scorpions galore

Well, Wednesday night we had a huge earthquake and I slept right through it. It didn´t do much but I guess it moved peoples beds. After that, our internet went down for a little while because there are 40 people in camp and all of them wanted to get online. We still haven´t solved the issue, but I managed to get online tonight. Field work has been very fun. I enjoy having to get up early, eat a healthy meal, then do really hard work all day outside to come home, eat, have a lecture and go to bed. I feel like a farmer, minus the lecture part. But really, I am proud of myself that I can haul around buckets of dirt, and swing a pickaxe, and shovel all day. We have really moved a lot of dirt the past two days. We dug down further in my first trench, but didn´t find much of value, no floors yet, no definite walls. We started a trench 2m up from the first, and still not much. Fidel, our local worker, found a metate though (the grinder for grinding grains). Today, Laurel and I opened up a new trench on the very top of the housemound, and got about a foot deep in one day! Also exciting, Laurel found the hand of a ceramic figurine. Jason, our group leader also found part of a GREEN metate, which is weird, usually they are brown or black. It is exciting, because it means the housemound was the site of a lineage founder´s burial, and these are offerings placed over it after the house was abandoned. Aka, there should be a body and some serious grave goods inside. So far though, I still can´t tell any difference between just digging in dirt, except that every so often we find a piece of pottery. Some of the other groups are doing cool things too. One is excavating a place where they found a couple dozen very well preserved tombs last year. Another is opening a shultun, a ceremonial shaft kind of tunnel where they put offerings and then buried them. Tomorrow is our last day this week, and Sunday we all go visit the big site of Lamanai. I am very tired and in need of a break. Luckily though, the ticks and chiggers that have found everyone else have left me alone for now, so I am tired, but not tired and itchy. Ok until next time.