19 March 2005
There is an intersection near the apartment. At this intersection there are no visible stop signs, and no indication as to which of the five converging lanes is a one-way thoroughfare. Cars come flying from all five points on the compass, following a logic which defies characterization, and decide, as if on impulse, whether to roar through the intersection, or stop, or slow down, or slam on brakes.
The rules, as I understand them, are as follows:
Driving through the intersection is an awful experience.
Antigua is different still. Adjacent to the intersection near my apartment is an inaptly named crosswalk. Crosshairs, is more like it. Vehicles avidly search and destroy pedestrians coming out of the social security office at the corner. The scene is part Asteroids, part Frogger.
The only vehicles that will occasionally cede right of way to a pedestrian are the kamikaze motorized tricycle rickshaw go-kart taxis, named tuk-tuks. These demonspawn and the 12-year-old kids that drive them are adept at avoiding everything, but are very small and lightweight, and can be shoved into a wall by a stiff breeze. It is hard to pass one without thinking of bumper-carring them into a wall.
The week was a pretty productive one on some fronts, less so on others. I worked my way through the washing of the second box of lithic material, and have turned in two grant proposals. Fingers crossed.
It took a couple of tries to submit the Sigma Xi, but it was completed. The concept is good, but I do not know whether it is fundable or not. SX doesn't like paying for lab time, and I am asking for money for sample prep; I can't say whether the distinction will impress them.
My first try at submission was typical. I went to the neighborhood internet café down the street, and instead of reading the flashdrive, it reformatted it. Which meant I lost my grant proposal text.
Fortunately, it was saved on the computer. I explained to the guy that it had erased my drive, and he said "Switch computers". I explained the situation again – switching computers would not help me at all - and said "I will return".
And promptly didn't.
Reloaded the file to the flashdrive and went to a different, more reliable café. Once I started up the process, I realized that I had saved the grant number that I needed to access the file on the flashdrive (recently erased), and I had no printed copy. So I had no access to the proposal I had already started, and I wasn't sure that the letters of recommendation would be directed to my new grant if they came from Will and Kit for the previous grant. So I even had to re-request letters of recommendation. Note to self – make sure that everything is backed up and that there is a hard copy of EVERYTHING.
Lithics washing was a quick process. One of the archaeologists, Yovany, was unable to throw anything away. So his lots of chert are huge. I washed two huge bags of chert and there were only a couple of dozen artifacts – the rest were unmodified cobbles. A few good things come out of it – I get to see the true assortment of building materials, I don't have to worry that he missed something, and I get to see what the variability in chert is, without worrying that the knappers only brought the good stuff up from the arroyo.
One evening I went out to work on my knapping (I have to knap my own tools from local chert for my experiments), and immediately drew an audience. One guy started asking questions about the antlers, how much did they cost, etc. I put a price on it, but only in passing. Suddenly he wanted to sell me some. We talked for a while and he asked me if I knew where this black stuff came from. I said, "That is obsidian. It comes from volcanoes."
"Not so." He replied. "When it rains, the lightning comes down and hits the ground next to a tree, and you can find it there at the base of the tree. Now this," he said, picking up a nodule of chert, "This comes from a volcano."
"Oh". What else could I say? (This wisdom was later confirmed by another, unsolicited comment from another observer. What do I know?)
He eventually went inside and the kids that had joined us stayed to watch the free show. I talked to them while knapping; they loved the fact that they could cut cardboard with the flakes I made. One looked over at my leprous arm and asked in alarm "What is wrong with your arm?"
I looked down to see what he was talking about. Brand new pink skin peeked out from under the burnt outer layer, like chicken al carbon. I proceeded to explain about sunburn. The younger one (7yo) asked the older (12) if he would get burned, too.
I interrupted, "No, that is just a gringo thing."
"Why don't I burn?"
"Because your skin is dark, not light like gringos. But even if the skin looks different, we aren't really that different, are we?"
He thought about it for a moment, but remained unconvinced.
I said "Really, what is the difference between you and me?" I expected a litany of you talk funny, you are pale, you are rich, whatever.
He looked up at me and said without batting an eyelash, "You're tall."
How easy it is to forget what is important to little kids.
