Middle of the night: a neighbor’s donkey brays, a fly lands on my nose, or it finally gets cold enough to cocoon myself in my sleeping bag. I try to fall back asleep.
4-something a.m.: Wake up, get up.
5:00 a.m.: Breakfast. Some people are singing their greetings; some people are squinting and unresponsive.
5:30 a.m.: We load the Soviet-era bus with wheelbarrows and grins and head to work!
The local gentlemen ride to the Dig site in their donkey cart and beat us there. We greet them in Kazakh: “Sälemetsiz be!”
We start work early so that we can enjoy the cool of the morning before the sun blazes over our skin.
Abbi works on delicately exposing artifacts with a dental tool and a small paintbrush.
As the sun heats up our workspace, we pause and raise our tarps to cast some shade.
Brandon and Jenny collaborate on the same pit with trowels and putty knives.
Liz sweeps up dirt after digging.
“Muzeleuv spirirev! BREAK TIME!” Farhad calls out across the Dig site. I tell him people will learn to salivate at the sound of his voice, like a psychology experiment.
Anton takes a smoke break outside of the pit.
Take a 10-minute break every 50 minutes to fulfill Kazakh employee rights law. Dust off your jeans (or don’t) and congregate for water and laughter.
Enjoy Lauren’s Australian accent and witty comments in response to the riddles being challenged around the site.
Ten minutes pass pretty quickly, and we insert our hands back into our gloves as we walk back to our sections.
Steve inspects his pit and instructs Jake and Jon how to proceed.
Oscar breaks a new level of ground. How do the archaeologists know where to use a pick axe versus a trowel? Drones have helped scope out the land from an aerial vantage point, and differing colors in soils provide educated hints.
Suze fills a bucket with dirt that still needs to be sifted.
Tim sifts the dirt from our wheelbarrows and buckets to double-check for artifacts we may have overlooked. The Dig only gets worked for one month of the year, so workers will refill the holes with this dirt before they leave. (#safetyfirst! Refill holes with dirt, not bodies.)
10:30 a.m.: Take 40 minutes for lunch, rest, and a bathroom break. Try to choose an unpopular bush in the field.
Jake bandages a wound from a slippery, watermelon-cutting knife.
Farhad startles me mid-nap: “Back to work! God loves you!”
Valery surveys and documents the elevation. Stasi photographs our progress.
2:30 p.m.: Finish and clean up!
After a hard day at work, we enjoy a gourmet, four-course local meal prepared by Aktota and crew.
After lunch, we walk with our empty water bottles to refill them with the spring water that flows through this pipe.
Check yourself for ticks (I found two, and Farhad assured me that they are “VERY DANGEROUS!”), then bathe in the river or shower in the outdoor wash house the men built on our first day.
Recycle your clothes by wearing them twice before washing them—even though they’re super sweaty and dusty. Some of the men wear only two outfits all week: one for work, one after work, so be assured you’re still a queen!
Free time after work? Visit the nearby “city” (a slightly larger village than the one we are working in) and eat dinner, help wash and label pottery fragments, puzzle together the remains of a skeleton, take a nap, or teach the village children how to exercise with rings.
Settle in for the night into the home we are renting from locals.
