Birdcall

There has been quite a bit of attention-getting these past few days.

I left Cairo, and finally made my way to the Fayoum area.

By that I mean, my team members have started to arrive, and a number of us were picked up and driven to the area.

I have met some new faces, made some new friends, and enjoyed a good couple of days.

A good couple of long days.

Regular wake up time for the remainder of the season will be 4am.

Or earlier.

The days end early, because the days are hot.

Then there is the work in the lab.

We've had to deal with insects and insect bites.

We've had drinks on the rooftop, watching the sun set.

We've eaten roadside sweet potatoes.

We've had to deal with tourist police and cultural officials.

We had tea with a police chief.

We've made our homes in the dig house. Tents for some, rooms for others. We get our choice. Alone in a tent, or share a room. I opted for the tent.

The first night I did not sleep. I could not find safety pins to put up my mosquito net, so I slept with it draped on me. But that does not keep bugs out, and it is difficult to sleep with it completely on.

I also had my sleeping bag atop the mattress, and the bed bugs bit hard that night.

The second night was better. Mosquito net went up. Blankets separated me from the bed. I slept well.

We have visited the site. It is not surreal, because it is just visiting an archaeological site. But it is very important for me. I am finally visiting a site I have been working with and on since 2003. I have worked with people who have been there. I have worked with students who want to learn the site. I have worked with excavators who currently work there, and want to know more about its past. I have worked with curators and researchers who were working on publications or exhibitions. I have been helping all these people, and all I knew about the site came from other people, and the artifacts housed at my museum. The plans and maps and photographs tell a lot, but they can't give the first-hand experience that visiting the site gives. The sheer size is greater than the maps and plans convey. Yet, it is also smaller, because it makes it real. It is smaller, because you can now see how small the rooms are. How small the doorways are. How small the streets are.

The Michigan dig house gives me a sense of history. I wonder about the people so familiar to me whom I never met, and what they had done in this space. Little is known about the dig house, though I have seen only a few images of the space.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to do my own work yet. For one, there is nothing to register. No finds have been excavated yet. Secondly, the computer I need to do my work had not arrived yet. That came in with a friend who just arrived a day ago.

And that is what brings me to Cairo.

I do not have Internet access at the site. I do not have Internet access in my office. I paid for a wireless USB stick that did not work on my machine, so I cannot connect. Which means that for the remainder of my stay in Egypt, I will have very little Internet access. I do not plan to come to Cairo often. And this is where I will be getting the majority of Internet access.

I am in Cairo now because I needed the computer that just came in. The carrier just arrived, and was staying in Cairo for a few days before heading to camp. I came to get the machine, but wound up staying because she is ill and needed to be taken care of. The ride back to camp left almost immediately, after changing a flat tire, which did not allow me much of an opportunity to check on her, check the email that has been unchecked since earlier this week, and get back to the car.

When at the site, I managed to take numerous photographs. I will use them to compare Karanis in the 1920s with Karanis in 2012. It is vastly different. Walls and houses and whole structures are completely gone, destroyed by time and nature (and man). It had been left neglected for almost a century, with only some visitation in the 1970s.

I was allowed to get my hands dirty. The team began laying out grids and cleaning off an area they will excavate. I helped. I took brush and trowel to the walls. I helped measure.

I won't be in the field often. My job is to catalog everything this team finds. I will track it when it goes to the specialists. I will maintain the archives and paperwork. Everything I do on a daily basis, but not in an air conditioned space back in Ann Arbor.

The finds will be smaller and in fewer numbers than what is housed at Kelsey Museum, but no less important. They both complement each other. They both join together to begin telling a story.

The group enjoying Cairo this weekend will return Friday night, so just a day to spend in the city. I will catch up on work, and tend to the patient.

The next few months will seem long, but there is a lot to do. I hope my work keeps me busy enough to make the time fly, while still allowing me to enjoy my time here.

I don't know what new adventures or experiences are awaiting me, but I better be sure to answer that call when it rings.