Dig Day 1

I shared on Facebook today was our first day of digging. The first question asked (and rightfully so) was what fun things did we find. Day one is they day you clean up the site from the year before. Which means day 20 of digging will be the reverse -- covering the site in a sheet of plastic and covering that with back fill to keep people out of it. Not a guarantee (after all there are no surveillance cameras set up), but would slow someone down.

The other big task for the day was clearing the mutant thistle that grew in the past 11 months. As someone said she can't grow plants in her yard in Princeton, yet these thistle growing in the most dry conditions manage to thrive. 

I wrote about the schedule yesterday, and they truly did hold true to it. Up at 4:30 am, driving 30 minutes to the site, working by 5:30 am. Work continues until 12:30 pm when we clean up for 30 minutes, and then drive 30 minutes back to the kibbutz for lunch. 

The walk uphill at 5 am is one of the most challenging parts of the day.

Today the supervisors are still setting up, so they gave us the afternoon off. I took advantage of the free time and took the city bus to Akko. Akko is an old Crusader town. It is a modern day port city for cruise ships. By the time I got there the tourists had left and the city was very, very quiet. Some of the shops selling tchotchkes were open, but for the most part it felt sad. The lighthouse (which I did not take a picture of) is featured in many tourist signs (thankfully in English, Hebrew, and Arabic) is behind a fence and is rusty. Hardly photogenic. The rest of the town had that same feel. Compared with living at the kibbutz in 70 year old moldy housing, it feels like an oasis, but that's only by comparison.

The good news (for me) is these buses use the same bus pass as the ones in Jerusalem. I used the card to ask people where to take the bus. When I bought it, I didn't think I'd use it again, but happily I was wrong.

The longer I am here, the longer I long for a place where I at least understand the alphabet. I felt the same way in Japan. Something unsettling about not being able to communicate.

Leila tov ... 4:30 am rolls around mighty early.