We are surviving the heat and the dryness of the desert pretty well. Of course, we have air conditioning and a kitchenette in our room. So, we’re keeping juice, sodas, and milk – and the occasional chocolate bar (Israeli chocolate is fantastic!) – nice and cold in our room for in between meal snacks (and to keep hydrated).
One of the people that we met when we first arrived here at Kibbutz Lotan (where we are being housed while we’re on the Yotvata dig team) was a man from Wyoming, Doug Nelson. He came as a professor at Northwest College, a state college affiliated with the state university at Laramie, Wyoming. His specialty is ancient languages, such as Babylonian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics. Out of the goodness of his heart, he sat down with Susannah several times to help her learn to read hieroglyphics. Susannah had found some length of text in one of her Egypt books, and Doug told her that by the end of the dig she would be able to read it.
Doug brought eight of his students with him, and was like a second dad to at least a couple of them. One even said that Doug was the reason she chose to attend Northwest, and many have referred to him as one of their rare life mentors. From the way others talked about him, you could tell that he has been one of the best-loved professors at his school, going the extra mile to give encouragement and love of learning to his students. We sat with him at meals quite often, and his room shared a porch with ours. We would occasionally hang our laundry outside at the same times in the afternoon. He would tell us things about his family, such as a newborn granddaughter that he had just visited and joyfully held before flying to Israel. He would tell us about his students, and you could tell how proud he was of each one of them. He was so glad that he could bring them on this great adventure, saying that most of them came from working class farm families, and had never really been outside of Wyoming. Some of them were the first in their families to attend college, he said several times, with a note of pride. Now, he said, they could see a wider horizon, get a more global perspective, and be around other students, including PhD candidates from Harvard, UNC Chapel Hill, and more. He even rented a van in order to take them on extra afternoon excursions.
Last Sunday night, we were in our room, winding down for the day. Randy was editing photos, Susannah was reading, and I was reading. We heard a lot of commotion and yelling outside, and at first thought it was some of the students being goofy. But then we heard the distinct word “HELP!” and the tone of the yelling took on a different timbre. I ran outside to see what was happening, only to see about three or four people running frantically in the same direction, toward the pool and the basketball court. One student ran past me, and I blurted, “What happened?” With a pale face and strained voice, she replied, “Doug had an attack.”
I leaned in the room and hastily relayed this to Randy, and then took off for the basketball court. I hadn’t realized I could still go into “sprinter form” when running, since high school is probably the last time I’ve done that. I also hadn’t realized that I still had my fuzzy pink bedroom slippers on my feet. I didn’t change out of them for about three hours.
Two students, two or three kibbutzniks, and myself surrounded Doug, who was flat on his back and motionless on the basketball court. One of the students had already started CPR, and I told a kibbutznik who also had recent CPR training to spell him and back him up. I monitored his wavering and feeble pulse and kept talking to him (though he was unconscious) and we held on to him by a thread until an ambulance arrived. They went right to work on him. Sadly, after twenty or thirty minutes of trying to revive Doug, he was gone. It had been about forty-five minutes since his collapse. Human hands had done as much as possible for him, and we had no choice but to commend him to the hands of God.
Doug’s loss has hit our dig team very hard. Randy and I obviously had not known him long, but Doug was one of those people that one easily clicks with, one that is easy to get to know. The kibbutz and the local municipality (greater Eilat? That’s half an hour away…I’ve never figured out how Israel divides local governance) have been wonderfully supportive, and have sent messages of condolence and support to Doug’s family back in the US, as well as extending help to our staff and expediting arrangements for Doug’s family.
Jodi was in Jerusalem, and Gwen had to drive to Eilat with the ambulance, along with one of our people who could translate English/Hebrew. The student coordinator of the dig team, the student who first performed CPR (who was one of Doug’s students from Wyoming), and myself had to break the news to the dig team, who had been assembled in a courtyard. I offered prayer, and much of that night was spent giving hugs, wiping tears, talking about Doug, talking about what had just happened, calling loved ones in the states, and just sharing the shock of all of it. Obviously we did not go into the field on Monday, and I was asked to do a “remembrance service” at 11 Monday morning. Randy said, “You can’t even go on sabbatical and not do funerals!”
When I first got up Monday morning, I took down Doug’s dry laundry from our porch. I went to check on students in the two gathering spots where some of them had been the night before. I only found one, who was coping pretty well. I sat outside, and the rosy dawn light was wonderful on an uncharacteristically cool morning (temperature is all relative, remember). I reviewed the outline for the service that I had roughed out the night before. As I sat outside, different members of the dig team emerged from their rooms, all of them sharing the same blank expression and walking like robots.
One of Doug’s students, named Eric, is mostly deaf, from some kind of accident he had while serving in the military in Kuwait. He is one that most everyone worried about at first. He just wanted to run off into the shadows and be alone when he heard about Doug. Well, somehow he connected with Susannah, and Susannah, who was also in tears, talked and talked to Eric. I said to someone, “If he needs to be alone, I hope Susannah doesn’t talk his ear off.” He replied, “Well, with Eric, I don’t think that will be an issue. They’re probably a really good match right now.” Dear Eric, he told his roommate the next day, “What am I going to do? Doug is the only professor who would pass me. I’m only four credits away from graduation!” But by the end of that conversation, the roommate said with a smile, Eric was saying that there was no reason he couldn’t complete his degree, and you know, he might just explore going for a PhD. I said that nothing could possibly make Doug happier.
