And now for something completely different

AN ISRAEL POST! This was a busy day...
June 6
I got up early to watch the sun rise over the lake that day. It was beautiful. I wish I had had/taken more opportunities to do that. There was a dog that followed me down the beach. I was under the impression he wanted food. I had no food to give him.

Dog and sunrise.

This was an intense day. We saw everything. And hiked Gamla. Crazy. First we went to a place called Jacob’s Ford. There was a crusader fortress which had been built by Baldwin against Saladin. Saladin had offered to pay Baldwin to stop building it, but he refused. Saladin attacked the fortress with great success. He sent sappers in to weaken the walls of the fortress and attacked from both the Northeast and West. He was able to conquer the fortress in less than 5 days – had he taken longer than that, reinforcements would have appeared. This was the place where Kate, one of the archeologists working on our dig, had done work for her Ph.D. It was a treasure trove for bodies apparently. They found many human skeletons and at least 4 horse skeletons. One of the human’s had a cache of 160 coins! That was a really big find.
One of the biggest problems archeologists face is funding. This particular site had an interesting patron for its first couple of years. One of the geological organization (I don’t know exactly which one) funded it for the first few seasons because this site provided important information about the tectonic shifts occurring in Israel. There are two plates in this area (the Jordan River is on the fault line if I recall correctly). The eastern plate is moving to the north while the western plate is staying still. This means that Israel has large earthquakes every 100 years or so (unless it was 300 years or so – not sure). In any case, they are waiting for another big one. This fort is important in studies done about that because it was built along the fault line so there is a crack in the building that indicates how far the plates have moved. Since we know the exact date the fort was built (at least someone does. I am not that someone), we can figure out exactly how far the plates have moved in that given time period. We had to walk through prickly weeds to see the crack. That was an adventure.


The crack caused by the fault line.


Jacob's Ford - this is me trying to avoid getting pricked by the weeds.

Our next stop was supposed to be Qatzrim, but it was closed for Shabbat. It was important for something or other. I don’t remember what.
Next we went to Gamla. Probably one of my favorite spots despite the large amount of walking we did. We walked the ancient trail; the one most tourists DON’T do. It was rocky and steep. We climbed down and then up and then some of us climbed down further to see an extra area. That turned out to be a bad idea on my part. I almost did not make it to the top. I had to stop and pause for a while because my heart rate got a little too high. It was not comfortable, and I did not want to pass out. The view was really pretty when I did finally get there though. (We made the mistake of putting Justin in the front while we were climbing this thing. We didn’t know then how fast he walked…)
The historical significance of Gamla is pretty interesting. It was a place where Jewish people lived to stay away from the Romans. It has great natural defenses (would work well against Zombies), but the Romans were able to overcome them. When the Romans came, the citizens of Gamla ran to the highest point and then threw themselves off the cliff rather than become slaves to the Romans. (Not the choice I would have made, but whatever. I’m not being chased by Romans.) On the way back, we took a break, and I asked Nate read the Hebrew prayer for seeing the beauty of nature. That was pretty cool.

Gamla

After we hiked, we at lunch there and Lauren and I talked with the bus driver. He was a Palestinian Christian (I felt like all the Palestinians I met were Christians. I wonder how that was skewing our vision of what was happening.) Lauren launched into a string of questions about the issues between the Israelis and the Palestinians which he did his best to answer. His children were in private school, a goal most parents seemed to have for their children.
After Gamla, when we were all very tired, we went to two more places that had lots of rocks, Banias and Tel Dan. They are the locations for the streams that feed the Jordan River. Banias is also known as Caesarea Philippi. There were lots of rocks, and Nate got scolded for something or other. I was really tired and hot. That is what I remember most from these places. And we just kept walking. We went to see the waterfall. That was cool except there were more rocks and more stairs, and I had a splinter.
After that we went to Tel Dan. That got to be a bit of a problem because we were on a tight schedule and some of us didn’t get started right away. We had a bit of a communication gap going on during this trip. I was hot, tired and in general had kind of a bad attitude. (I would like to state that everything we did at Tel Dan was completely legal and did not involve sneaking over boarders or Lebanon.) We also went to a scenic lookout via Syrian bunker. That was also pretty cool. THEN, we got to leave. Nate and I booked it out of there whilst everyone else took their time.

Tel Dan - notice the rocks...

