Wrapping up

Well, I meant to post a final, wrap-it-up blog for all y'all out there before I left, but what with the packing and the rapid-fire pottery work, I was unable to do so. So instead you are hearing from me now, a week after my return. Now I have the extra wisdom that comes from being a whole week older.

Leaving was, as I said, a very fast whirlwind operation. The last few days down on the kibbutz were pretty much occupied with finishing all the pottery because Jolanta was coming to do a final reading of it. Unfortunately we had no idea when she was going to be there. So to prepare for the Second Coming of Jolanta I had to recruit several others, particularly Maria and Sara, to count tesserae and other tasks that you can do without having to know much. When Jolanta came it was indeed as a thief in the night, because I missed her. But thankfully everything was ready for her.

We also had several fun end-of-the-year parties. Efrat and her husband (I can't remember his name-- I'm so sorry if you're Efrat's husband and you're reading this) had our team over to their house for dinner. They told us everything about the kibbutz and kibbutzim in general; they helped me understand better a lot of the stuff I wrote about in the last post of this blog. They're both such wonderful people. It was sad to finally say good-bye to them.

Then there was the pan-dig party in the tourist event area behind the fish restaurant. It was fun, except it was a barbecue and it took about an hour and a half to find the grill and the charcoal, get it lit, let it get hot, and cook everything. At some point in the middle of all that I fell asleep, so I went to the coffee shop to get some coffee to keep me awake. It worked, and soon I was enjoying some chicken and some lamb-kebabs with everyone else. It was a wonderful time to finally get to talk at length with some of the Polish students. The Haifa people have come and gone to Hippos, but the Poles have been with us since the beginning. Some of them are incredibly brilliant young archaeologists. Marek, for example. He's studying to be an expert in Iranian archaeology, even though Iran doesn't allow any digs on their soil! Someday, perhaps.

And who could forget our final team event, the "black tie" party orchestrated by our own Jennifer Mills. Brian and I both showed up wearing pictures that were puns on the phrase "black tie," both of them involving the word "Thai." There was live music there and everything. It was splendid.

This dig has probably been the single coolest thing I have ever done. I have learned so much, but more importantly I have met people and been exposed to cultures I will never, ever forget. Not to mention the fact that I have gotten a great workout and, they tell me, a great tan. But I think what I'll remember most will be the place itself. I have lived more than a month on the lake where Jesus met his first disciples. I've washed my clothes in the water he walked on, walked in the hills where he gave some of his greatest teaching, and felt the wind that he once calmed with a word. I have a new physical connection with my faith that few people ever get to have. God definitely gave me the opportunity to go to Israel. I thank him and pray that I can someday come back.

Sukkot, generations, and togas

I suppose first I should sum up my week. Basically, I was tired a lot. That's why I didn't do any posting during the work week; at the end of each morning there was pretty much no chance of me doing anything productive for the rest of the day. We dug out some pretty big areas to the west and north of the church, and most of the dirt was filled with big rocks to move. I think we were all pretty tired; if Joel from the kibbutz hadn't been there to help us with those rocks, they'd all probably still be in the ground.

But I'm feeling better now. Yesterday was another day of total and complete relaxation. There wasn't even any pottery for me to work on, since the pieces we had excavated were still unwashed. We have to wash pottery as a group, you know.

So anyway, last night was the feast of Sukkot. Officially I think it's a harvest festival that commemorates the Hebrews' wandering in the wilderness for forty years with Moses. At Ein Gev, Sukkot is really a celebration of the kibbutz and its community. There was a big outdoor dinner and some kind of ceremony in Hebrew. But the coolest part of Sukkot happened later, on the shore. It was this gathering for "stories and songs." About forty-ish people were gathered there, and in front was an older man and three teens with guitars. They led several songs. Someone there explained to me that each song celebrated or represented a different generation. Each song either was popular in a certain time period, or dealt with a theme or issue faced by a certain generation. In between the songs, the man or the teens would call on different people to tell stories. It was all in Hebrew, but a couple people could help me with the basic gist. One man, for example, told us about Sukkot in 1948, when Ein Gev was continually under attack from the Syrian army and the festival had to be celebrated while wearing camouflage.

