So it was that I lived for the weekends! Every Friday afternoon as soon as we finished working in the field J, Tim S. (a close friend of ours, and the dig photographer), and I would head out for Amman. It was a rather long trip so J always wanted to get going as soon as possible. What he wanted (and so what we did) was to be first off the dig bus, run into our rooms, grab the small bags that we had already packed the night before, and then quickly head back out to the road in order to catch the next local bus that would soon be passing by on its way into Irbid, timing this just right so as not to miss it. Translated into girl language, this meant no shower, no clean clothes, no makeup, and no way that I could ever look any worse ever in my life if I tried! In guy language this meant, "We can clean up when we get there. We'll have nice bathrooms and showers, real beds, someone to do our laundry; we'll get some real food. So come on, let's hurry up!" Ugh! Guy language is so much more logical! How I felt about how I looked was inconsequential to him, though not to me. Never mind that I had to ride on the local bus looking filthy dirty in my dig clothes and boots, with my hair all messed up, and a dirty face and neck that helped clinch the total look I had going of being a homeless wayfarer, but from Irbid I had to ride (and under different conditions I might have otherwise said got to ride, as these were air conditioned!) on one of Jordan's big hijazi coach buses all the way into the metropolis city of Amman, where people were far more aware of good hygiene and fashion. One thing I learned about Jordanians is that staring is not considered rude behavior. Nor is pointing and giggling. On the hijazi women POINTED at me! How humiliating! Thankfully, I was under the "protection" of a man, but I could imagine them all wondering how any man could possibly want a woman like me. Many of them had only Hollywood picture versions of what American women looked like, so what could explain me? Maybe I should have worn a Canadian flag or something! I felt like I was miserably representing my American sisters, and I was so sorry! But my husband wasn't noticing me either. I seemed to be turning into "one of the guys" on this trip, and while J hadn't forgotten I was his wife, taking excellent care of me, he wasn't exactly thinking about me in the way I wanted him to. All the stress and angst, the poor living conditions and long hard hours (never mind the foam mattresses on concrete floors), combined with the fact that keeping romance alive anyway on a day to day basis with someone you see 24/7, all added up to there being more nights when rolling over and saying "goodnight" was the easiest thing to do. So I was a little touchy! But I was hoping that letting go of my vanity might be a good thing, so I held my head up even higher than I did on the local Irbid buses, and stayed focused on how happy I was to be headed towards the more creature comforts that awaited us when we got to ACOR (the American Center of Oriental Research), a home away from home for American archaeologists.Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Living for Weekends
So it was that I lived for the weekends! Every Friday afternoon as soon as we finished working in the field J, Tim S. (a close friend of ours, and the dig photographer), and I would head out for Amman. It was a rather long trip so J always wanted to get going as soon as possible. What he wanted (and so what we did) was to be first off the dig bus, run into our rooms, grab the small bags that we had already packed the night before, and then quickly head back out to the road in order to catch the next local bus that would soon be passing by on its way into Irbid, timing this just right so as not to miss it. Translated into girl language, this meant no shower, no clean clothes, no makeup, and no way that I could ever look any worse ever in my life if I tried! In guy language this meant, "We can clean up when we get there. We'll have nice bathrooms and showers, real beds, someone to do our laundry; we'll get some real food. So come on, let's hurry up!" Ugh! Guy language is so much more logical! How I felt about how I looked was inconsequential to him, though not to me. Never mind that I had to ride on the local bus looking filthy dirty in my dig clothes and boots, with my hair all messed up, and a dirty face and neck that helped clinch the total look I had going of being a homeless wayfarer, but from Irbid I had to ride (and under different conditions I might have otherwise said got to ride, as these were air conditioned!) on one of Jordan's big hijazi coach buses all the way into the metropolis city of Amman, where people were far more aware of good hygiene and fashion. One thing I learned about Jordanians is that staring is not considered rude behavior. Nor is pointing and giggling. On the hijazi women POINTED at me! How humiliating! Thankfully, I was under the "protection" of a man, but I could imagine them all wondering how any man could possibly want a woman like me. Many of them had only Hollywood picture versions of what American women looked like, so what could explain me? Maybe I should have worn a Canadian flag or something! I felt like I was miserably representing my American sisters, and I was so sorry! But my husband wasn't noticing me either. I seemed to be turning into "one of the guys" on this trip, and while J hadn't forgotten I was his wife, taking excellent care of me, he wasn't exactly thinking about me in the way I wanted him to. All the stress and angst, the poor living conditions and long hard hours (never mind the foam mattresses on concrete floors), combined with the fact that keeping romance alive anyway on a day to day basis with someone you see 24/7, all added up to there being more nights when rolling over and saying "goodnight" was the easiest thing to do. So I was a little touchy! But I was hoping that letting go of my vanity might be a good thing, so I held my head up even higher than I did on the local Irbid buses, and stayed focused on how happy I was to be headed towards the more creature comforts that awaited us when we got to ACOR (the American Center of Oriental Research), a home away from home for American archaeologists.