After that we got back, and it was time for dinner. I finally met Haley (a girl who had come on Wednesday, but I didn’t get a change to meet until Saturday.) She is really cool. She went to a small, Christian college in Indiana and studied to be a worship leader (kind of like a DCE it sounds like). Pretty much doing what I thought I wanted to do at one point. She had been granted a fellowship to come dig and then she was spending sometime in Jerusalem and then her dad was coming up to visit. (I found out later her mom had died about 5 weeks before she left on this trip.)
That night was probably the best night I spent at the Kibbutz. We went down to the Sea as usual for drinks and conversation. Eventually a group of us ended up sitting in the Sea (on chairs with our feet in the water.) We started out listing our favorite memories from the first week of digging (Elizabeth and Nic were popular answers). Then we decided to have a bible study in which we went around the circle, said what our favorite bible passages were and why. Eventually it dwindled down to Nick, Tony, Nic, Lauren and I in the water and Johnny and Justin on the beach. Later still Nick, Johnny and Justin left. Then the real fun began.
Definitely the best conversation of my life. We talked about so many important things. We shared our struggles and our faith stories. I talked about things I haven’t shared with people all year. Mom’s surgery, all the people who died this year, the time God locked me into my dorm room. It was a liberating and healing experience to talk about God and his faithfulness with these people. I was absolutely not being judged nor was I judging. I was finally comfortable enough to embrace the vulnerability idea that the LSF girls had been harping on. I think being on the “Ocean of Freaken Galilee” with a full moon helped. It was so wonderful to see where these other people were on their faith journey. Tony had come with no expectations faith-wise. He was there as an academic. (This conversation was a pleasant surprise for him.) Nic, on the other hand, is about as far away from academics as you can get. He was there because he heard about the trip from Elizabeth during a Bible Study and “got the bug.” He sold his horse and his dog to get there (though he kept saying he was going to sell them anyway. He was thinking about moving to New Mexico so he may have been telling the truth. He was super humble though; hated talking about himself.) I don’t know what Lauren was expecting, but I know she took away a lot as well.
It was just an intense, overwhelming, but peaceful and calming, beautiful and wonderful time. We sang songs: worship songs, Christmas songs, children’s songs. It was awesome. There was a couple from Germany down there as well and we talked to time for a few minutes before leaving.
The conversation wasn’t completely serious. Nic did give Lauren tips for peeing outside. She actually did. I waited until we were in Jordan to make use of that information…
It was over all really cool. We were out until 1 a.m. and we had to be on the bus by 7 the next day. Yep.

Confessions of a Chronic Overachiever

So I am a huge overachiever, which in this case is resulting in daily blog updates and lots of extra reading for those who are following it. I highly doubt the daily updating will continue too much longer...

But for now you will have to suffer through it. Anyway, today in class we finally got to start going over the academic discipline powerpoints that we created a week ago. We got through 3 out of 7 and I have really enjoyed them so far. My group (history) went first. We tried to connect it to science, which we did by comparing writing a paper to using the scientific method (thanks sciencebuddies.org) to do an experiment. I loved the questions people asked us at the end; it indicated to me that everyone got what we were saying and could relate to what people in our field do. Two biology groups went after that, and again, it became really apparent that everyone going on this trip has the same outlook on learning and how to go about studying the world. The subjects, obviously are different, but each is fueled by desire to know what the world is like and why it is that way. We're all doing the same thing. We make an observation, we question it, test it, answer our question, and then move on to a new question/observation. I AM SO EXCITED TO GO TO PANAMA WITH THIS GROUP OF PEOPLE! Everyone seems so passionate about learning.

Some other observations I made from the biology presentations about how it is similar to history are: it was hard for people to pick one particular aspect of their field that was their 'favorite,' biology majors are as clueless about their futures/future occupations as history majors and stereotypes are as prevalent about that subject as about history. It was exciting to see other people's perspectives, and I am looking forward to the rest of the presentations.

Janurary 20, 2010 (what a boring title...)

Despite my threat in my earlier post, I have decided only to update this blog. That will make everyone's life easier. Plus this blog is way better looking than the other one.

Anyway, today we had our second class period for ENVS. Baillie Cloyd came in to talk about service-learning at Truman. I am glad it is something the University considers to be important. I only wish I had know about opportunities like this earlier in my college career.

I am getting more and more excited about our projects as we get closer to leaving. I am really excited about the brochure for El Cano. I realize I was complaining about this two posts ago, but I went to speak with Dr. Amber Johnson (my project advisor), and now I have a better idea of what I will be doing. Plus I have a partner! I will be working with Angie which should be really cool because we determined we're both kind of at the same place as far as this trip goes. We're both graduating in May, taking Bio 100 and working on the same project. Haha, that sounded way more intense as we were walking Barnett than it does written down... Anyway we are meeting with Megan Dowdy at University Publications to get an idea of what this kind of a project will look like. My idea right now is a tri-fold brochure, but we need to figure out how much text and pictures we can put on it. Those kinds of factors will determine what kind of information we need to gather while we are in Panama.

I also had my first science lab since high school today. It vanquished all my doubts about being a humanities major. Not that it wasn't fun; it is just that having to be as precise as one needs to be during an experiment would cause my anxiety levels to raise way more than they need to. I realize that messing up in a 5-person, 100-level Bio class will not result in death, decapitation, zombie apocalypse, or even a lower grade, but I still get very uneasy if things aren't perfect. Hmmm, that sounds like the definition for Neurosis... Perhaps I need a new slice for my identity pie chart. 100% Neurotic.

On a less Freudian note, I am super excited because Courtney (one of the other girls going on the trip) has lots and lots and lots of STAR TREK on her computer that she is going to bring to PANAMA! It almost makes up for the fact that I will be leaving two weeks after LOST starts. Almost.

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.