A puke and a half....

I apologize for the horrible title, but really there is no other way to explain the last two days for you.

Since everyone arrived in Jordan, members of the team have been dropping like flies. By dropping like flies I mean worshipping the porcelain goddess, not dying. Don't worry too much.

So Tuesday was our first real day of digging. After a painful and borish day of mapping out the square, taking elevations, taking photos of everything and stringing the squares we finally got down to business.

Monday on the tell (a large mound in archaeology which is not a naturally formed hill, but rather dirt and grass covering an archaeology site) the weather was nice and a calm 36 degrees.

Tuesday was better and only 32 degrees which helped us ease into a long summer of excavation. Let me tell you, my arms and legs will be rocks by the time I get back to Canada. Just climbing the tell in the morning leaves every single person gasping for breath upon completing the steep climb.

Wednesday was a bit rough as the temperature climbed up to a scalding 42 degrees by the time we left the site at 11:45 am. I can't imagine not starting at 5am and being finished by 11:45am

The rest of the day is busy, busy as we only have a couple hours of free time in the afternoon and then it's off to pottery and object washing and then our specialization. Mine somehow being object photography, even though I suck at photography.

So anyway, I'll stop boring you with mundane details and get to the really gorish and juicy (no pun intended) details of my two sick days.

I woke up at 2am in the morning on Thursday morning and felt horrible. I got out of bed feeling like several Egyptian speeding trucks carrying loads of watermelons had hit me and the contents had been left bouncing behind in their watermelony goodness only to yes, hit me while I'm down.

I made it to the bathroom in time and spent probably 18 days puking (although realistically probably only about a half hour) and climbed back into bed.

The trucks only increased in size after that until they became trains and then large cruise ships, this time drowning me in the depths of the Nile.

I know I'm a drama queen.

At about 4 in the morning I fainted and did a pretty good job on my knee.

At 10 in the morning it took me 30 minutes to make it up a flight of stairs to get a bottle of water from the fridge. A quick 10 minute pass out on the kitchen floor and a 5 minute break after walking 10 steps in a dizzying orb of fluorescent light and all was well. Somehow I made it back to bed.

Apparently there's some Jordanian virus going around and has even the locals as close to the floor as humanly possible. I was relieved to hear it wasn't just our pitiful Canadian stomachs reacting to the food.

So about half of the 50 member team is sick as of now...
I'm pretty much fully recovered now and am told by Dr. Bernie that by tomorrow morning I will be peachy....

Great.

Much love,
Krysten