want them to get worse and then later John had to go take care of some other things- so I was completely alone in the lab for a few hours. But it was okay, i just listened to music, killed some bugs, and counted some bones.


I had to take some pictures for National Geographic on behalf of one of the grants I recieved, so here are some of me working quite hard...although a lot of them are me staging working hard, because there's only so many ways that i can measure a bone for a picture...in fact i am pretty sure the one of me laughing is because I felt so silly staging measurements...some of them are authentic though, like me writing things down.

I compare and make a decision:



I Measure:






I "Measure" and chuckle to myself "hehehe":




I look at measurement and write:







I make any additional notes beyond the measurement:










This one was taken the next day. Richard was talking to Mark, the project director for the Giza Plateau Mapping Project and they were discussing some theoretical issues with excavation and interpretation while I was doing some analysis of cattle. Apparently what I was doing was relavent to a point Mark was trying to make, namely I think the size of cattle, and so he had Richard take a picture.






If you have been paying attention you know that I move tomorrow. If you haven't been paying attention...I'm moving tomorrow...to a lovely air conditioned apartment. It's close by though. But this means I need to pack, but not very much because I started packing last friday and really i just don't have that much stuff, at least not much that I actually use or need to take from my suitcase. Anyways, I am going to end on that note. Happy Hump Day Everyone!

Five/twenty-nine-oh! seven

Geoff has noted that it is funny that I consider 90 degree weather cool at this point...it's not even that I consider it cool...it's that I find those to be beautiful days. Today we actually had a sand storm. It's not as bad as they get, this isn't standard sand storm season, but when they do happen usually you can't see anything except redness from the windblown sand of the sahara. I took a picture from my bedroom window but it didn't do it justice, the haze is incredible...my hair was absolutely filthy though.






I am kind of nervous for what my hairdresser is going to have to do with it in order to make it healthy again. It is so damaged right now from the weather, from not being cut in a while, and from the water here. I figured out that it may also have had a hand in how terrible my skin has been lately. I'm broken out all alround my neck, so now I have a new hair policy...at no point while I'm here is my hair to touch any part of my neck or face. This requires sleeping with it up, which is something that I normally hate, but it really is helping. I don't know if my hair has ever been this long before, and so it makes sense that the oils and dirt from it being all over my face could be clogging my pores more than usual. I also switched to a different shampoo and conditioner at Richard's suggestion. Like I said, so far it is helping a lot.

My work is actually moving along very well...what at first seemed like it was going to be very difficult and daunting, has actually turned out to be not so hard, just tedious and annoying....but it is my job and I do love it. Today i realized one excellent perk of my job...no customers...i never wake up considering how busy or slow etc my day is going to be. It's a job where I just sit and think and figure things out. It's essentially just putting together a big puzzle...which is funny because even when i'm not working i am just doing other puzzles...crosswords, sudokus and others from this big book I have. Everyone makes fun of me for doing them during breakfast and lunch...but I don't know, i like keeping my brain occupied. Plus it's what my dad always did. Another habit I have picked up here, similar to my dad's, is that I started writing in all capitals. It just looks so much neater on my data sheets...my hand writing was getting a little out of control for them, but capital letters slow me down enough and force me to write more legibly. Speaking of data sheets...richard asked me how far along I was in entering mine...at first i was a little embarassed to admit that I had only done like 5.. (no I didn't do any last night like i said i would) he reassured me that i could do it whenever i wanted and that he usually waits until he gets home to enter his...that was a relief. I will probably save it for some bigger computer screens as well as a mouse...this macbook is just too tiny to navigated between 8 different excel spreadsheets.

Today i only had to work untik 3:30. At 4:00 a zooarcharologist from the American University in Cairo came over with a student of hers to go over some material with Richard. She is a delightful woman, very articulate. It was very weird though, to have this cluster of 4 zooarchaeologists discussing at length the differences between horse and donkey molars...but it was actually very neat...I wasn't treated like a student, I was treated like a peer. This also happened yesterday. Richard asked me if i knew what a certain archaeological bone he had was...not because he was trying to test me, but because he wanted to know my opinion...unfortunately i didn't really know...well I kind of knew, by default. It was an unfamiliar looking metapodial, and by default you should always check a pig if it doesn't look right...but when I thought that, I assumed that he operated under the same standard, since he is the one that taught me it, and I assumed he already considered and dismissed pig...i really just should have gone ahead and said it...could have really wowed the crowd.

Because of the high winds, all of the flied are migrating indoors and are worse than usual. Frequently i went on fly patrol with the swatter. I killed two that were having sex...fly and maggot birth control, i just spared us 3000 additional flies.

