Before my homebody self keeps me in bed, I ask myself, “when is the next time you’ll be back [in this country]?” It’s easy to stay given the work we put in our palms, knees, and lower backs each day for five and a half hours—at this point, the sunburns are the least of our worries. The work is gritty, dirty, and humbling. However, there is something special about uncovering Mallorca’s past, something about the “hundreds of years of history per feet” that our archeology “boss”, Toni, would talk to us about. The work will inevitably wear us down, and so while our bodies and minds are fresh, I intend to keep this fire burning as hot as I can.
This fire, perhaps something I’d describe as being between ‘interest’ and ‘passion’, runs by many fuels—childhood ideals of archeology, hands-on work, enthusiastic teachers. It only being the third day or so, I’m wondering what exactly it is that keeps archeologists going because they sure aren’t digging up dirt for the fun of it… right? Well, actually, the digging isn’t just a “part of it”, the “pros” (the real archeologists) take all of it, almost to the point where they enjoy the digging more than the discovering! An exaggeration, obviously, but just saying that they have become so used to all of the work that it appears they can’t do one thing without the other—a true professional knows how to do all jobs. It’s what makes them the bosses.
The first time with the pickaxe was actually nothing special, everything is just gardening taken to another level. We are finding lots of material but are yet to truly learn how to distinguish and identify materials worth keeping—bunch of ceramics and bones so far. We have recently been taught how to survey using a theodolite (fancy), so some math involved but mainly reading and yelling. Oh and some drawing. It’s a bit of a tedious job, but after about half an hour, you’ve got yourself an accurate and scientific land drawing, something you might see in a book.
Those are my thoughts so far, which isn’t a whole lot (or at least, less than what I was expecting). Guess there’s so much more to learn and pay attention to, especially since it’s been a bit awkward to not be introduced to the other students yet, so fingers crossed for that because besides the world under our feet, there is another world around us that we’re yet to truly experience😊.
