Returning to the Sisterhood

Two weeks ago I had the honor of delivering the keynote address to the annual convention of the Wisconsin chapters of the Philanthropic Educational Organization (PEO). We rented a car and drove up to Stevens Point from Illinois. Steve came with me to the banquet and Baby Girl stayed with her grandparets, so Steve and I got to spend a lovely evening together, without the toddler craziness.

When I spoke with them last year it was just a few days before we left for Ecuador. It was one of their afternoon sessions, and a smaller audience, but the outpouring of love and support was amazing. They keynote session was like that, but on an order of ten.

The ballroom was packed with people, who were chatting and finishing their dinner even as a few other people gave short speeches. My turn came, and Steve said that before I had even finished saying hello the room got silent. I had a little case of nerves at the beginning (it was, after all, the largest audience I had ever spoken to), but quickly warmed up and got into it.

Steve and I with Christine Whitton, chairwoman of the Scholar Award committee for Wisconsin.

It was pretty hard for me to describe my experience, because it was still so new and I hadn’t had much time to process it. Also, as I’m sure you could tell from my blog posts, the last few months were a real count down to us getting out of there. We were just exhausted, and wanted to come home. So I had to focus, and read back through of some of my old blog posts, and find the good things again, and the things that would appeal to people not familiar with archaeology or Ecuador. So I talked about the village and the friends we made, and I spoke about my journey, the 4000 year change in research topics. And I think they enjoyed it.

The response was just as positive as last year, and I had so many women coming up to me to give me hugs and to ask questions. I felt like quite the celebrity. I think they also enjoyed hearing first hand what someone did with the money that they worked so hard to raise. After my speech last year I had a really hard time describing the experience to Steve, because it was so unlike anything that I had experienced before. I think that after being there with me this year he totally understands the difficulty that I had.

So, to all the PEO women out there, thank you for believing in me and making me part of your family. 

Overactive Mental Paralysis

So, what happens when your mind is furiously whirling in a dozen directions with a multitude of things that need to be done? Well, if you're me, nothing. I suppose some of it is just exhaustion after the traveling experience, and some of it is confronting all the differences between there and home, but a lot of it is purely the fact that we have a lot to do to get ourselves in a comfortable place after being away for so long.


I did about five loads of laundry yesterday, washing everything that hasn't had a proper washing in months. On tap today is stripping cloth diapers and washing stuffed animals. We've also had a bit of a set back, in that the apartment that we want won't be available until a week after we were originally planning to move. On the one hand it's great, because it gives us more time to do what needs to be done. On the other hand, it opens up the possibilities of what can be done, and expands my to-do list significantly. Like building a bed instead of buying one. Yup, I finally get to work on some of the things I've been drooling over at Knock-Off Wood, and do a few projects of my own.


The to-do list is my friend, getting all my thoughts written down and out of my head. Hopefully I'll be able to move again soon!

Despedida(s)

We left Dos Mangas for good on Thursday, and the days leading up to our departures were full of good-byes. On Sunday we had the comuna wide celebration for the whole family. I planned to give a little talk, show off some artifacts, and had arranged to provide cake. I figured the families of the people I dug with and the close friends that we made over the course of the year would show up. It was scheduled to start at 4pm. 5:30 rolled around and the was nobody there. I was starting to feel a bit concerned, but about then the cabildo showed up, got on the megaphone, and started calling people to the party. Not only did way more people that I expected show up, but different people from the community contributed to make it a real party. One guy played some traditional songs on the guitar, the women's association did a traditional costeno dance and made me get up there with them, there were several other speeches by cabildo members, and then they pitched in and added empanadas and soda to the little feast. We barely had enough cake to go around, but we made it, and it was a great night!

Me, mid-talk

Getting covered in frosting as I cut the cakes

 I finished my analyses on Tuesday (WOOHOO) and on Wednesday morning we moved everything over to the casa comunal for storage. It was great to get all of that out of house so that the packing could begin in earnest.


Wednesday afternoon we went to Baby Girl's daycare to have a going away party for her. It was so great to see her running around with all her little friends. Once again, when we thought we were just going to do cake, the day care surprised us by making a whole meal and inviting us to eat with them. I think BG was starting to get what was going on and got kind of upset towards the end. Poor little thing.

Baby Girl dancing the a conga line with her classmates

On Wednesday night a bunch of people came over for final farewells, and then we took a walk on Thursday morning to see the people that we hadn't been able to say goodbye to before then. It really started to hit me, and I'll admit that I shed a few tears, not so much about leaving the place, but definitely about leaving the people. Friends gave us a bunch the local handicrafts as we walked along to say goodbye to take home with us a souvenirs. 


