One More Final Push

Today was one last final push...Until the next one, at least.  As mentioned in the last post, the kids and I are helping Owen where we can with his survey work at Tall Safut.  Today is the last day of his survey permit from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, and was the day he had planned to take pictures of the wall lines using a piece of equipment called the "boom."  It's really a handy contraption. 

setting up

We wrangled up another helper, another fellow working here at ACOR (thank you James!).  At 6:00 am, we rolled out to the site and started working.  Things went fairly uneventfully, thankfully...minus an injury free fall by Jack off a wall into some pokey bushes, and some decent sunburns by me (after I spend so much time putting sunscreen on kids, I feel done and forget to put it on myself). 

Owen directing the positioning of the camera

Jack and James at the other end

a view from my perspective, as camera catcher in-between takes

the big picture

me and Fia, laying tape and catching the camera

The morning was surprisingly cool, so Jack wore my nursing cover as a cape to keep warm, and looked super cool.

Safita passed out and slept for a couple hours, which was fantastic.

Both kids were exceptional for what must have been a really long, boring, difficult day for them.  Especially on days like today, I praise the Lord for giving us such happy, patient, flexible kids--without their hardiness, we really couldn't do what we do.  

random people who were curious about what we were doing...and wondering if there was any gold

Local people throughout Owen's time surveying this past week and a half keep stopping by asking if there's gold at the site...It doesn't help that his GPS equipment kind of looks like a heavy-duty metal detector, and it also doesn't help that today we were going around putting X-marks on a bunch of stones.   Hopefully we don't come back next year to a tell pocked with looting holes!

checking the pics

Jack was a big helper

and so was Safita--she helped me hold the pole!

We finished the picture-taking a little after 1:00 pm, at which point the kids and I drove James back to ACOR and got a snack before returning to Safut to pick up Owen, who stayed behind to take some GPS points and finish up.  Things took a little longer than expected, and we didn't get home until a little after 3:00 pm.  It was a long haul: breakfast at 5:30 am, lunch at 3:30 pm.  But, this very important survey project is now complete!  Another very rewarding accomplishment to check off...and one step closer to that coveted PhD in hand! 

Finished!  Descending Safut with the rest of equipment in hand.  Can you tell he's tired?

Pottery, Pottery Everywhere

We are up to our ears in pottery around here.  First, it took over Owen's office and the large storage area; then it took over our apartment floor; now, it's also taken over our table.  We've been kept busy organizing, sorting, washing, and hovering over the sherds like a jig-saw puzzle with missing pieces, trying to make sense of the jumble. 

Where does it all come from, you ask?  At the very beginning of this month, Owen finally got all his permission letters in order from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities to haul all of their Safut material from the Department Warehouse to ACOR (see Owen's blog on the subject), so that it is easily accessible for him to scan and study.  He rented a big truck with workers, and at the end of the day we had 115 crates of pottery and dirt from Tall Safut (and some other random sites--oops)...each crate filled with hundreds of sherds, many of which also need to be reconstructed.  It's a MASSIVE job, and we are feeling completely overwhelmed.  Too bad it took half of our time here just to get the material, but I guess that's how governments run: inefficiently.  After this mountain of pottery is done, there is still more material at the Warehouse that accidentally got left behind, as well as another museum to visit.  Phew!  I'm panting just thinking about this crazy race against time.  While Owen focuses on the stuff only he can do, my job is to sort through all the crates and find the most important stuff, to help wash the pottery, and to rudimentarily reconstruct pieces for scanning.  (Anything important goes to a professional pottery re-constructor.) 

The children also help where they can...Safita often finds herself sitting in a pottery crate of her own, beneath towering stacks of even more crates, while Jack wanders around the basement maintenance area to see what trouble he can find.  He usually finds plenty.  (It's not an ideal location for a 2-year-old, but we can only do what we can do!)  He also loves helping with the washing.

The other "commune" kids seem to have found our pottery stash rather exciting, and enjoy trying their hand at washing and fitting pieces together.  We're thinking about hiring them...Except, wait--they'll do it for free!  Even better.

pottery sherds make great "roads" for toy cars

It seems like we're always under a gigantic amount of pressure with a quickly ticking timer, frantically trying to accomplish unreasonable amounts of work in absurdly short periods of time.  And every time, I naively think, "As soon as we're done with this stage, things will calm down and we can relax."  Never happens.  I'm starting to feel a bit like our life resembles the pottery that's taken over it of late: jumbled, scattered, disorganized, a mess of broken pieces...The good news is, each piece is valuable, broken or not!  And one day soon we'll find some glue to put the pieces back together again!  One day soon, we will function normally.  And I can't wait!

The Importance of Place

We are a nomadic family…living perpetually in a temporary state…not by choice, but rather by necessity, moving on with each new change of season.  Described like that, I guess we all are nomads, of sorts.  Life is fluid and changing, and we change with it, whether we want to or not.  As seasons change, so do life-sustaining sources, and we must forge ahead or be left wanting.  We all are nomads, especially as we believe that this world is not our ultimate home and we are only passing through.

This contemplation makes me think of the ancient Israelites passing through Transjordan: Why did 2 ½ tribes (Rueben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh) choose to settle there along the journey and not continue to the Promised Land?  Was it strategic, to conquer more land?  Or were they tired of the nomadic life, and the land looked good for settling?  Numbers 32 seems to indicate the latter.  Did they miss out on God’s planned blessing by not continuing?

The logistics of our nomadic journey at the current stage look something like this: We lived in Buchanan, MI for 3 ½ years while Owen worked on the classwork and legwork of his dissertation (PhD in Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology & Anthropology).  We currently live in Amman, Jordan for 6 months while he continues to research, survey, and write under a fellowship with ACOR (American Center for Oriental Research).  When we leave here, we will live under the generosity of my family for an indefinite, temporary period of time while Owen finalizes his dissertation and defends (hurray!) and applies for jobs (double hurray!)…And then we wait…Trusting that God’s plan for us does indeed include a job for Owen.  At the point in which a job is procured, we will move to wherever in the world God happens to lead us.  In the field of archaeology, jobs are scarce, and first jobs often are not final positions but rather stepping stones—perhaps it’s the same in many professions.  As such, we anticipate a long future of uprooting and moving and re-settling. 

I am a roots-loving girl.  Roots are important for stability and nourishment.  I want my roots planted firmly in one location, and from there to spread deep and wide.  A good, solid, unchanging home seems quintessential to appreciating the rest of the world without feeling lost in it.  (I speak of my own experience; I know many solid, cultured people who had to move a lot in their youth.)  I feel so blessed that my parents were able to give this gift to me, and I still grieve that I will never be able to give this to my own children, geographically speaking.  I kind of love the tendency here in the Middle East for children to never leave home…once married with their own families, they simply add on to the family home rather than moving away.  The nomadic life is diametrically opposed to my inner make-up and preference in living.  There is something deeply comforting—vital, even—about having a place to belong, and where do you belong more than on the same plots of land your ancestors have habituated and toiled over for generations?  Memories radiate from every rock and tree and crevice of those places, from the very soil.  One would zealously do anything to not lose it or have it changed, because the land itself becomes like a part of your very self; it can be ripped away only as easily as your very soul.  It brings a deeper understanding of the tension in the Middle East, does it not?