At this point, everyone is handling the crisis pretty well. We’re back on our regular schedule, and all of the Wyoming students have decided to stay here and get as much out of this experience as possible, figuring that this is exactly what Doug would have them do. They really are exceptional human beings, every one of them. Doug must have had a gift of drawing amazing skills and abilities out of his students. Occasionally people still need to talk about the whole crisis, especially the students that were playing basketball with Doug when he collapsed, and the people who tried to revive him. Any prayers you can offer will be deeply appreciated.
On a much happier note, we had an amazing find at the dig today!!! It could possibly be the most important find of the entire excavation. Out of a trench that is exploring the location of a bathhouse for the Roman soldiers stationed at the fort, came a large shard of pottery WITH AN INSCRIPTION ON IT!!! This is called an ostracon, and shards of pottery were commonly used in antiquity in place of expensive papyrus for letters, military dispatches, and other written communications. It is not just a simple ostracon, either. It has about FIVE LINES of script!!! It is in Greek, and the text refers to some individuals with Roman names. I have not seen it, for the writing began to fade after about five minutes of exposure to the air. The dig photographer was able to take pictures on site, and it is on its way to special conservation and handling in Jerusalem. Any time something in writing is found, it is like a letter from antiquity to the present time. Such things may not be as “jazzy” as gold jewelry or other treasures, but they are far more valuable to scholars than just about any other type of find. There were some awfully broad grins at lunch today!
Also, Gwen and Jodi asked me if I could be the dig registrar for the remainder of the dig. The woman who restores pottery and runs the lab is leaving for an event in Rome (educational or professional conference, I’m not sure which) on Sunday. Now, I‘m not about to fill her shoes completely, and I don’t even pretend to have her training and skill. But someone is needed to register and catalog the finds as they come in, and wash the pottery, or direct students to wash it, and ensure that finds are cataloged and stored according to their location from the dig. I had my first “training” with Stephanie this morning, and will work with her again tomorrow. I really enjoyed the work, and it is not as grueling as moving dirt in the heat. I’ll still be able to go out to the field whenever possible, but this will be a new horizon for me. It is also fun to see and carefully handle everything that is being unearthed, instead of just the finds from the one trench in which I dig. Stephanie was gluing together a cooking pot when I first joined her in the lab. My jaw almost dropped when I saw that! I’ve been seeing potshards for a long time, but I’ve never seen them brought together and reconstituted in a lab. Stephanie’s careful hands have also recently restored a beautiful and nicely decorated white pottery flask.
The monitoring team from the Israel Antiquities Authority appeared for a short notice inspection today (maybe a one hour notice?). What a great day for them to see things like Stephanie’s reconstructed pots, the amazing ostracon as it was unearthed, and some fantastic coins that have been cleaned and identified. One large coin in fairly decent shape has been identified by our numismatic (coin) expert as a Nabatean coin! Nabatean coins are quite rare, so there was quite a buzz when Nathan the Coin Guy was able to confirm its identity several days ago. Nabateans are the desert folks who had Petra as their capital city, and they came out of the south of Jordan. Herod the Great’s mom was a Nabatean princess, but that’s another story….
Several nights ago, Randy, Susannah, and I went for an ice cream run. There is a highway restaurant and store about 5 or 10 minutes’ drive down the road. The Yotvata kibbutz runs it, and the drawing feature is the “Yotvata Ice Cream” that is sold. It is well known in Israel, and it is wonderful!
There weren’t many people in the store that evening, so we were served quickly. No big deal. We sat down at a table to enjoy our treats. Then Jodi walked in by herself, and also ordered ice cream. Only, hers was heaping and running over! She laughed as she joined us, and begged us to help her eat her enormous serving of ice cream. She was to give a lecture to the regional municipality (again, I ask, what municipality? Eilat? Yotvata? Land of Sand and Rocks and Wind?) in about half and hour, and was taking this small break.
When we all got up to go, Jodi rattled off some parting words in Hebrew to the store employees, and went at a half run off to the nearby hall to give her lecture. Actually, Jodi seems to go everywhere at a half run. As the three of us (relatively sluggish persons) walked to the door, I heard the employee that had served our ice cream call to us, “You ar-KEE-oh-LOG?” It took me a second, and then I replied, “Yes! Ken! We are.” Yes, we are archaeologists with Jodi’s band. She and the three women with her broke into beautiful smiles, and the one purred, “Very cool! VERRY, verry, COOL!” Maybe we’ll get an extra helping of ice cream next time.
Thursday afternoon, there is a two-day field trip for our troupe to Petra, that amazing stone city in Jordan. Everyone is pretty excited, and we found out last night that a jeep ride through Wadi Rum is included (if you’ve seen “Lawrence of Arabia,” you’ve seen Wadi Rum, at least on the screen). It costs extra money, and not everyone is going. Doug, our dear friend who is no longer with us, wanted so much for his students to go, and was even swinging payment for a couple of them himself. Randy and I thought that was great. It reflected Doug’s character, and, well, no other place in the world is like Petra. If a student were in this area, it would be a shame to miss it.
Last night payment was due, and it was about $50 per person more than expected. Another staff member and I saw one of Doug’s students try to quietly slip out of the room, and we caught him on the stairs. I brought Randy into the conversation, and Randy and I convinced the student to let us put his expense on our credit card. After much protest, he agreed, only by saying he intended to pay us back as quickly as possible. That agreement was the only way he would let us help him. So, Randy and the student shook hands on it. It was the least we could do for a wonderful and exceptional teacher like Doug. Thanks be to God for people like him.
I will write about more of the places and adventures we had while in Galilee another time. For now, I’m signing off from our desert abode.
Grace and Peace,
Mary (also Randy and Susannah)
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