Earlier in the semester I went to a seminar presented by member of the Royal Army. After dating several military guys and knowing quite a few more this seminar hit close to my heart. These soldiers have set up a program to use archaeology as a rehabilitation program for soldier suffering from PTSD or depression. They brought the soldiers to a site and set it up as a military operation. They were taught all of the skills they needed and conducted a full excavation. At the end of the seminar one of the soldier who had gone through this program shared his story and told everyone that if it was not for this program he would have committed suicide. It had taught him skills that were applicable to many jobs and applied everything he learned in the military while giving him a sense of purpose.
I got the opportunity to participate in the beginnings of one of these excavations. Soldiers were present, but none who really suffered from anything. Everyone had an interest in it and it was nice to get to teach people what I knew. Low level archaeologists such as myself don't really get an opportunity to teach people anything. That is usually left to the supervisors and lead archaeologists. The dig was in Wales, in the city of Caerwent (Pronounced Carwen). I got up at the ripe time of 6am to be picked up at 7am. I was in and out of consciousness, but surprisingly to anyone who knows me I was in a great mood!
We got to the site and spent the entire day clearing off trees and sticks and everything else imaginable. We found a pile of tin and we were instructed to dig it out. My Dad will be proud of me for pointing out to every single guy on the site that they were shoveling in the incorrect way and proceeded to show them all how it was done and out-shoveled a very beefy 26 year old military man. That how Americans roll I guess. Underneath the tin we discovered an odd feature and we got to dig. I actually got to trowel!!!! The lead archaeologist stepped aside and told me to go for it. It was nice to have that opportunity. While working for my Dad is great I don't really get the opportunity to do much trowelling myself. It's more the people who know what they're doing due to time constraints. I'm there for brute force, all 120 feisty lbs of me.
The digs for the soldiers are more centered around making sure everyone gets to try something new and hone their skills. They are under time constraints, but everything is so efficient that things get done sooner than planned so there's time to teach people new things. Speaking of new things, I got to learn how to operate a magnetometer and a ground penetrating radar machine! I looked like I was dragging around a pathetic vacuum cleaner while imitating a scene from Ghostbusters, but it was pretty cool nevertheless.
Later that day we went back and were discussing plans for dinner. I got an agonizing pain in my stomach and was driven to the nearest hospital or A&E as they call it. Spent 8 hours there in various stages of pain from my stomach, the nurse who couldn't find my vein after 4 tries, an IV drip of some kind of drug one step below morphine and from throwing up due to all the drugs I was on.
8 hours later: no idea what was wrong with me except "you have an abdominal infection" Why THANK you! I couldn't have figured that out by myself... Long story short. I'm fine now and back in Leicester. I had to take a LOT of medication and discovered codeine (don't worry it was prescribed to me) does hilarious things to me. For example, Laura (my best friend) spent the night with me to make sure I was okay and did not need to go back to the hospital. I ended up serenading myself singing my own version of jingle bells while accompanying myself by banging my lamp cord against my wall as a musical instrument simulation. Imagine Laura's face walking back into the room to that. Apparently I was a priceless spectacle to witness. Never want to experience that again that's for sure.
All in all I learned a lot that weekend. 1: Wales is gorgeous and they have a castle that hosts jousting competition. 2: My abdomen hates me. 3: Drugs are bad. 4: I have some great friends I wouldn't trade for the world. Yes that's cheesy, but you can tell who your true friends are when they spend 8 hours in the emergency room with you and wake up in the night just to check if you're okay.
I almost forgot!!! Every road sign is in Welsh and English. We had a field day trying to pronounce everything. For example spring water is: ffynnon yrystog. Several towns are called: Blaenau Ffestiniog, Ebbw Vale, Machynnllyth, Usk, and Ystradgynlais. Good luck pronouncing those lovely names. As we said on the drive there and back "Oh look! We're now in the town of.... asdknnefwuit...fffg...gll....?"
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