betty, we miss you.

We've been digging about a week now and time is slipping through my fingers at an amazing rate. I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get organized but survey is a go and I have cool pottery and slag to prove it.

Today we were running intensive survey through clear fields we'd passed while digging our shovel test pits and the work was exhausting but rewarding, we found an amazing site that I'm very excited about. The best part of the day, though, was the comedy of errors that followed.

Too far from the village we started off at, we called our assistant to tell the car to meet us at the road. After relaying this, but before confirmation, my project head's phone runs out of credits. Mine is already out, as is our assistant's, as is everyone we're with. So the question now: did our request actually make it through. We head for the road and find no car, so we walk what felt like 10 kilometers to the main road. One of the crew hops a zemi to the village--no car. After a number of other errors, our car appears. We hop in, pick up our other crew... and then the car breaks down less than a mile later. We get it going again but only for about 20 feet. Next thing you know, five archaologists are poking around under the hood of poor Betty, our beat up Ford Explorer. Even with the mechanical knowledge of one staff member and despite creative use of flagging tape and bobby pins, Betty is still on the site of the road somewhere outside Bohicon. Get better soon, Betty, you can't quit on us now.