Oct 2008

July 1

Happy Canada Day! For the first time in my life, I don't get it as a holiday. Instead, I worked out at the site today, for the first time. I worked on clearing off the lower footprint horizon. It gets very hot out there, so I'm glad we break at noon until 3:30. It's hotter here than at Koobi Fora and we are farther from the lake. I miss the convenience of having the lake right near the camp. Now, we have to load into the vehicles each evening and drive down, which takes about half an hour. Yesterday was the first day we were here, and we did the lake drive. I was in the unimog for the first time. I actually thought I'd fall off, it was rocking so much. Scary! But a swim in the lake was good at the end of a dusty day. Toady it will be much better, since I was actually out working. I had a Cottonelle bath for my face and hands but am still dirty. There is so much dust here. Even the river bed, or laga, is totally dry and dusty. Apparently it only has water in it when there are flash floods. I find it weird that there's so little surface water. I still can't believe that people can survive in this dry of an environment. There's even a town, Ileret.

The Dassanach like to hand around and watch us during the day, as if they're waiting for us to do something interesting. So many little kids have no clothing, which I think is sad. I guess its in short supply here and goes to the adults first.

The site is pretty amazing. It was hard work to get it cleared off and we're still working on it. There is a layer of rock on top of a layer of sand on top of a tarp on top of more sand on top of the footprints. Someone has come along and stolen the original tarp and replaced it with a different one, but the footprints weren't disturbed. It was realy cool to see them for the first time.

We are out of here on the 19th, so 17 more days after today, then back to base camp! 29 more days here in Africa.

July 3

Yesterday morning, we finished uncovering the lower footprint layer. I worked with Paul and Emma and Habiba, which was fun. Afterwards, I helped a bit with surface screening the upper levels, until I went down for water and didn't have the energy to go back up. It was extremely hot yesterday; even during the break I didn't have much energy. In the afternoon, I helped with screening again. It was really boring, so thankfullly we don't work as long in the afternoon. The lake was very welcome in the evening, although I had a lot of laundry, so my swim was only about 5 minutes. I put up a laundry line yesterday between my tent, the tree, and April's tent. I was getting tired of having bugs on my clothes from hanging them on the bush beside the tree. I was glad for the lines, since I had a lot of washing. I'm looking foward to doing laundry and not having sand in my clothes when they dry.

Today was much better. The weather is great! This morning it was cool and cloudy until about mid-morning. Paul and I started excavation in a section and found some more footprints, about half a meter above the lower horizon. Then I moved onto surface scraping with Habiba and April. That wasn't as interesting, but a least it was more than carrying buckets for screening. I found some bone and the screeners found some Holocene stone tools in my back dirt. Tomorrow the students start excavating.

Right now, the weather is beautiful. It's cloudy with a breeze. At home, I'd be predicting a thunderstorm, but not here. I could hear an airplane a moment ago and mistook it for thunder. If it rains, I suspect it won't be for very long, maybe a few minutes. But it's a nice respite from the normal midday heat.

Some of the students have taught the Dassanach kids to play frisbee. There's a huge group of kids here right now, about half of them seem enthralled by the frisbee playing.

July 4

Today we had a half day because it's July 4. Excavation sucked today; I was "supervising" the students. It was pretty boring, and I hope I get more of a chance to excavate later on.

The Dassanach from town came today to trade. I traded 4 items of baby clothing for a 500 shilling (probably marked way up) bracelet and a small keychain. I hope the people from the local villages start coming soon. I've heard they trade more rather than wanting cash.

We went to the lake around 3:30 today, which was nice. I got burnt today, though, which sucks for me, but I'm going to have to stay covered. Next year, I am really going to use another anti-malarial, because I really wanted to get a tan.

Tonight we have a 4th of July celebration. There are some dancers coming in, apparently, and I think we're having goat and fish at dinner.