I experienced my first earthquake Thursday morning. I was making myself a breakfast of quesadilla and tea, and noted that the dishes were rattling. I honestly thought nothing of it, just mentally attributed it to a heavy truck going through the neighborhood. Matt came in about 5 seconds later. "Did you feel that?" He grinned. "It always wakes me up, and I try to figure out whether that one is just a prelude to a big one."
I tried to recall feeling anything, and still can't recall anything specific. Other than the plates rattling. But Ingrid was also up, and happily pointed to the creaky shelves on which we have loaded about three tons of artifacts, and said "Still standing!" I was pretty excited, but underwhelmed, by my first real earthquake. Trucks in New Orleans shake the house more than that. Ingrid pointed out later, though, that I would become more attuned to them – there have been a couple dozen since I arrived.
Yesterday was a tough day. I got my shower, but that was the last of the water for the day. Apparently, water shortages are not unusual, and people who live in wealthy neighborhoods have large water tanks atop the house to assuage the problem. We do not live in an affluent neighborhood, and we ran out of water (it reappeared magically 14 hours later). Fortunately, I had already washed more than enough lithics to start work, and spent the day deciding whether a little damage on the edge of this cobble was enough to call it artifactual, or whether it should go in the cobble bag.
After ten hours of that, Matt and I went to the internet café to check email and get virus update for my laptop. On the way there, we stopped and admired a carpeta being made. Part Mardi Gras, part palm Sunday, people make elaborate carpets for the processions, or andas, involving grass, grain, and sometimes sand. They take pre-made
templates of decorative motifs cut out of masonite, fill them with dyed sand, and remove the template to leave a design on the street.
The design we stopped to admire was a multi-colored sand carpeta, complete with swans and floral designs. Amazing attention to detail, awesome artistic endeavor, and intentionally ephemeral. It is intended to be walked on by the people in the procession.
While we were in the café, it started to storm heavily, and the anda came by. Dozens of very wet, very unhappy-looking ten-year-old girls walked by, carrying an impossibly heavy float. I kept looking to see if the adults walking with the procession were helping with the load, but they were simply there to stabilize.
Matt and I walked around the corner to grab a beer from the local biergarten – an authentic German beer hall – and started to order some food to go with it. I ran back and got Ingrid – we had talked about eating dinner out – and had to stiff-arm my way through the procession. I got a look at more of it, and in addition to the sodden 10-year-olds, there was a smaller float for wet six-year old girls and a tiny one for drenched four-year-olds. By the time the four year olds passed the biergarten they were all crying from the discomfort of miles spent carrying the float.
That much change. In twenty years.
Have a blessed, and quiet, Holy Week.
From the land where men are strong
Women are good-looking,
And all pedestrians are bruised at the thigh....
There is an intersection near the apartment. At this intersection there are no visible stop signs, and no indication as to which of the five converging lanes is a one-way thoroughfare. Cars come flying from all five points on the compass, following a logic which defies characterization, and decide, as if on impulse, whether to roar through the intersection, or stop, or slow down, or slam on brakes.
The rules, as I understand them, are as follows:
- Rights of tonnage do apply. If you are bigger, and care less about your vehicle, you own the road. Thus,
- Bus drivers have right-of-way over everyone. They care the least, and are the biggest, baddest, and most intensely decorated vehicles on the road. On the front of these monsters, you can read the slogans, including "Jesus is my Copilot". If so, he has his eyes closed, too, with his mouth forming a silent scream.
- Entering the intersection involves a blind turn for three directions of traffic. Rules one and two come into play at this point.
- Left-turns at this intersection freak your passengers out – the road coming in from the left is for incoming traffic only.
- Horns are to be used liberally. Greetings, warnings, anger, frustration, all expressed through Morse code cacophony. And, of course, real anger expresses itself with a tattoo of "shave and a haircut" – the most dreadful insult this side of Belgium.
- Stopped cars may be dead. Do not wait your turn.
- Slow cars must be passed. Especially if you drive a bus.
- If you get there first, the sidewalk is yours.
- Check with your copilot, then ignore oncoming traffic.
- Crossing guards wear uniforms to make them more visible. They are targets. Do not attempt to follow their instructions, for the arm windmill you see is not anything more than their attempt to regain balance after their last collision with a bus.
