Identity

So after sitting through 3.5 hours of class, we finally got through everyone's identity pie charts. (Okay, so the entire time was not devoted to that but still. It was a long class...) This class is incredibly diverse. I am looking forward to getting to know everyone better.

I am trying to remember not to assume too much about people from this assignment. I know from my own experience that what I actually ended up saying in front of the class didn't always convey exactly what I meant. I also wanted to say a lot more to explain what I did say further.

One thing I wanted to include was how my identity is changing. I touched on it a little when I mentioned the philosophical idea that one never reads the same book twice because you change from reading it. (I think the original argument involved a river, but whatever.) Some of the things I put on my chart are things that I actively want to change and others were things that have changed recently or are in the process of changing. It's hard to explain yourself when you don't have yourself figured out yet. It's always an ongoing process.

El Cano

In order to be as annoying as possible, I am going to try to update both this blog and the wordpress blog. The catch is, I won't put the same information on both blogs so you'll have to keep checking both. That is, if you are actually interested enough to read both :)

Anyway, I have been reading the blogs of other people going to Panama and I feel so far behind in my project! Every seems to have a good idea of what they are doing and how they are going to go about doing it. I have a rough outline of what I want to do, but I don't feel like I have enough background information. My current plan is to create an English language guide for the El Cano archeological dig site. Yo preocupo porque mi espanol no es muy bien y toda la informacion esta en espanol. Puedo leer y escribir en espanol mas or menos pero no puedo oir o comprendar muy bien. Mas personas hablan muy rapido. (I promise I am not trying to show off with my Spanish. Just practicing.)

My worries about the project extend beyond just the practically of my Spanish skills. I am also concerned about the size of the project. It just doesn't seem like a very big project. However, considering the other projects I will be working on (helping with La MICA's advertising, Bio 100 Labs and helping with the other ENVS projects), I am sure it will be just fine. Plus, it isn't like anyone knows what to expect from this experience. This has never been done before so there is nothing to measure success or failure against. I just need to stop worrying, do my best, and go from there.

Since I have already gotten ahead of myself, let me go back and explain how this semester is going to work for those who don't know. Truman State University is trying out a new service learning opportunity. The way it works is that those of us who are going on this trip are all enrolled in a set group of classes. Everyone is enrolled in ENVS Selected Topic: Panama Experience and JINS Race and Ethnicity. 4 of the 22 (including myself) are enrolled in Biology 100 while the rest of the class is in a Latin American History class. All of us are also getting credit for another class, in my case Anthropology: Archeology in Panama. We are all doing a group project as part of our ENVS class and an individual project for whatever extra class we are getting credit for. My ENVS project will be working with a group of girls to help with advertising and fund raising for La MICA, the biology research station where we will be staying while in Panama. (Check out the website at http://www.lamica.org/). My individual project is the one I was complaining about two paragraphs ago.

Anyway, this semester will be frustrating because I am working without precedents to follow, but I will be learning to step outside my comfort zone. Which is exactly what this semester is about :)

June 5

(Picture of my friend Amy and I at the Pub)

Not such a good day. Called home in the morning, but didn’t get a hold of my parents. I was having a really hard time with the phone card, but finally got through to my mom’s cell phone. At that point I was no longer able to deny that I had missed grandpa’s funeral because I was out of the country. I asked mom why they weren’t at home, and she said, “We’re in Kirksville, sweetie.” I had figured out that might have happened but had done a pretty good job of telling myself that perhaps it hadn’t. Oh well. So it goes.
So that was not a particularly good start to my day. After that, I slid down the wall of our dig site, Elizabeth stepped on my hand and some kid dropped a rock on my foot. I was also a little afraid that Rami was going to move me to a different site. Laura and Michaela had been moved because their locus wasn’t yielding anything. Nick from Truman got moved. I wasn’t doing a whole lot of work that day since I wasn’t feeling very good about life. I was mostly standing around taking buckets from the diggers to the sifters and back again. (Nic and Lauren had taken over sifting for the day.) So, I wasn’t in a very good mood, and a few people picked up on it. Nic did and tried to make me feel better, but it didn’t work very well. I really just didn’t want to be around people so during breakfast I went down and weeded the Nebraska chapel area.
I got annoyed again later on because we had to clean up early and go around to all the other dig loci for show and tell. Each group told us what they were doing at their sites and what they had found. I did not want to go. I walked with Lauren and Nic who were calling me Hannah Montana, but I walked quietly enough with my “I am going to be patient with you and you had better appreciate it” look. They did try to cheer me up, which was as successful as possible considering the circumstances.
After digging that day I went swimming in the Sea of Galilee and then sat around talking to people for a while. Since my day had been pretty crappy, I wasn’t too surprised that my head felt terrible during dinner. I took a short nap before we all headed over the Kibbutz Pub. That was definitely an interesting experience. I don’t really like drinking too much so I wasn’t there for the alcohol. I was hoping to dance, but when we first got there, nobody really wanted to do much other than sit around and drink. Eventually Amber got Nic to swing dance with her, and when she was finished, I danced with him a little bit. I taught him how to waltz. To a rap song. That was interesting… We had to be up early to go site-seeing the next day, so I left with the first group who headed out

June 4 (Israel)

