August 29, 2009

Saturday

Aug. 29, 2009

Not much to write about today. I was sick all day with nausea (and other even less pleasant things), so I stayed in bed all day. I managed to eat some Ritz crackers, half a croissant and a bowl of cereal throughout the day, but that was all. I have a theory that the meat last night did me in. Not that it was ill-cooked, but I’m now on an almost vegetarian diet (purely by circumstance), and I think the steak and several ribs that I ate were a bit much for my digestive system. One of the things about Italian food is that there’s very little meat involved, and even less of that is rough or red meat. In any given day I’ll have a slice of bologna or a couple slices of salami at lunch, and maybe some chicken (about one breast worth) at dinner. We’ve only gotten chicken twice so far, and once we had fish fillets. Any other meat is some ground meat in the sauce, so it’s not surprising that this happened, really. Anyway, I’m going back to sleep.

August 28, 2009

Friday

Aug. 28, 2009

The rain yesterday did us another favor today: it gave us an extra 30 minutes of sleep this morning. It was announced last night at dinner that instead of starting at 7:30, we would start at 8. It was still really hot, but the breezes and clouds came as usual, which helped.

Tonight, we had a “trench dinner” at Andrea and Rosanna’s house. It’s a really pretty two-story house – very Italian – and it’s in the middle of a bunch of fields. We had steak, ribs, figs, eggplant, and “pizzettas”, which I helped make. Pizzettas are like the crust of pizzas (hand-tossed style) which are fried and salted, and eaten with a spaghetti sauce style of dip. The dinner was outside, since that was the only place big enough for all 15 or so of us. After a dessert of home-made tiramisu, we gathered around a bonfire in the other part of the yard and sang songs until about 1am. It was fun, but I’m pretty tired.

August 27, 2009

Thursday

Aug. 27, 2009

Today was an exceptionally hot day. Usually there’s a breeze that comes around at about 11:30 and again at about 3, but this morning there was nothing. By lunch time we were all stumbling in like beaten animals, and the 6 liters of water at each table were gone in the first 15 minutes. After lunch there was still no breeze, and there was no evidence of the usual afternoon cloud cover. We trudged back out to the site, eyeing our tools mournfully and glancing at the sky with little hope before letting out a communal sigh and dragging picks, shovels, wheelbarrows, buckets, and trowels to our assigned places. The usual chatter and singing were gone, replaced by grunts of effort and defeat against the heat and humid air which was more akin to a wet blanket.

Finally, a miracle.

From the clouds which had raced in over the hills like a phantom army, tiny drops of rain fell, carried by the wind which had finally woken from his slumber. With renewed energy and hope, we cleaned our areas and prepared for a storm. A few minutes later, we experienced fear when the drops seemed to vanish. But our hope returned with the next wave of rain, which rode in even faster than before. We all went home to shower, and I sat out on the porch and watched the rain fall in the courtyard.

August 26, 2009

Wednesday

Aug. 26, 2009

I was in the lab again today, which was a relief after yesterday. I wasn’t going to go, but they asked for volunteers and no one offered, so Andrea asked me if I wanted to go. Of course I’m not going to refuse. I just washed pottery today, so there’s not much to talk about there, but tonight was fun.

We’re actually in a small town outside of Orvieto, though still part of the “community of Orvieto”. Tonight was the first of 4 nights of their “party of the year”, where all the residents come out to dance, sing, and socialize. Tonight – or at this point last night – there was a singing/accordion playing/electric piano playing duet. The music mostly consisted of waltzes and foxtrots and other ballroom dance songs, but there were a lot of line dances (like our Electric Slide or Cotton-Eye Joe). I was able to participate in those by watching the residents, who all knew the steps, and an “older gentleman” helped me learn some of the other dances (I’m sure the really simple versions, but it was still fun). The average age for most of the night was probably somewhere in the mid-sixties. Only at about midnight did the age level drop, and that only because some of the eldest people had gone home and ¾ of the excavation team showed up. The dance floor was just across the creek from our dining hall. By then, the music had changed to almost all line dances, and then we took over and just jumped around for a while.

It was probably the best night I’ve had since I’ve been here, but I am so sore and exhausted, I know I’ll pay for it (later) in the morning. It was worth it.

August 25, 2009

Tuesday

Aug. 25, 2009

Well, I made up for yesterday. I wouldn’t give Paola the pick all morning (from 8-12:30), and went nuts. By the afternoon, I finally let her pick for a couple turns. We finished our section, but it was a bit sloped so I was assigned to level it and clean the wall that bordered one side. I made it as level and as clean as a floor, and Andrea gave me a “bene” for my work. At 5, he had to drag me away from my corner (there was still a bit more to clear), telling me “basta! Basta!” (enough! Enough!) and laughing at my protests. When I finally got up, I realized that they’d already cleaned up the rest of the trench and were taking the supplies to the shed, so I had to take my bucket of dirt to the mountain of dirt separately and take my tools to the shed separately as well. I’m exhausted, and every muscle hurts from picking or crouching, but I feel better about myself now.