Thursday, February 12th 2009

Assigned to work in the lab today and can’t think of a better day to be here. With the humidity, it’s probably over 100 degrees right now in Banda. Everything we touch is hot and sticky and the flies that love nothing more than to land and feast in our open wounds and cuts aren’t helping the situation. So luckily, four of us are in the lab today without a dress code that demands knee and shoulder coverage needed to set a good example for the school children of Banda Naira working with us at the site. We skipped out the daily 45-minute hike from our guest houses to the dig site and replaced it with a 100 meter walk down the road to our spacious lab that we are graciously allowed the use of by an older Indonesian Ibu that Peter has known for years.
While we are in the lab sorting through all the artifacts found in the last couple weeks, most of the rest of the group is at our site near the village of Lautaka which is right on the beach. We currently have two pits in progress, and with photography, flotation of soil samples, screening for artifacts, and using GPS and the Total Station to plot and map our points of location and findings, there is usually something to be done. A couple members of our group went to film the Banda Nutmeg harvests today and interviewed the farmers. Last night our members involved with the high school and community integration were able to get Banda radio air time and publicize our dig.
We’re possibly going to the island of Pulau Ai in a couple days and it might be hard to leave Banda Naira Island and the people we’ve met here, although a few of them might end up going with us. Tomorrow is the group’s day off and another day of snorkeling sounds great.

--Wilson