Game On

Well it is finally official. I am returning to Uxbenka this season. Once again fieldwork will be in June. I am already dreading the heat. As long as we get rain most nights it will be OK, but a week or more without it lets the temperatures stay too hot at night and get way too hot during the day. Oh well, there are worse thing in life, as long as it doesn’t kill me.

Plans are to do some excavation units and a good bit of settlement survey. I think it is actually a good thing that we are doing more settlement survey. There is stuff on every hilltop for almost as far as you can see, which is several miles. I don’t know how much that is going to get us toward our goal of turning the site into a tourist destination, but I think we need to know more about what it was like around the area outside the vicinity of the site core. There is supposed to be about ten centuries of occupation at the site core, god knows what kinds of things were going on in the surrounding area. I doubt we will get a big handle on it, but having some idea instead of pretty much none will be a good thing.

I will be interested to see where we end up staying. Don could use the money, but it is expensive in rent and gas to the site (a good 45 minute drive). Staying in the village (i.e., Santa Cruz) seems fraught with political problems, not to mention that there is no electricity (read no fans, no cold bear, massive upheaval amongst the crew, which will be mostly just me). San Antonio seems the logical compromise being closer to the site than Don’s place in Big Falls, having electricity, and letting us stay someplace relatively neutral avoiding playing favorites in the village and inflaming jealousies. However, Phil is supposedly adamantly opposed to bathing in the creek, the likely scenario in San Antonio. I suspect it may also have something to do with his strong dietary preferences. Supposedly, he got two hamburgers made for him for dinner every night he was in camp last year and that was all he would eat, except chips or pretzels or that kind of stuff.

Shoshi is reportedly in the Santa Cruz camp. Keith would be OK with Santa Cruz, but I think he is leaning more toward San Antonio. Phil sounds like he is all about Big Falls and Don’s “Happy Camper’s Bunkhouse,” no doubt Jack’s preference as well. I am not sure where Andy is in all this. My guess would be San Antonio, but I could see him wanting to stay at Don’s just as easily. I am hoping we stay in Big Falls. The food will be better, it is on the highway and easily accessible by the last bus out of Mango Creek, I know the owner of the local watering hole pretty well, and Don is always fun to hang out with. It is the place in Belize that I am most at home in. If it were not for the money issue, essentially spending it on gas and rent instead of hiring the guys in the village, I would be much more adamant about staying at Don’s. As it is, I think I will try and make my opinion known and let the chips fall where they may. However, I do have a trump card if things get heated and people reach an impasse: it may piss off the entire village of Santa Cruz (a very, very bad thing) if we stay in the next village up the road (San Antonio) and spend our rent and food money there.