5 - 13 March

AW, Monday, 5 March
Slow day. Took me all day to plan my tomb superstructure. Start excavating again tomorrow. Someone who shall remain nameless was cussing like a sailor today (all in good humor, he just does that sometimes). I said something to the effect of “Quit that, we don’t need the workmen (especially Yassir, who is a quick mimic) to add that to their repetoire.” To which that certain someone replied, with slow, careful enunciation: “What, you don’t want me to say ‘what the fuck’?” Which Yassir promptly repeated. Sigh. Between laughing, yelling at the instigator, and trying to tell Yassir not to do that again, T and I had quite a time. We have been trying to get the workmen to pick up the fist-punch “Respec” thing from Ali G though and go do it to G.
Decided yesterday on the perfect joke to play on G. There’s a yellow coffee/tea pitcher that leaks from the bottom. G keeps throwing it out and Bomba and now the new cook, Hashem, keep retrieving it and using it. G tossed it (for good, he thought) yesterday. I had a moment of divine (or should that be satanic?) inspiration and retrieved it. I’m going to have everyone on the team sign it and stick it on his desk back home.
G found an excellent scarab in one of his tombs today. Man facing off with a lion. Not sure if I’ll have time to dig another tomb before the end of the season. Have to help with object photography. Finish registering stuff. Finish survey. Pack. Not kill people. Looks like being a long week.

AW, Wednesday, 7 March
Only a few days to go until we leave next Tuesday. My tomb is shaping up nicely. Apparently at least 2 individuals and a lot of busted up pottery. One individual has what looks to be a (mostly) intact skull under a rock which amuses everyone who comes by for a look. Abdullah and Ramalli are doing really well. I’ve finally managed to convey that they are NOT TO DIG the minute they see something but to leave it in place and let me decide what to do.
My ankles are a mess courtesy of the kultep. Kultep are these nasty little biting flies – apparently they only show up for a few weeks of the year. Anyway, they bite, which sometimes stings and always leaves a little drop of blood on the skin surface. A few hours later the bite starts to itch abominably.
Fun and games with being vulgar. Mentioned I had finally found the edge of the burial shaft – I was getting “good cleavage.” Couple of the guys said they wished they had some. ☺ I offered to purchase WonderBras for them. Later on in the day, G came by to check up on my tomb and T’s and I yelled up to him “Hey, check out my awesome cleavage!” To which he replied, “I’m looking anywhere but directly at you right now.” To be truthful, my cleavage (as opposed to the soil cleavage in my tomb) is anything but awesome right now what with the weight loss and there not having been much there to start with.
Getting hotter and thus harder to keep working. I got quite a lot of registration done yesterday. Hope to finish my tomb by Friday so I can start on the packing up.

Karima, Tuesday, 13 March
Ended excavations and finished packing up yesterday and this morning. Trip to Karima went smoothly. Staying at Murtada’s house again. T and I rode in the back of the lorry. Made sure people got pictures so we can give our parents and the Risk Management people at the university nightmares. Did well finishing up my tomb. Turns out I had two humans, one in beautiful condition, one in craptastic condition and a ram. The ram was in equally craptastic condition and the craptastic person had his(?) arm wrapped around it which made getting it out and keeping bits separate a little challenging. As did the fact that just freakin’ looking at the bones wrong makes them turn to powder. Argh. Nothing for it. The joys of salvage work. Anyway, apparently the ram-as-teddy-bear thing is pretty common in graves in this region.
The last few days of excavation were pretty stressful. Trying to hurry and do a good job was hard enough but it seemed like we had dozens of random visitors from the village or nearby villages stopping by and wanting to chat. Ordinarily, I’m fine with that, but not when I’m running out of time. Had a couple of yelling moments. The first one was when I needed to share a screen with someone else. We placed it equidistant between our units and explained we were going to share it, but the other guy’s workman decided he was going to move it when I wasn’t looking. Abdullah and Ramalli noticed and told me, so I stood up out of the burial pit and yelled “La! Hinak!” (“No – There!) I was apparently more forceful than I had intended (I’d yelled mostly because of the wind and distance, not because I was particularly pissed) because the dude dropped the screen and scurried back to work. Abdullah and Ramalli looked at me with this combination of awe and surprise, figured out I wasn’t really mad, and started laughing. The second yelling moment was the next day, I think. One of the kids around here is a real punk ass (I don’t think he actually works for us, just wanders around bothering people.) Anyway, he was bugging Abdullah the other day while Abdullah was doing some fairly delicate work and I finally lost it when Abdullah slipped and messed something up (not really badly, but it upset him and he wouldn’t have slipped if the kid hadn’t distracted him). I yelled “Imshi!” (Essentially, “go the hell away.”) at the kid. The only other time I’ve ever said that to someone (when it wasn’t a well-understood joke) was when some kid tried to pick my pocket in Luxor. He wasn’t going to go until he got a look at my face and I started to stand up. Then he beat a hasty retreat. I think he went to bother T, or tell him his wife was crazy or something. Anyway, I calmed down and then Abdullah says in this wee little voice: “Abdullah ma tamam?” (“Abdullah isn’t good?”) And I had to very quickly assure him that no, Abdullah was awesome, (“Abdullah tamam! Abdullah tamam!!! Aywa!!!!) it was the other kid who was “ma tamam.” Not one of my finer moments. It’s really hard to work with random people standing around staring at you, arguing with each other, asking you for stuff they don’t really need, etc., especially when you only understand one word in ten and you’re working toward a deadline.
The random visitation thing extended to the house as well. Apparently the local women decided they wanted to check out our digs and just wandered around, thoroughly startling some of our team working at the house who thought they were mostly alone. ☺
Spent past few days in blazing heat (115°) helping G with photography. (“Dude, you dripped sweat on the drop cloth again…”) Yesterday’s session was helped along by us making vulgar comments about the teapot-like vessel we were photographing. Went swimming Sunday afternoon, rather mischievously “sneaking” out. Kultep have been awful the past week and were just as bad down at the river so it was a quick swim. I actually swam this time and even with the kultep it was worth it.
Had a party Sunday for our workmen complete with roasting an entire sheep and after lunch music provided by some of the workmen. Lots of good video of that. Mohammed Ali insisted that we do a repeat at his house with him as host which was a bit irritating in the end-season shuffle but also nice.
Mohammed Ali is nice, but a little…demanding of our attention and gets petulant if he thinks we aren’t paying him enough attention. T sort of got him back. One of the young donkeys kept running into Mohammed’s house. T went to tell him that the donkey was in there again and said what literally translated as “the house of the donkey” – forgivable given his limited knowledge of Arabic, but T knew exactly what he was saying. ☺
Anyway, lunch at Mohammed Ali’s was worth it if only for some of the photos, including one of G, Mohammed, and R looking for all the world like hostages being forced to say “we’re fine, everything is fine, they’ve been very good to us.”
Have just enjoyed some wonderful grapes and my first cold soda (or cold any sort of beverage) in weeks.
It’s supposed to get even hotter the next few days and then drop again. I’m very tired. We were planning on dinner at the Nubian Rest House this evening as an end-season treat but apparently they want $45 (US) a head which is just freakin’ crazy. (Found out later from M that the European bastards who run the place won’t let Sudanis in, even if they have the money to pay. Won’t let them book weddings there, won’t let them eat, etc. Glad we didn’t go. Bastards.)