Successful navigation of the intersection leads you toward town. This "straight" path has two war-battered concrete barriers in the middle. These are not intended to stop traffic, merely to dissuade bus drivers. Passage through these concrete gates of hell gives my car 2" of berth on each side. I am not even close to the largest vehicle to pass through them. Many are five inches wider than my Blazer.
Driving through the intersection is an awful experience.
And walking it is worse. I visited Boston to visit my sister once. Pedestrians, she explained, are sacred. Much like the cow in India, no one seems to care that the pedestrian serves no real purpose, it is a protected creature. In New Orleans, this is not the case; pedestrians are viewed as an oddity to be tolerated, but accorded no special privileges. Like a squirrel, if one gets run over, there is no real sadness. It is, after all, just a pedestrian.
Antigua is different still. Adjacent to the intersection near my apartment is an inaptly named crosswalk. Crosshairs, is more like it. Vehicles avidly search and destroy pedestrians coming out of the social security office at the corner. The scene is part Asteroids, part Frogger.
The only vehicles that will occasionally cede right of way to a pedestrian are the kamikaze motorized tricycle rickshaw go-kart taxis, named tuk-tuks. These demonspawn and the 12-year-old kids that drive them are adept at avoiding everything, but are very small and lightweight, and can be shoved into a wall by a stiff breeze. It is hard to pass one without thinking of bumper-carring them into a wall.
I imagine that there might be some situation where I would consider riding in one. I am not positive, though.
Nevertheless, you will never see one that is not jammed with seven people. Groceries, the family chicken, all five kids, and Dad inside, with Mom and papoose hanging on to the door, one foot jammed as an umbilicus to keep her attached to the flying tuk-tuk.
The week was a pretty productive one on some fronts, less so on others. I worked my way through the washing of the second box of lithic material, and have turned in two grant proposals. Fingers crossed.
It took a couple of tries to submit the Sigma Xi, but it was completed. The concept is good, but I do not know whether it is fundable or not. SX doesn't like paying for lab time, and I am asking for money for sample prep; I can't say whether the distinction will impress them.
My first try at submission was typical. I went to the neighborhood internet café down the street, and instead of reading the flashdrive, it reformatted it. Which meant I lost my grant proposal text.
Fortunately, it was saved on the computer. I explained to the guy that it had erased my drive, and he said "Switch computers". I explained the situation again – switching computers would not help me at all - and said "I will return".
And promptly didn't.
Reloaded the file to the flashdrive and went to a different, more reliable café. Once I started up the process, I realized that I had saved the grant number that I needed to access the file on the flashdrive (recently erased), and I had no printed copy. So I had no access to the proposal I had already started, and I wasn't sure that the letters of recommendation would be directed to my new grant if they came from Will and Kit for the previous grant. So I even had to re-request letters of recommendation. Note to self – make sure that everything is backed up and that there is a hard copy of EVERYTHING.
Lithics washing was a quick process. One of the archaeologists, Yovany, was unable to throw anything away. So his lots of chert are huge. I washed two huge bags of chert and there were only a couple of dozen artifacts – the rest were unmodified cobbles. A few good things come out of it – I get to see the true assortment of building materials, I don't have to worry that he missed something, and I get to see what the variability in chert is, without worrying that the knappers only brought the good stuff up from the arroyo.
One evening I went out to work on my knapping (I have to knap my own tools from local chert for my experiments), and immediately drew an audience. One guy started asking questions about the antlers, how much did they cost, etc. I put a price on it, but only in passing. Suddenly he wanted to sell me some. We talked for a while and he asked me if I knew where this black stuff came from. I said, "That is obsidian. It comes from volcanoes."
"Not so." He replied. "When it rains, the lightning comes down and hits the ground next to a tree, and you can find it there at the base of the tree. Now this," he said, picking up a nodule of chert, "This comes from a volcano."
"Oh". What else could I say? (This wisdom was later confirmed by another, unsolicited comment from another observer. What do I know?)
He eventually went inside and the kids that had joined us stayed to watch the free show. I talked to them while knapping; they loved the fact that they could cut cardboard with the flakes I made. One looked over at my leprous arm and asked in alarm "What is wrong with your arm?"