Amazingly for us, with our history of moves, we managed to get everything packed and the house cleaned up without pulling a single all-nighter, and we even managed to get out of the house and catch our bus at the time that we planned. Steve shot some video as we left town, and I get misty thinking about it, because people kept coming out of their houses to say good-bye as we drove away. What a great end to an incredible year.

Ground to a halt

So I apparently forgot to knock on wood after that last post. I felt icky on Tuesday, and then had a migraine Wednesday and Thursday, so I've gotten virtually no work done this week. I'm finally feeling better today, but day care is closed so Baby Girl is home today, meaning very little is getting done. Prepare to resume previous levels of nausea-inducing stress...

I might actually pull this off..

I finished three units over the weekend, leaving me with five more (shallow) units to process. At two days per unit that means I should finish everything up next week Friday, leaving me with five days to organize and pack up all the artifacts for storage, get the house in order, and pack our selves up for a short stay in Guayaquil. Holy Toledo, Batman, this might actually happen!


Steve still has swollen tonsils and I haven't been feeling too hot either, but we got our water supply problem resolved, so at least we're clean sick people. I've started discussing with Baby Girl what's going to happen in the next few weeks. I'm not sure that she really gets it, but we are quite fortunate that she is such an easy going kid. She might ask for the "ninos" at daycare, but I think she'll enjoy the adventure, and in the end, just be so happy to spend some time with her Nana that she won't really miss it. There are a few favorites who I'm sure she'll ask for, like Fanny, who is pretty much the only person here that she'd choose to hold her instead of me. We're going to get a cake to have at daycare on her last day, turn it into a little bit of a party and take pictures. I hope she will remember some of her time here, and all the friends she made.

Pluses and Minuses

Plus: Last night I finished drawing the rim sherds for the deep pit that we dug. That's 20 levels of ceramics, done. Now I just have to tally the bone, shell, and lithic artifacts, and then I can move on to the trench units.


Minus: My husband is still sick with swollen tonsils (12 days and counting).


Plus: We've scheduled a going-away party for the village. I'll talk about archaeology and then we'll all eat cake (May 2, 4pm).


Minus: Last night the motor on the pump that gives us running water in the house died. That means no running water for dishes, for showers, for flushing the toilet. Someone has been called to try and fix the motor, but how quickly that will happen....no one knows. Apparently we can still get water from somewhere (need to clarify that we're not being told to get water from the river....ewwww), so it looks like we're going to be hauling buckets full of water up to the house. Couldn't this have waited another three weeks?!?!?! Oh, yeah, and wasn't this one of the things that our landlord said he was going to do maintenance on, but hasn't? Such is life here.

So, two to two, but I'm feeling like the scale's a little weighted right now.

Too Busy to Blog?

Well, that's obviously not entirely true, since here I am. But things have been very busy. Nail-bitting, ulcer-inducing, stressed-beyond-belief busy. But you wouldn't know it to look at me. Catch me at any random moment of the day and I'm likely to be sitting still, scribbling on paper. For the last week and a half (or about that) I've been working on drawing literally hundreds of rim profiles. What are those, the laypeople among you might ask? Well, basically I take a piece of pottery that's broken off from the rim of a vessel (a rim sherd) and turn it on its side and draw the contours of that piece. That gives me a pretty good idea of the shape of a vessel as a whole, and if the piece is large enough, the size of it too. So I'm drawing every rim sherd that we found in the deep pit and the trench. Right now I'm on level 14 of 20 for the deep pit. I hope to finish those, and all the other artifacts from the deep pit, by the end of this coming week. That will leave me roughly two weeks to do all the analysis from the trench, which had considerably fewer artifacts, so hopefully it's doable.


What's making this all go at a snail's pace? Well, first my husband had an academic deadline last week, so I was picking up a lot of baby and house slack, which meant that the analysis fell by the wayside. Then, this week, both he and I have been sick - him with strep and me with some type of respiratory infection - both of which seem to be impervious to the strongest antibiotics that we can throw at them. I can only hope that this will all get better soon, otherwise I'll have one of two choices: change our flight and push back our return to the States, or return at some point by myself to finish the analysis so that I can actually get my dissertation done. I'm hoping for neither, but thinking option two might have to happen anyway. Sigh. Such is life.