Now that's an earful!

It's been a week now - where has the time gone? Friday we visited neighboring Tayinat site (our site is cooler and we could totally take them in a fight even if there are more of them. Adam said "There's a great view of Atchana" when Mike asked how our visit had been.) Their crew came over to our compound for a cookout/fiesta. Yummy burritos and chili and grill - here's Ferhat on the right (my boss man) setting things up with Murat, our fiercely competent site manager.

On Saturday we had an excursion to the seaside after visiting the beginnings of a new site (it was on what was the coast and start of a river delta). Our lunch of yummy salads and grilled fish was the very thing before going to play in the water. It was dirty but the sea looked so appealing I and several others decided what the hey and jumped in anyway - totally fabulous. Just nice to float for awhile and I didn't even get that sunburned! (Just a little, not a surprise).

But on Sunday I awoke with my ear pounding and it got worse throughout the day. So a trip to the local emergency room made it on the agenda for Monday (since a trip to town was planned for then anyway). I had the lovely Guzen to translate for me as well as Ezgi (our conservator who was also sick) and away we went after lunch, some others along for other errands as well. Got to the hospital and found man behind the glass who checks people in. I don't have a health card so had to show my passport. And explain my name, give my parents' names as well. When we got the printout it showed they'd taken away my last name - I'm now Bethan Erin - and Turkified "Andrew" into something else. Another window let us pay (since I'm not a citizen don't have free meds) and then we went to wait. The doctors would be there at 4 we'd been told (it was about five till). At 4:15 we're contemplating breaking people's legs in order to get to a place to be served. Ezgi went in and got looked at, then I get called.

The doctor picks up probe to look in my ear and it falls apart when he tries to attach the plastic piece that will go into the canal. So we have to go out of curtained cubicle #1 to wait and see if can get into another one. #3 has an already broken instrument as well. And #2 has a large man sprawled across a bed but they rouse him after awhile, put him in #1 and there I am now with a new doctor. I get asked for the second time if I have a fever - I don't know - but they don't take my temp. After the pain of having my ear probed, twisted and torqued I'm told I have an outer ear infection. We make sure there's no penicillin in the prescription meds, then leave to find a nearby pharmacy. The man there marks my boxes of drugs with slashes and lines to indicate frequency and dosage before or after eating. Pretty cool. The adventure rounds out by finding the menfolk we'd dropped for personal shopping, going to a big supermarket for the general supplies as well as getting personal items (I now own Priates of the Caribbean flip flops since the puppies (guard dogs in training) here chewed on my others). Chocolate with pistachios inside fueled our trip home. And the craziest part - my hospital visit AND drugs was under $30.

Now I'm feeling more human and hope to hear properly soon. Yesterday Ferhat and I went to site and I finally got to see where all these things I've been recording come from. We started out in a far square, were shown around and then got to help out picking away a thin layer as the workers went to the next level. Hot work in the sun (yay for longer sleeves) and I found bones, pottery sherds. And flint! Nuri, the supervisor who's a bit of a clown, regularly came over and yelled "work! work!" at me. We were there two hours, I'd no idea of time passing. The workers didn't want us to leave but we rambled up and around to all the squares seeing what's going on. There's a lot of dirt. And some very cool things - I'll take my camera next time and post more photos. The set up for a square is a supervisor and usually an assistant, then 5 or so local workers. I want to know more Turkish - now that my brain seems to be settled I can work on that a bit more. I think that Ferhat just wanted to keep me sane after two days of entering in records from 2004 - today I attached photos to some of them. I'm developing a grudge against Access, but you work with what you've got. Here's hoping my ears decide to become normal soon!