Saturday, February 4, 2006
As a side note to the problems I encountered in the field, I was presented with a delightful opportunity to laugh at the end of the two-hour work day. One of the workers had guarded my truck while we were walking around, and was not present for my talk about when, and if, we would get permission to work. I asked everyone to be patient, and I would let them know when we had permission and how we would start.
Then Luis, as I was leaving, asked when we would be working again, and I repeated the speech (a nice one, although not as well-rehearsed as the earlier human rights violation speech). He, like the rest of the guys, was pretty much OK with my suggestion.
"Let me know when you need help." And he patted the holster on his hip.
Is he armed? I did a total double take, spinning my head around to see what he had on his hip. With Luis, it was likely that he was. He was our camp guard, and is no stranger to firearms, but it surprised me nonetheless. Then I saw what was in the holster. His cell phone. "Call me," he had said, and patted the cell phone in its holster.
When I explained why I had jumped, everyone got a laugh.
Cell phones are certainly odd status symbols right now. In the jungle, where reception and cell phone towers are an occasional-to-non-existent thing, almost every family has at least two. They might not own a bicycle, but they have cell phones. One of the families has eight. I suppose some families collect Disney memorabilia, others collect state quarters. Peteneros collect cell phones…
Anyway, by the end of the week I was seriously cranking on the lithic analysis. I hired the Ermilda, the sister of Hilda, (Hilda is the lady who cleans the lab for us - nepotism is a byword in the area), to wash lithics and help me with the analysis. Thursday, after a twenty-minute training session, she started to help me sort and count lithics by the score.
And it simply goes so much faster with two people. On the large lots, I leave her to separate them into piles of cortex and non-cortex flakes, while I do two or three of the smaller lots. We count them, weigh them, and bag them, and it goes more than twice as fast as doing it alone. I was averaging a little over a box per day. Friday we almost finished three.
I nearly went ballistic, however, at a mistake she made. She helped wash a couple of boxes of chert, and was doubling up the lots in baskets. Two of them got mixed, and I got upset. Hugo (also washing for me) blamed his aunt (conveniently absent at the time). I explained that from now on, no more doubling up – one lot per basket. Mixing, I explained, means that all the effort that went into the excavation, labeling, notetaking, and washing (and analyzing) is worthless. I did it without yelling, but my displeasure was clear.
Friday morning, I explain the same thing to Ermilda. She nods, and walks around the corner. Five minutes later she has come back, and begins to work.
Five minutes later, Antonia drops by and asks me, "I just heard that the kids mixed some of your lithics. Did they?"
I assure her that they did not. The mixed basket was in the middle of a grid of fifteen baskets. To upset just that one would have required a jump of at least five feet. The kids are not perfect, but they respect the artifacts for the most part, and were innocent of this crime.
And my new employee had gone and told Fredy, Antonia's husband, that the kids were responsible. Fredy is old-family Petenero elite class. So she obviously views him as the patron. But it galls me that she goes to him to explain, as if Fredy is going to pay a red centavo of her salary.
And worse, she casts around for someone to blame, and finds the kids. I have no problem blaming the kids – they do enough to warrant blame (such as Josef intentionally running repeatedly into the back of my leg with a bicycle until he gets hurt), but to blame the kids just to avoid it yourself… I lost a lot of respect for her that day. She caught my grumpy side for the rest of the day.
But we are making huge progress on the analysis (which gives her a little bit of a pass). And, of course, this coincides nicely with further delays in the excavations. I received a promise from Adriana that we were going to go and do the site inspection (it was done by Don Pedro three months ago, but who is going to quibble about a little bit of redundancy?) on Friday when she got back into town, because that was going to be the last step in getting started. Somehow, taking more photos, visiting the site again ( again for me, at least; she has not yet set foot out there) and writing up the destruction she finds will OK the paperwork in a way that doing the same thing three months ago did not accomplish. But she is the boss.
