So What? or Where there is no vision...

Of the 35 or 36 people currently on the dig, a core of about 17 hunker down in the shaded walkway with brushes and pails full of soaking pottery pieces. The pottery, left during lunch, turns the water into a muddy soup. Once scrubbers set up their stations and begin the tedious chore, conversation moves the work along. Today, the usual camaraderie, good-natured jokes and laughter combined with Friday weariness giving vent to expressions of frustration, longings to go home, and other comments reflecting low morale. What I heard this afternoon, as well as a few other conversations, echoed my own opinions about a few things. Here's one.

Remember the "I've been Tom Sawyer-ed" revelation? This ah-ha moment bloomed in part from my personal lack of understanding. Little to no effort is made to include first-time volunteers in any sense of purpose for the project beyond the physical labor they provide. No vision is articulated and the larger purpose of the work seems privileged information for individuals who need dig data for academic credit or careers.

This past Monday morning, I sat in the shade of the breakfast tent and readied pail tags and locus sheets. I voiced some of my frustration to another member of the square. Within minutes two dig vets, with jobs that allow them freedom to roam, appeared. (Breakfast tents have ears.) "What is archeology to you, Rebecca?" "The longer I'm here, the less I know," I began. Then, off the record, I expressed some of my confusion. I'm as curious as the next person, but I feel that information for information's sake is pointless. "Think of your work here as a paragraph in a larger narrative," I was told. Okay. I like metaphors. I feel more like a sentence or a single word. Would anyone like to tell me the narrative? And if so, would the teller also explain how the narrative of Tall Umayri adds value to life, beyond the academic, today? But wait. I've got to dig, haul dirt, sift, wash pottery, fill out forms, and keep going on seven hours of sleep a night. Guess there's no time for a story.

While I enjoyed the unexpected 20 minute break beside the breakfast tent, I felt no more enlightened about the point, the So what? of this project than before. And based on this afternoon's pottery washing conversation, I, like a pottery shard soaking in a pail, am not alone in this muddy soup.