Also with these high winds, whatever is making me sneeze, wheeze, and sniffle is being blown into my face with much greater intensity. I took two benadryl and its helping, but on that note, I am tired and must lay down. Goooodddnight!

Attention

It is 107 degrees right now....every time I move, I think to myself...heh, I didn't know it was possible to sweat there!

The wind is outrageous blowing sand in my eyes, lungs, and hair.

It hurts to breathe a little bit.

And my allergies are kicking my ass


Sadface

But it's not so bad. The morning went by quick. We are going back to the lab but only for an hour which will be nice.

That is my update...the weather is supposed to drop back down to 91 tomorrow, but that means high winds tonight and possibly some sand storms.

5/28/07

I actually have work sitting right beside me...I will do work tonight, i will do work tonight, i will do work tonight....

Today was a pretty standard day at the lab...actually not so standard, my material just got extremely complicated for myself, but for the most part in a good way...a challenging way. I learned so much today and I'm sure I will learn more in the next few.

In the bathroom at the site there is this gecko that hangs out on the walls (I started using this bathroom after I got my period since there is a waste basket in there...I no longer use the mastaba spot), He is a pale yellow and blends in the the walls. The bathroom there, as I'm sure I mentioned before is just a hole in the floor basically...it's really hard to aim when you're a girl by the way. Anyways...the gecko is in there a lot since there are a lot of flies. He startles me every time I go in there. Today I saw him go for the kill and grab this huge bug with his mouth. I was most intrigued so i watched him wrestle it and prepare his meal. He kept shaking his head violently, bug clenched in his mouth. He then jumps back when he sees me...shakes his head some more and then the next thing I know I have a half alive bug whizzing past my face...yes..the gecko threw the bug at me. When I went inside and explained the story to Richard and John, Richard said that perhaps it was an offering and that the gecko was trying to please me...John agreed adding in that I do spend a lot of time in the bathroom...which is tue, because as most of you know I have the saddest excuse for a bladder, and here I drink 5 bottles of water and about 4-5 cups of coffee...maybe tomorrow I will keep track of how many times I pee...but maybe that is very unnecessary information, if you have spent an afternoon with me, you know how it goes. In fact, my first day here Richard took me aside to check and make sure I wasn't have intestinal/bowel issues already....it was a really awkward an embarassing conversation partly because I think he might not have believed me at first when I just said it was my bladder,,,but now I think he knows I was telling the truth since I'm a pretty consistent pee frequenter...

Oh wow..my entries have regressed into discussion of urination..I need to get out of here...

Another thing that has been bothering me is not being active. I work all day of course, but I just sit at my lab table. I don't do very much walking, I don't get a lot of exercise and I always led a pretty active life before coming here. I can't really do any exercise outside either because it's too hot, and jogging is not something you do in Cairo. Today, I was so desparate to do some sort of exercise activity that I tried to make a jump rope in my room...it didn't work. So instead i turned on some music and danced around my room for a half hour...laugh if you will...but there's nothing wrong with dancing by yourself after a long day's work.

Speaking of long day's work..tomorrow i don't have to work all day! I'm not sure if we are working a half day and finishing at 1:30, or if we are going to return after lunch and work until 3:30. Apparently we are meeting up with another zooarchaeologist that Ricahrd knows.

We are also only working half of the day on Thursday because we are moving out of the Villa and into the large apartment for the rest of the stay. After Thursday we are on our own with laundry and meals. I've been kind of spoiled these past 3 weeks in terms of that. We will probably eat a lot at that one delicious restaurant I write about. The other night between two people there was a plate of falafel, a mashed bean and herb salad called bassara, pita and baba ghanoush, tomatoes and cheese (which i didn't eat of course) and 2 cokes all for under 6 dollars...it's incredible...one of the best restaurants i've ever eaten at, with the best middle eastern food, costs less for two people, than my shampoo and conditioner did...less than 2 boxes of granola bars that I bought...it is unreal.

All in all,..yay for short weeks! It is almost the 29th...which means, only 16 days until I get on a plane! Only two more Fridays of Egyptian excursions.