And Friday I call her a little before noon to ask when she wants to go out to the site. Monday, she tells me.
According to her calendar, she (and, by extension, I) cannot work on Monday or Tuesday – a scheduling conflict of some sort. So I had made plans to go to Belize Sunday and Monday to visit the center of the chert universe: Colha. Now, suddenly, Adriana is inexplicably free. The change in plans forced me to scramble to Colha a day early and hope my car survives the long trip unscathed, so that I could get back in time to carry her to the site. Along with the owner, whichever of the six people fighting me that ends up being...
At a lumberyard where I worked one summer, there were signs posted in the break room, and they all had caricatures of horrific injuries, and all had the caption: "How could this accident have been avoided?"
My question is: "How could this incident have been avoided?"
We went out to the site in August of last year, and tried to get permission to dig. Denied, by the landowner. We then went to Don Pedro. Gustavo. Salvadore. Meanwhile, the owner, now aware that his land has something the gringo archaeologists want, starts to dig seriously. You have seen the pictures. But nobody showed any interest in the site, nor did they take the initiative to stop the looting.
Fast forward two months. My request for permission to dig at the site is turned down flat. But wait; resubmit. It is proposed alternatively as a Guatemalan project, with Adriana as the lead investigator. Fine. Fast forward a month, the paperwork is finally ready. In that time, Adriana does not visit the site. She does not submit one piece of paperwork. She does nothing to prepare for the project she is directing.
And is shocked when something goes wrong.
Fortunately, I have a lot of training in survey archaeology in northern Yucatán. Mostly, what that entails is preparing your day, having a backup plan fir when the first plan fails, having an alternate to the first backup for the screwup that keeps you from undertaking the backup, and three choices that follow the alternate to the backup to the plan. In survey, there is always a day when the workers do not show up or the landowner gives you problems or a one-armed axe-wielding man cuts down a tree that keeps you from getting to the site (no kidding – it happened!). Having contingency plans keeps you from losing your day. And if all else fails, there is always lab work.
I am doing lots of lab work.
As a side note to the problems I encountered in the field, I was presented with a delightful opportunity to laugh at the end of the two-hour work day. One of the workers had guarded my truck while we were walking around, and was not present for my talk about when, and if, we would get permission to work. I asked everyone to be patient, and I would let them know when we had permission and how we would start.
Then Luis, as I was leaving, asked when we would be working again, and I repeated the speech (a nice one, although not as well-rehearsed as the earlier human rights violation speech). He, like the rest of the guys, was pretty much OK with my suggestion.
"Let me know when you need help." And he patted the holster on his hip.
Is he armed? I did a total double take, spinning my head around to see what he had on his hip. With Luis, it was likely that he was. He was our camp guard, and is no stranger to firearms, but it surprised me nonetheless. Then I saw what was in the holster. His cell phone. "Call me," he had said, and patted the cell phone in its holster.
When I explained why I had jumped, everyone got a laugh.
Cell phones are certainly odd status symbols right now. In the jungle, where reception and cell phone towers are an occasional-to-non-existent thing, almost every family has at least two. They might not own a bicycle, but they have cell phones. One of the families has eight. I suppose some families collect Disney memorabilia, others collect state quarters. Peteneros collect cell phones…
Anyway, by the end of the week I was seriously cranking on the lithic analysis. I hired the Ermilda, the sister of Hilda, (Hilda is the lady who cleans the lab for us - nepotism is a byword in the area), to wash lithics and help me with the analysis. Thursday, after a twenty-minute training session, she started to help me sort and count lithics by the score.
And it simply goes so much faster with two people. On the large lots, I leave her to separate them into piles of cortex and non-cortex flakes, while I do two or three of the smaller lots. We count them, weigh them, and bag them, and it goes more than twice as fast as doing it alone. I was averaging a little over a box per day. Friday we almost finished three.
