wahoo!

just a little note to say i have managed to recover my password, and can access my own blog again :) hee hee
i will upload some pics of "a night in Joies with the Ladies".....had a hysterical time!
Love seeing Waz again what an angel! and rach is looking more stunning than ever- tumi is still hilarious and outgoing, and josie is all grown-up :) deedalee .... it was a pity that Lex couldn't be there with us.

Mesopotamian Tutorial

Upon approaching the end of my masters, I realized that despite the name of the Bible and the Ancient Near East- the former part had been adequately drilled in over the years but not the latter. So in an attempt to fill in the black gaping hole of my general knowledge of the ancient near east I arranged for myself a tutorial on said subject.
I arrived on time, but rather hurried by the sprint I had made from the scooter rank to the arch library and began looking around for my tut advisor. I spied out the female form that fit the given description and hastily approached. Naomi is an interesting character. She has an amazing mop of frizzy hair that floats a few centimeters above her head, and she has more rouge on her teeth than her lips. She is eccentric and extremely pleasant. When she forgets a word, she’ll replace it with german (she’s Russian), and if that fails, she might just give it to you in akkadian.

This week I bombed up to school for our meeting despite the fact that is was a national holiday, and my scooter was the only vehicle in a ten mile radius of the university!! Needless to say the uni was deserted except for the good ol’ arch library open for the half day. So as we begin the lesson she brings in this huge book that is half the size of a person and heaves it onto the table- then standing up and using both hands she opens it up and begins explaining to me the plaques and freezes found in Assurbanipal’s palace. I don’t have the heart to tell her we’ve covered this material before, and therefore ask brilliant questions (she thinks) to the life and aspirations of Mr King of the Known Universe. I leave the tutorial wondering if next time i should try and guide the topic more, but thankfully she announced that next week we will talk specifically of the Queens of Mesopotamia- pretty groovy! So if something interesting comes up from it, I’ll be sure to post it.

The Cheese Lady

There are few things in life that really intimidate me, one is walking into a Phoenician class completely unprepared to read a 10th century inscription, and the second is the cheese lady on HaPalmach Street.
As I enter the “convenience” store and make my way through the vegetable section, making my samplings, it is the cheese counter at the end of the row that is in my minds eye. I peer anxiously ahead to see who is on duty today, and nearly always it is the Cheese Lady. Now what can be so frightening about someone who cuts cheese and waits on cliental you are thinking? Well its obvious that you have never met the ferocious, unpredictable tiger that manages the stinky, smooth and selected fromages on HaPalmach!

I approach and stand opposite. The counter between us. She stands chatting to the sweet and burly meat man down the way and pretends for five minutes that she doesn’t see me. I am waiting patiently. Then she turns on me with this annoyed look, (that’s right someone wants to buy some nice cheddar cheese if you would oblige) and gives me this evil eye challenging me to mess with her. If I am lucky she skips the pretending part and downright ignores me, hell she has time, I’ve got to make time. The pastry man sometimes out of shame comes and tends on the growing queue- that’s right; I am not her only nemesis.

On the occasion that the pastry man is out of town, we two lovebirds circle one another until she yells out, “ken geveret vemah at rotsa?” Yes Woman and what do you want? ..at this point, I am not sure I am holding the upper ground anymore and I select a cheese with my finger and respond with the desired quantity. Here if I am fortunate all goes smoothly, but more often than not she will yell at me, for no apparent reason, and mumble under her breath that the youths don’t know good cheese anymore. She slaps the cheese around like a live fish out of water, and God forbid you ask to taste a piece of new cheese- what is this a restaurant!? She gnashes her teeth and cuts you a sliver, you try and put it in you mouth but the piece is so small, you can’t taste anything. So that’s when you get out the fake grin and proceed dauntless nonetheless. After the cheese has been sliced and bagged unceremoniously she chucks it onto the counter with one hand, as if she was throwing away a disinherited child. With hands on hips she stares at the wall and asks if I want anything else. At this stage I am so demoralized and browbeaten I withdraw to the row of baked beans; I haven’t responded to her question- it’s more of a phrase they drilled in her brain that means nothing and requires no feedback. So as I stand there clutching my stupid cheese I vow that next time, next time I am going to show her whose boss.

It’s been about 8 months now since the battle lines were drawn…

Mount of Olives Brush with Death

Catchy title huh! but by no means an understatement!! So my dearest waz had some friends in town staying in a secluded (but beautiful) area in the Mt of O. i got instructions and bombed in the general directions at 8ish, the T-junction when i encountered it was not a normal T-junction (which would generally look like a little sweety store selling barbie dolls in the front window)- rather it was the tall, solid and grey separation wall being set up by the Israeli Army..hmm..me thinks to myself, didn't know they lived next to that!! anyway the instructions were as follows...after the "T-junction" go up the street and when you see a "pile of rubble and a wall, take the road in between"....before on the phone this seemed logical info, until i realised that the whole road was strewn with building debris and "pile of rubble" was not going to cut it..anyway i will not sport with you any longer.. i went up a severely dodgy alley (its dark!) only to find it was infested with shady-looking men at the end..never have i made a most excellent 3-point turn in my life! i regrouped at the end of the road and called for better instructions, and it was only a few minuites later that i saw the Israeli police screeched into the nest i had just safely exited, and jump out with guns and batons...obviously a party they had been planning for some time! yikes! Anyhoo i finally made it to the place and had a great time with wazzie's friends! Praise the Lord!

Ruhama Recital

Ruhama (lit. womb>ie mercy) is the name of a kibbutz near to the Gaza border. When I made the call to Yossi, the head of the excavation, I had no idea as to where the place was, only that manual labour was being asked for, and though I doubted any intellectual skills on my side, I felt confident that I might recommend myself as a fellow-donkey in the upcoming three week dig-a-marathon. And so at the end of the summer I found myself sitting at a crossroads in Sderot, a town I had heard of, but not due to it’s lovely array of taxi cab’s or industrial complexes’ but rather by its being a favourite destination of the qassam missiles (that have maybe a little more direction than a drunk, blindfolded Irishman on St Patrick’s Day). I did not have to wait long before a van rolled up stuffed with exciting archaeological instruments of high quality manufacture; buckets, and spades, and buckets, and boxes, and coffee maker, and buck..

thats me making friends with my buckets....


I hopped in and introduced myself ….apparently they had all been discussing for some time how to spell my name, so I was obliged to spell it out and try to find an analogy that they could understand, it was either that or being called Roon!

So here is day one: where we sit and watch. The caterpillar driver was Muslim and about 60, it was an important fast day for them that day, and he worked the whole time in this intense heat with no water or food! I felt sure he was going to have a heart attack!!

and to end off- if you had any illusions of the stress, magnitude, and intensity of what an excavation really means, i hope this picture sums it up :)


here is what the site began to look like after a few days work..

yai everyone this is fun! okay so i don't have a diggy camara, so me borrowed one from a friend and i took some pics of my apartment in J-town... so now i can ask me mumsie to view the blog and see the pics :)

BrOnNicLEs

ello chums, following the sheepfold, and enjoying seeing pics from wazzie's site i thought i'd test out the blog world!