I <3 dirt

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We started digging on Monday. Our buses picked us up at 8 and we took the narrow, winding road over the mountain to Grand Bay, our principle site. A word about the drivers in Carriacou: theyre completely NUTS!! They speed and take curves super sharp. They also honk at EVERYONE...I guess it's the polite thing to do when you know everyone on the island. Anyways, we got there and started clearing the site. That involves moving all the tree limbs, leaves and other debris to get down to the bare dirt. Then the fun part began: excavation. I'm not really sure what I expected, but the word "excavation" basically means "dig a giant hole until you get to a tarp." So we digged with shovels and mattocks (what the brit students call picks). I liked picking a lot more than shoveling, so I did that most of the time. We had to make a 5 meter square hole that was about half a meter deep, so needless to say it took a while...all of Monday (til noon) and from 6am-noon on Tuesday. After we got the hole (the "unit" as it's called), we measured out 1 meter squares and started the real job today...troweling. Basically, you sit in a square meter with one other person and scrape little layers of dirt off and pick out the interesting bits and fish bones, shells and pottery.

But enough with the boring work stuff...heres a funny story. So me, my roommate, Hazel, Rebecca and Christine missed the bus to the site today...our clocks were apparently a bit off because we thought we were on time. So we asked the lady at the front desk to call us a cab. Today is a national holiday, so everyone was off so she had to call a friend to come get us. She told us that he had a red truck and his name was Randy and that he would be there in 5 mins. So were waiting out there, and some guy pulls up, asking us if we need a ride. It wasnt a red truck, so we asked if he was Randy. He said he was, so we were about to hop in when I asked if he had been called by the front desk lady. He said no, so we told him to go on. We waited a bit and the real Randy did pull up, but we figured out later why they other guy had lied to us. Turns out he HADN'T lied at all...as I had initially suspected, "randy" is brit slang for horny!!!! So he was randy, but not the right kind for us!

Stay tuned for updates...next time I will tell you about the NNP and the NDC and our canine protectors!

--ALR

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Comments

[Dad and Marion]

First week done...
What's on queue for the second week? Your Dad's trying a little "brit " himself! Can someone send a pic of you? Good weekend? Are you over conch yet? Love ya!