I looked down to see what he was talking about. Brand new pink skin peeked out from under the burnt outer layer, like chicken al carbon. I proceeded to explain about sunburn. The younger one (7yo) asked the older (12) if he would get burned, too.
I interrupted, "No, that is just a gringo thing."
"Why don't I burn?"
"Because your skin is dark, not light like gringos. But even if the skin looks different, we aren't really that different, are we?"
He thought about it for a moment, but remained unconvinced.
I said "Really, what is the difference between you and me?" I expected a litany of you talk funny, you are pale, you are rich, whatever.
He looked up at me and said without batting an eyelash, "You're tall."
How easy it is to forget what is important to little kids.
I experienced my first earthquake Thursday morning. I was making myself a breakfast of quesadilla and tea, and noted that the dishes were rattling. I honestly thought nothing of it, just mentally attributed it to a heavy truck going through the neighborhood. Matt came in about 5 seconds later. "Did you feel that?" He grinned. "It always wakes me up, and I try to figure out whether that one is just a prelude to a big one."
I tried to recall feeling anything, and still can't recall anything specific. Other than the plates rattling. But Ingrid was also up, and happily pointed to the creaky shelves on which we have loaded about three tons of artifacts, and said "Still standing!" I was pretty excited, but underwhelmed, by my first real earthquake. Trucks in New Orleans shake the house more than that. Ingrid pointed out later, though, that I would become more attuned to them – there have been a couple dozen since I arrived.
Yesterday was a tough day. I got my shower, but that was the last of the water for the day. Apparently, water shortages are not unusual, and people who live in wealthy neighborhoods have large water tanks atop the house to assuage the problem. We do not live in an affluent neighborhood, and we ran out of water (it reappeared magically 14 hours later). Fortunately, I had already washed more than enough lithics to start work, and spent the day deciding whether a little damage on the edge of this cobble was enough to call it artifactual, or whether it should go in the cobble bag.
After ten hours of that, Matt and I went to the internet café to check email and get virus update for my laptop. On the way there, we stopped and admired a carpeta being made. Part Mardi Gras, part palm Sunday, people make elaborate carpets for the processions, or andas, involving grass, grain, and sometimes sand. They take pre-made
templates of decorative motifs cut out of masonite, fill them with dyed sand, and remove the template to leave a design on the street.
The design we stopped to admire was a multi-colored sand carpeta, complete with swans and floral designs. Amazing attention to detail, awesome artistic endeavor, and intentionally ephemeral. It is intended to be walked on by the people in the procession.
While we were in the café, it started to storm heavily, and the anda came by. Dozens of very wet, very unhappy-looking ten-year-old girls walked by, carrying an impossibly heavy float. I kept looking to see if the adults walking with the procession were helping with the load, but they were simply there to stabilize.
Matt and I walked around the corner to grab a beer from the local biergarten – an authentic German beer hall – and started to order some food to go with it. I ran back and got Ingrid – we had talked about eating dinner out – and had to stiff-arm my way through the procession. I got a look at more of it, and in addition to the sodden 10-year-olds, there was a smaller float for wet six-year old girls and a tiny one for drenched four-year-olds. By the time the four year olds passed the biergarten they were all crying from the discomfort of miles spent carrying the float.
Finally waded through enough of the crowd, got Ingrid, and walked back to find a beer waiting for me. We ate some wonderful pretzels, sauerkraut, and sausages, and drank beer. Not a bad way to spend the evening.
Now we just have to survive Holy Week. Today was nothing but fireworks going off every thirty seconds all day. And I am told that it gets worse. Fireworks are pretty much non-stop here during non-celebratory weeks; I can only imagine what the next week is going to be like. The village where we are doing our fieldwork, I am told, has gone from having the preferred palmetto thatch roofs to shingle, 5-V, and tile, all in the past twenty years. Thatch is better – everyone says so. And it has the weight of millennia of history behind it. They simply couldn't keep fireworks from landing on roofs and burning the thatch. And there was no way of stopping the setting off of fireworks. Reminiscent of New Orleans – bad things happen when you drink and drive, so, oh, I don't know, let's just take away all the cars.
That much change. In twenty years.
From the land where men are strong
And all pedestrians are bruised at the thigh....
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