I didn't stay for the entire time; an evening of stories in Hebrew can only do so much for me. But I was amazed, blown away, at what I saw. The people of the kibbutz were deliberately keeping the communal feeling going. Ein Gev was founded by a small and close-knit group of dedicated farmers, and only a few are still around. But they are preserrving that deep sense of community by making sure that each new generation feels a part of it-- teens, younger adults, middle-aged parents, gray-haired older people like the man in the front, and very old men and women like the man telling the story, the members of the founding generation. Everybody there listened intently whenever anyone of any age had the mic. When the songs came, often the mic would go to whoever knew the song best so they could lead. Everyone was listening, laughing, feeling together. The young people wanted to learn from the old ones, and the old people truly wanted to teach the young ones. I especially liked the fact that it was the young people who led most of the gathering. It was as if the younger generation were reaching out to the old, saying, "Talk to us." I could see there that this kibbutz is something very special, that the commune is not held together by a dining hall and funny money and kibbutz-owned cars and group laundry. It is held together by the unity that started with the founders, which they pass on to each new generation.

Now I see a similar thing at the family camp I have attended and worked at, Arcadia. There you see people of different ages and generations playing and talking and eating together. There is an intense interest in the camp's past that comes from the sense that older campers are a key to the camp's unity. But that is just a summer camp. People love it, but hardly anyone spends more than a few weeks there each year. This kibbutz is these people's home and life. And it is a home and life where everyone around them feels a part of one large extended family. Across the sea, the lights of Tiberias shine yellow and orange in the night, and I am reminded that this kind of closeness is happening in a world where most people live in large, anonymous towns and cities; most people don't know that there is another, much more personal kind of community. I wonder if there is a way that everyone could experience the kind of togetherness I see in the people here.

Then after we left the song and storytime, we went off to the kibbutz's pub for the apparently annual tradition of a Sukkot toga party. I was the only American to wear a toga, but there were plenty of people from the Polish team and volunteers for the kibbutz there with not only togas but also leaves twisted up on their heads. It made all the girls look like Statues of Liberty. Now the kibbutz sheets are all a soothing shade of pink, so my toga was very pink and not very Roman. But most people there had nice white togas. Now where on earth did they get white sheets? I asked myself. Oh well. I had a wonderful time dancing in my pretty pink toga.

Well friends, it's lunchtime and I'd better go. By the way, I've been reading Acts all morning, and the Christian community it describes sounds an awful lot like this one, only with assurance of eternal peace. Hm. It makes you think.

Happy Yom Kippur.

Today is Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, when Jews here in Israel and everywhere else fast and remember their sins. Everything in the country is pretty much closed down. For Gentiles like me, that means a day off to catch up on extra work such as this blog, which I have neglected for what must be 20 or 30 years. So what's happened since then? Oh, you might have read on the dig website about "Herod's Revenge," which several of our teammates picked up. Well, I was and am one of those teammates. I've had it for four or five days now, and I'm getting rather tired of it. It's not too big a problem except when we're actually up on Mount Sussita, where there the only bathroom is a patch of weeds and some barbed wire. Well, that's one of the pitfalls of foreign travel.

In the last two days I've also processed all the pottery that we've collected and most of the little tesserae (mosaic tiles). This means that I am almost totally caught up! Woo hoo! Take that, pottery! Today Jolanta, the pottery expert from Poland, is coming to do a "pottery reading." This is similar to a poetry reading, except that instead of Jolanta reading a poem while we listen, instead Jolanta identifies and dates pieces of pottery while we all listen. It's very exciting.

Actually, yesterday while I was processing pottery I found a little sherd (that's a broken piece of pottery) of a red bowl or plate with a cross imprinted in it. This was pretty crazy becaust the sherd had come from outside the church, in the area that was probably used as a kitchen hundreds of years after the city of Hippos was abandoned. So there's no telling what the cross means.

Well boys and girls, I'm happy to be blogging again. See you soon!

A very special day

Ahoy! A few of ye clever landlubbers may know that every September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Ar! So in honor of this occasion, I be fabricatin' this 'ere blog just like a pirate! So me hearties, listen up!

