Day one:

Today was the first adventure to our Hippos excavation; we woke up at 4:15 am and were out to the bus by 5am. The bus took us up about 90 percent of the way up to Mount Sussita where our team spent the first half of the morning getting everything set up.  When I say everything I mean weeding, cleaning up rocks, and setting up the overhead tarps.  While the strong and wonderful men were doing their thing, Suzy (my adorable roommate) and I helped to clean up the eating area which is on site.  The eating area is an old IDF building (Israeli Defense Force) where the doves like to gather and poo; it was filthy, nasty, disgusting and every other word that you can think of! Why we decided to volunteer for the cleaning is beyond me. Nonetheless we cleaned our little hearts out. I was pretty much gagging and Suzy kept reminding me to stop thinking about what we were cleaning. Needless to say when breakfast was served, Suzy and I ate outside overlooking the dig site.

The second half of the dig we learned the correct way to use tools, lift and work like a dog. Well, I thought hot yoga was difficult, and I thought wrong! Every half an hour we took a water break and switched up our jobs. There are a few different jobs, picking (which is used to loosen up the dirt,) using a turreah (which is similar to hoe), wheel barrowing, and more! By the end of our work day, I was dripping sweat, sore, tired and extremely hot.  Do you think I’m excited for tomorrow? Well I am! BRING IT ON!