Cabin Fever - Literally

Well life in the house has most definitely has taken a turn for the terrifying. It began with a section of the excavation - the street outside of the villa - and a trench that they began digging about 4 days ago which went farther then we've ever gone before. Almost immediately ostraka came flying out of the trench (30 in one day, an outrageous amount amount, to be followed the next day by 45). One of the assistants at the trench got a very high fever the following day and was gone. We all wished him well and then pretty much went on with our lives thinking he'd got a food bug. The next day one of the students in the trench went to the hospital with what turned out to be massive kidney stones. This was also one of those, oh, not so good, but okay we'll keep going. Then the head archaeologist at the trench also caught the extremely high fever but this time she had a stomach bug as well. Not so good. Then the topographers who worked on the trench also both caught the stomach bug and extremely high fever. Suddenly everyone is starting to worry about the trench - saying it's cursed, etc.

At dinner tonight a girl from the trench over stood up and was sick. Another guy who works at that trench became ill immediately after dinner. Pretty much a super high fever stomach bug is officially running rampant in our house in the middle of nowhere - literally. The middle of nowhere. I cannot escape.

cabin fever.

Life continues as usual here at the old dig house. I will be done with my first shift on pottery duty tomorrow and will begin excavating what appears to be a possible early church on Saturday. We've been having strange weather (aka a freaking sandstorm for 3 days) and so site has been pretty miserable - windy, freezing, and full of sand. Sand everywhere. Due to the storm we have had very little water, meaning none, and our power has been intermittent, so it's been interesting. As per usual I am the first person to sustain a strange injury on site - I was bitten by something lurking in my boot (or the sand) and my ankle and foot have swelled up to an impressive size. I suspect it was a spider as my foot - aside from the giant crater of nastiness - is covered in tiny spider bites, but the old archaeologists say that spiders here don't bite (clearly they haven't seen the rest of my foot) in Egypt and that it was probably some sand ant/mite/flea/non-deadly scorpion. It would have had to have been the most badass ant in the world to cause this foot, so I guess that's pretty cool.

Despite the sand and mysterious injuries I am still having an AMAZING time here, we've been busy pretty much constantly from 5:30 am to 9:30 pm when I fall asleep no matter where I am in the house pretty much on the dot. I'll try to post a general update about the house soon!