Another day at the dig. Ate breakfast with Hanan, Nic, Elizabeth and Dr. Appold. Hanan asked what my name was and I told him it was Hanna. He said, “That’s not Japanese.” I said, “no, it’s Hebrew.” He tried teaching me Japanese again and said I should know the language of my heritage. I told him I was mostly German. He told me the Japanese genes show through and turns to Elizabeth and says “Isn’t she beautiful?” to which Elizabeth replied, “well of course she is beautiful. And intelligent and hard working.” And Dr. Appold chimes in with, “I can attest to that.” It was nice ego-boosting experience.
By this time, Lauren and I were being made fun of for not having found Q yet. One of the Loci (5714) on our site was closed because they weren’t finding much. Our other Locus (5715) was split into two loci because the dirt was different colors. The lighter dirt was more ancient, according to Rami. We found a Roman pin that day which supposedly came from my bucket. Elizabeth had quite an interesting story about what the Roman soldier was doing with the woman whose bead we found in locus 5714…
We took a field trip down to a small chapel area. It was really pretty. It was donated to area by the Archdiocese of Nebraska. It had been built around the same time as the chapel area donated by the Vatican so it was not used as much. It was also off the beaten track so people didn’t know it was there. It was made because once there was a group of blind pilgrims that came to visit Bethsaida (because that is where Jesus healed the blind man on the outskirts of town.) The Israeli tour guides, however, did not allow the people to pray at the site. This story reached the ears of some higher ups in the Catholic Church so they did something about it. The chapel area is pretty cool because you have to walk past a Syrian bunker to get down there. (Goes along with all the sardine cans we kept finding.) Elizabeth was not happy because there were lots of weeds, and no one ever did anything about it.
So, on this trip there was a little boy named Finn whom I shall take this opportunity to talk about. He was pretty much adorable, and everyone loved him. Mostly because he was the only person under 18, and he had everyone wrapped around his little finger. He had this huge sombrero that he wore all the time so he looked like a little Mexican running around (except that he had blond hair and blue eyes. At this point in the trip, he was pretty quiet, but that would change all too soon…
Despite the fact that pottery reading was optional, I decided to go that day anyway. I ended up with a job. I turned the light for the photo box on and off for Hanan. Nic ran the pieces to the other side of the table for bagging. It was good times.

A New Post

While I am in Panama I am required to update my blog weekly, so I will be better about letting everyone know what I am doing. If you would like to read it, go to http://air.truman.edu/panama/ and click on my name in the list on the right.

Not Israel Related

Well, I will be in Panama next semester. Hopefully I will be better about blogging (web logging) that experience.

Wow, I am really bad about updating...

June 3 (The rest of the stuff from the dig kind of runs together after this point. I will do my best to keep in chronological order, but my main task is to write down what I remember.)

Second Day of Digging. I found a really cool piece of Crusader Era pottery that I was not able to keep. I did get a couple of pictures of it though. I was hoping to keep it because it actually had a glaze on it, which the pieces from the Roman time did not. I found some other pieces of glass that may have been Roman, and a large piece of pottery rim. (These were all listed in my journal. I was still keeping track of what I found at that point. I wasn’t tired of the freaking rocks and dirt and pottery shards yet…).
More tourists came by as they did most days. They took pictures of us. That always made me feel funny. These people seemed to get the idea that we were what Archeology is. And I guess we are/were. Undergrads and non-Academics doing the grunt work. It was still kind of funny. (Later on in during the dig, Katherine managed to make some money off of one of the tourists. He asked if he could take her picture and she told him, “10 shekels.” He pulled out the change he had in his pocket and gave her 7.)
Elizabeth told us about the cobblestones during Popsicle break this day. It was the only place where it is known for certain that Jesus may have stood. They were from the Roman time period and it was the road of the main entrance into Bethsaida. Jesus was known to have visited Bethsaida pretty often since several of his disciples were from there. So I have stood where Jesus stood…
After we got done digging each day, we would return to the Kibbutz for lunch. We ate in the dining hall for lunch, though for dinner we would eat in the hotel. (I am really glad it worked out that way. The food was not as good in the dining hall.) I don’t remember exactly what day this happened, but I am going to relate this story here. While I was in line to get some humus for my bread (the humus was AMAZING), there was a man in line behind me. He looks at me and then asks, “Are you Hawaiian?” I told him no, I am part Japanese. He then starts talking to me in Japanese, which really started to throw me off. I was trying to learn Hebrew! I told him I didn’t know any Japanese, and he told me he would teach me. He was in the process of teaching himself Japanese because he is planning a trip there. His son and his family live there currently so he has been before. So, for the rest of the time I was there, Hanan’s goal was to teach me Japanese while my goal was to learn more Hebrew…
We had the first pottery reading. It was supposed to start at 4, but Elizabeth announced that it was going to start at 4:30. It was long and boring and Mappold wasn’t even there. Turns out it was required. I still ended up going at least part of the time most days, but I never really paid attention to what was going on. I just went to talk to people. There was a pretty cool flight of birds that day. People stopped to take pictures.
This was the first night that I went down to the Sea of Galilee to hang out with people. It was beautiful and the people were fantastic. I finally found a type of wine that I liked, but I may only have liked it because of the situation. I don’t remember at all what we talked about, but I remember that Nate, Nic, Eugene, Tony, Laura, Lauren and I were there, as were several other people, but I can’t recall who. I think Jordan was there, and we hopped the fence to get in because we were too lazy to walk around the hotel. After that, Lauren, Nate and I saw a few Truman people in the lobby of the hotel so we stopped to talk to them for a little while. Then I went to bed.