I nearly went ballistic, however, at a mistake she made. She helped wash a couple of boxes of chert, and was doubling up the lots in baskets. Two of them got mixed, and I got upset. Hugo (also washing for me) blamed his aunt (conveniently absent at the time). I explained that from now on, no more doubling up – one lot per basket. Mixing, I explained, means that all the effort that went into the excavation, labeling, notetaking, and washing (and analyzing) is worthless. I did it without yelling, but my displeasure was clear.
Friday morning, I explain the same thing to Ermilda. She nods, and walks around the corner. Five minutes later she has come back, and begins to work.
Five minutes later, Antonia drops by and asks me, "I just heard that the kids mixed some of your lithics. Did they?"
I assure her that they did not. The mixed basket was in the middle of a grid of fifteen baskets. To upset just that one would have required a jump of at least five feet. The kids are not perfect, but they respect the artifacts for the most part, and were innocent of this crime.
And my new employee had gone and told Fredy, Antonia's husband, that the kids were responsible. Fredy is old-family Petenero elite class. So she obviously views him as the patron. But it galls me that she goes to him to explain, as if Fredy is going to pay a red centavo of her salary.
And worse, she casts around for someone to blame, and finds the kids. I have no problem blaming the kids – they do enough to warrant blame (such as Josef intentionally running repeatedly into the back of my leg with a bicycle until he gets hurt), but to blame the kids just to avoid it yourself… I lost a lot of respect for her that day. She caught my grumpy side for the rest of the day.
But we are making huge progress on the analysis (which gives her a little bit of a pass). And, of course, this coincides nicely with further delays in the excavations. I received a promise from Adriana that we were going to go and do the site inspection (it was done by Don Pedro three months ago, but who is going to quibble about a little bit of redundancy?) on Friday when she got back into town, because that was going to be the last step in getting started. Somehow, taking more photos, visiting the site again ( again for me, at least; she has not yet set foot out there) and writing up the destruction she finds will OK the paperwork in a way that doing the same thing three months ago did not accomplish. But she is the boss.
And Friday I call her a little before noon to ask when she wants to go out to the site. Monday, she tells me.
According to her calendar, she (and, by extension, I) cannot work on Monday or Tuesday – a scheduling conflict of some sort. So I had made plans to go to Belize Sunday and Monday to visit the center of the chert universe: Colha. Now, suddenly, Adriana is inexplicably free. The change in plans forced me to scramble to Colha a day early and hope my car survives the long trip unscathed, so that I could get back in time to carry her to the site. Along with the owner, whichever of the six people fighting me that ends up being...
At a lumberyard where I worked one summer, there were signs posted in the break room, and they all had caricatures of horrific injuries, and all had the caption: "How could this accident have been avoided?"
My question is: "How could this incident have been avoided?"
We went out to the site in August of last year, and tried to get permission to dig. Denied, by the landowner. We then went to Don Pedro. Gustavo. Salvadore. Meanwhile, the owner, now aware that his land has something the gringo archaeologists want, starts to dig seriously. You have seen the pictures. But nobody showed any interest in the site, nor did they take the initiative to stop the looting.
Fast forward two months. My request for permission to dig at the site is turned down flat. But wait; resubmit. It is proposed alternatively as a Guatemalan project, with Adriana as the lead investigator. Fine. Fast forward a month, the paperwork is finally ready. In that time, Adriana does not visit the site. She does not submit one piece of paperwork. She does nothing to prepare for the project she is directing.
And is shocked when something goes wrong.
Fortunately, I have a lot of training in survey archaeology in northern Yucatán. Mostly, what that entails is preparing your day, having a backup plan fir when the first plan fails, having an alternate to the first backup for the screwup that keeps you from undertaking the backup, and three choices that follow the alternate to the backup to the plan. In survey, there is always a day when the workers do not show up or the landowner gives you problems or a one-armed axe-wielding man cuts down a tree that keeps you from getting to the site (no kidding – it happened!). Having contingency plans keeps you from losing your day. And if all else fails, there is always lab work.
I am doing lots of lab work.
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