We just recently come back from the land of Jordan, a remote location like none I seen before. Believe it or not, this old sea dog hasn't been to many nations before, and Jordan is much more foreign and much more Middle Easterrn than Israel. We encountered many Bedouin people (Bedouin are Arab nomads, meaning they live in tents and travel from place to place) trying to sell us things at Petra. And Petra! You have probably seen pictures of it or seen it in Indiana Jones. It's a city nestled in between two cliffs, and carved into the rock are hundreds of ornate, elaborate tombs. And the sandstone they're carved into is just filled with swirls of bright, bright colors.

Ahoy, I seem to have forgotten to talk piratically in the last paragraph, so moved was I by the beauty o' Petra. More beauteous, I wager, than the sea around Cape San Domingo in the calm following a strong typhoon! Ar, Jordan was a land I'll never forget. The most interesting place, though, wasn't Petra, but the modern city of Amman, Jordan's capital. We walked through the downtown area one night, and believe me: it's much more crowded, loud, busy, fast-moving, dirty, and energetic than any city in America. Jordan was just an incredible cultural experience. It was something completely new.

Avast, there I go again, forgetting me sea-dog voice like some scurvy landlubber! Well, shipmates, I must be leavin' ye fer now, byt stay tuned! I'll be back for more swashbucklin' adventures on the high seas faster'n you can say "Keel-haul the plank!"

Touring, Pottery, all sorts of things.

There's no way I could cram all my excitement from yesterday's tour of the Sea of Galilee into one little blog. We saw Capernaum, which was kind of Jesus' headquarters at the beginning of his ministry; Tabgha, home of a beautiful reconstructed Byzazntine church in memory of the Feeding of the 5000; the Church of the Beatitudes, one of the awesomest buildings ever; and most of all, Mount Berenike overlooking Tiberias, which gives you the same breathtaking view of the sea that ancient pilgrims enjoyed. To even give you an eensy little idea of the rush the day's trip gave me, I'd have to write enormously, in bold, AND USE OBNOXIOUS ORANGE CAPITAL LETTERS WITH LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!! because the entire trip was just cool beyond words.

Another great thing that happened was that I finally am caught up with sorting and organizing the pottery and mosaic tiles that I need to keep track of. It was with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that I sealed the last little clay bit into the plastic bag.

Digging was good today. I was so dirty that I literally made clouds of dust behind me, just like Pig Pen. Tim and I were digging outside the church, and it was in a spot where the bulldozer had stirred up lots of dust, and every bit of that dust decided to latch onto my clothes. It felt so good to go swimmnig in the lake afterwards. Oh right, I probably haven't mentioned htat yet. After the day's digging, a few of us always go down to the lake to wash the excess dirt out of our jeans so that we can wear them longer. It works great, and we get to swim in the process.

Well, time for bed, pretty soon. I don't know if we will meet again before we leave for Jordan; if not, I'll tell you all about it. I'm really looking forward to seeing Petra. It's a city that's been carved completely into some rock. See you later,

Ben

Quite the day, let me tell you

First day at the dig

Eveybody! I'm in Israel! I'm actually here! I've never even been to another country before, and now the first one I'm trying out is Israel. The flight was all right. I sat next to two people who live in a Kibbutz village just like we're staying in, only in the Golan Heights-- which is only a few miles away. It was interesting talking to them.

And of course we started digging today, dark and early this morning. All the teams-- us, a team from Poland, and one from Haifa in Israel-- met at the bus at 5 AM to take the drive up the hill to Hippos. I wasn't feeling tired; the plane trip had worn me out so much I had gone to bed early. The sun was just barely starting to rise as we reached the top and took the trek to our site, the Northeast Church. It looks like a big church-shaped pit, with stone walls and the bases of columns down each side. And then I realized how exhausting archaeology can be! We dug and moved rocks and dug some more, for about two hours before breakfast. Israeli breakfast is not like American breakfast. It's vegetables and hard-boiled eggs and fruit. After breakfast was more digging, and we actually got pretty deep before we stopped a bit after noon. ( We had to stop then because after noon it gets too hot to work.) We found bits of pottery, some cut stones, some uncut stones that had just fallen into the church. Dr. Schuler says we're still not deep enough to find anything more earth-shattering. But just wait: tomorrow we open up the church's second tomb! I cna't wait. Talk to you later,
Ben