5/27/85

Someone please look at the date....don't ask me how I managed to write that it's 22 years ago...ahem:

5/27/07

Today as I was heading downstairs for dinner, Maryann, the ethnobotnist among many other titles, stopped me and asked to have a word with me. Maryann is really sweet and so I was not immediately worried that she was taking me aside, but at the same time I was initially perplexed. She began by saying that she was getting ready to go out with Ana and Mark, two other project leaders to talk about who will and wont be working here next year. My heart sank. Richard and i had already talked about me coming back here next year, but was she pulling me aside to tell me otherwise?...I struggled to piece together the past few weeks at rapid pace, racing through anything I could have possibly done wrong and trying to come up with some sort of response to it. Was someone having a problem with me that I didn't know about? Had I done or said something inappropriate or disrespectful? I keep to myself a lot, so I could not imagine what she was going to say next. Well, it turns out, that that was just the sidenote for why she was talking to me now and not at dinner. She actually just called me in to say very kind, supportive, and encouraging things. She has been a tremendous help while I have been here and I look up to her so much. She constantly tells me how well I am doing and that she thinks that she and I are a lot alike, which is an amazing compliment, because she is so accomplished. She has worked all over, and she teaches in London. I could only hope to be that successful in my endeavors.

****



The weather is getting much hotter. It's the kind of heat that rolls over you, makes you break a sweat and take a long blink. You feel tired, and out of it, with intermissions of light headedness. As much as I want to drink coffee to combat the sleepiness I feel, I know that it is from dehydration and not from lack of sleep, or the need for caffeine. What I have been doing is telling myself that I cannot have coffee until I drink a bottle of water. By the time I down the water, i feel energized again and don't need the coffee, so it works out. It is pretty uncomfortable though. You walk by a window and it feels like you are walking by an oven. In the lab, I will feel like I am fine, but then i will stand up and realize that my clothes are damp from sweat.

My sweat dampened skin traps dirt into every crack and cuticle on my hands. I looked down at them today after I had been working a while. I thought to myself, wow...my dad would be so proud...so proud to know that his little girl followed his footsteps in picking up and seeing the world, living in new places...he would also be proud to know that my dirt crusted hands could rival his own- yes, that's how dirty my hands were today.

Given that the days are filled which so much dirt and sweat...naturally when I get home, I want to get into the shower. So far, I could vouch for the fact that the showers here have been great. The water works, the bathrooms are clean...but of course, that would be a statement spoken much too soon.

Today I got in the shower after work, much like I do most days. I start my shampooing my hair and letting it sit on there for a bit so that I can really get all of the dirt out. Meanwhile I lather up the rest of me, lots and lots and lots of soap. So I am doing this, the way I do everyday...then suddenly, the shower head starts spitting at me..a rush of pressure causes hot water to spout from the hose connected to the head and complete shower chaos ensues. Next, the pressure reduces to the point that only little droplets dribble down, having minimal affect on my sudd covered self. So I try turning the water off and turning it back on. Again I get this spitting response from the shower until it just stops working all together. So here I am, standing the shower, soap all over, shampoo in my hair utterly perplexed...perplexed, but not surprised. Okay,, the soap not a big deal...take a wash cloth and get it off. My hair...there was the challenge. Lucky for me, I am one of those terrible people that constantly has 4 or 5 half filled water bottles in my room. So I wrap myself up in a towel and trot down the hall to my room to grab some bottles...BLAST! Yesterday the cleaning people had taken all of my water bottles! I did have one though, but it was nearly empty. The sink in the bathroom wasn't working either so I couldn't fill it up there, and I did't want to walk downstairs in a towel to get more bottles of water for my hair. Quickly I think to try the sink in my own room. Eureeka! it works...so I start filling up my water bottle..done...scuttle back to the bathroom and rinse out the shampoo...but of course one bottle of water isn't enough, have you seen how long my hair is getting??? So i come back here to repeat- a situation where rinsing and repeating is actually necessary. Only this time, when I fill up the bottle the water looks like this:






I repeat, this water came from my faucet.


Now at this point I am incredibly distraught...I begin thinking...holy geez, how often is the water like this withut me knowing or noticing. Word on the street is that if you put your clothes, after washing them here, into a clean bucket of water, the amount of dirt that bleeds into the water is outrageous. So at this point...I can't even decide if i want the water to start working again knowing that theres a chance that that much dirt could come out.

Of course after a certain amount of time the water did start working again and i just did as I always do and rinsed the rest of my hair out without thinking about how dirty the water could be,,,but this had involved many trips back and forth to the bathroom, in my towel and shampoo saturated hair.

Well that is going to do it for the day in the life of a kelly in cairo. I took some benedryl because my allergies were out of control today. Apparenly date palm is in bloom...and apparently i'm allergic to it! I sound pretty gross...lots of sneezing and lots of snot, and lots of morning post nasal drip mmmmm....

I hope everyone has a good day off tomorrow. I will be working from 7-5 yet again~!