8-13: Fitting in with the locals finally

One full day left. It feels like I have been here for only a few days and today was the last day that we were digging holes. We got up early to back fill the large 1×1 that we had in the backyard which took about 20 minutes, then went inside to eat breakfast and wait for Orvin to pick us up. He took quite a bit of time to get to the house so we just sat down to watch a news program hosted by Lolo’s daughter, the Miss Nicaragua one. It was quite interesting for a morning news show. Orvin eventually picked us up at around 9 to head to Ciudad Sandino to work on his rescue project in return for him working on our project.

 

We spent the entire day working, until about 5 o’clock, and it was a really nice way to end the field work this season. The head of archaeology in Ciudad Sandino got us a great Nicaraguan style lunch with all sorts of treats/ The leftovers were fed to the dogs around the area. It is impressive how they will chew right through any bone you give them. In the morning we found a couple fish weights used to weigh down fishing nets as well as a very polished greenstone. Aside from that there were only some various ceramics, obsidian, and chert flakes scattered in the pit. Orvin was looking for complete vessels so it was a bummer that none turned up for him. Justin and Jason left at lunch to chat with Jorge, the director of archaeology for Nicaragua, about the ceramics we have back in Chiquilistagua. That meant that Orvin had to take us home later on.

 

Seeing how Justin and Jason left, our two people who can translate a bit, Jeff and I had to fend for ourselves with the Spanish. There was one of the families who live nearby sitting with us watching the dig and they seemed very interested in what we were doing! It was great. A mom, sister, daughter, son, and a baby were there for hours. In the down time we would play around with them trying to chat a bit, but not getting very far. They seemed to really enjoy having us around though. There was a general consensus that nothing was coming in, so we packed up and headed home. After picking about 7 people up for various drops we got back to a pasta dinner. It was tasty enough and led us right into a movie night watching The Colony, which I had bought yesterday. The movie was pretty decent, but I was getting so tired and had to call it halfway through in order to get this typed up!!

The fish weight found today

Greenstone

The classical Central American night last night.