Mistakes and Snaggle Tooth

6 Feb 2012

Wow! Today was a phyically and mentally draining day, but all in all a good day.  I received an email on Sunday telling me that I needed to be prepared to start teaching on Monday (today).  I was completely NOT prepared as I was not supposed to begin teaching until the 27^th of this month.  The cemetery project has grown into something rather large and is now demanding all of the time of the campus archaeologist, and because of this the principal of the college said that he should focus all of his time on this project. I and another Fulbright will be taking over the archaeology classes until everything settles down. So today was the first day.  I ended up not having to teach but sat in on the archaeologists lecture and was introduced to the class.  After having sat in on the class I am very confident about teaching the course… this course is very similar to the intro course that I teach at Winthrop.

After class we parted for lunch and then I met the campus archaeologist in the arch lab.  In the lab we had a very, how shall I say it, frank conversation about my skills and abilities.  Remember those mistakes I made in the field that I mentioned in my last blog, well they came back to bit me.  I completely understand where he is coming from considering the magnitude of this project but I still can’t help feeling a little… well, bad.

After that conversation we took a look at the bones recovered from the site.  I was able to provide a preliminary assessment… finally back in my comfort zone. Feeling slightly rattled by our earlier conversation I was hesitant to give my opinion about a couple of the bones.  I was able to think about it on my way home and by the time I got home I was able to email the campus archaeologist with a confident opinion on those bones in question.

At home I received an email from the head of the department about another project going on with a potential slave cemetery.  I emailed the contact person and he responded almost immediately.  I plan to travel to the village where the site is located to have a look around.  There is a group trying to “save” the site and I am not sure how much I should be involved considering my short amount of time here.

The kids and I ordered pizza dinner, I couldn’t even imagine cooking. After dinner we headed to the park where they played with the neighborhood kids for a while.  We came home, talked to Kenric on the phone and then I got about 1/2hr of work done before we called it a night.

7 Feb 2012

Today I made my trip to the US Embassy.  The building is beautiful, but they don’t allow cameras so I can’t show you. It was so refreshing to see that big eagle on the side of the building and the American flag flying in the embassy yard.

My meeting with the Fulbright cooridnator when great.  She is a great person who has been extremely helpful during this journey.  It was nice meeting her face-to-face. I did learn that I may not be able to extend my stay here until the first week of June.  It is completely out of my hands and in the hands of the department I am working with here at UWI. I’ll keep you posted…

After I left the embassy I headed back to campus to the arch lab where I finished looking at the bones from the site on campus. Still nothing definitive as this is a preliminary look but I was able to confirm some suspicions I was left with yesterday.

It took me about an hour in the lab and I headed home to find my baby girl waiting for me at the door.  She had something to show me:

The kids and I vegged out for a while before we headed to pick up Nay from preschool. The walk wasn’t so bad today and Nay was happy to see us all. We spent the rest of the evening watching ‘My Shocking Story’ about these different diseases people are inflicted with and how they deal with them and that really made me hug my babies.  I’m so grateful to have given birth to three healthly babies.

My snaggle tooth

Tomorrow is my first official day of teaching so I will let you know how that goes!