I Share One Computer with an Entire Village

That's right, there's technology in Israel but not at Kibbutz Mehanayim. One computer amongst fifty or so of us, and the internet is rarely functional. And that's ok - rather refreshing - but it does put a damper on blog upkeep. So, I'll make you a deal: today, blogging live from the internet cafe behind the Greek Orthodox church in Nazareth, I'll give you a quick update, then when I get to Jerusalem in two weeks I'll start telling the stories of all that has been happening. Don't worry: I won't leave anything out.

First, Rahmer: shuttle bus/public transit buses the world over, it seems, use the same upholstery supplier. I'm not joking. Every morning at 5 a.m. I get on the bus that takes us from the kibbutz to the dig and think of sitting on that bus from Newark and laughing our asses off because the upholstery was exactly as you had predicted it.

My day =
4:15 a.m. wake up
5 bus to the dig site, we're in A3, near the temple/palace at Tel Hazor, and it's the smaller of the two sites; I very much like the 9 other people I dig with.
5:15 - 7 dig dirt, do bucket chains (yes, we haul the dirt ourselves), listen to the Beatles.
7 tea, coffee, cookies - the cookies are fantastic, and since we're such a small group we get as many cookies as we want - area M only get 2 each...wah.
9:30 breakfast = hardboiled eggs, cucumber and tomato salad, olives, pickles, cheeses, yogurt, pudding, sometimes a tuna salad.
10ish back to work.
1 p.m. stop digging, pack up our stuff, head down to wash the pottery that had been found that day.
2:30 back to the kibbutz for lunch (kibbutz food needs an entry unto itself.)

After lunch I shower, wash my dusty dig clothes by hand and hang them to dry in the sun, then write in my journal for a while. (Yesterday I napped, which was weird, but I was low on sodium so exhausted. I now pour salt into my palm and lick it while on site - sounds nasty, but it really helps.) Then:

5:30 p.m. Pottery reading, when we go through the previous day's finds and try to determine what we have based on the sherds. I'm still learning but I can tell a bowl from a cooking pot from a storage jar. There's still more work until I can recognize the era in which they were made, e.g. Iron or Bronze Ages, etc.

7:30 Dinner (see above, re: future kibbutz food entry).
9ish in bed.

And I love it. I'm working in the hills of Naphtali, I'm thinking and working and sweating and eating some pretty shitty food, and meeting some very incredible people. Today, Sarah from Britain and Joelle from Belgium and I are in Nazareth and tomorrow we head to Mount Tabor in the morning so I can research the area for my thesis.

And my time in the cafe is up. We're going to hunt down some real food.