(no subject)
I’ve been in Pacasmayo for about a week now, having spent my first 4 days in Peru in Lima. Comparatively, Pacasmayo is about the size of ½ a neighborhood in Lima- a city of about 9 or 10 million now. But it’s the smallness of Pacasmayo that gives it its unique character, and is what I like best about it. Even in the week I have been here, I already know the owners of many of the shops and restaurants we frequent, and they recognize me as well. Another perk is that Pacasmayo sits on the Pacific coast of Peru and so a long beach stretches along the west side of town, but a block from our house.
The house I’m living in has been occupied by archaeologists for several years now. Living in the house are the members of the Pedregal project (Head archaeologists Robyn, Jorge, and Gabi; and students myself, Kelsey G., and Robyn’s sister Laurel). Working in the house daily doing analysis etc, is the famed Carol Macky and her team. Carol is known for excavating the Chimu site of Chan Chan in the 60s and 70s. We actually visited Chan Chan this past weekend-it’s huge! The part open to the public consists of just one citadel. A citadel is a large area (perhaps the size of a futbol field) that is enclosed by gigantic adobe walls, within which are various spaces and arenas. There are many citadels in the surrounding area, ten of which have been excavated, but none are open to the public. The area is also very dangerous because of looters and ambushers who hide out amongst the large adobe remains.
We’ve been in the field with Robyn for a week now. Our days start at 6am when we get ready for a bus to pick us up at 6:30 to go out to the site. Let me describe this bus ride a little: First of all, driving in Peru is terrifying! There are no real road rules as far as I can tell, everyone is racing and nearly colliding and honking their way to wherever. Our ride to the site takes about ½ an hour, traveling both on the Panamerican highway and a dirt road out to the site. We barrel past terrible poverty along side the road at a ridiculous speed, and pass cars and trucks slowing us down-even when there are oncoming cars! I’m glad I usually am sitting in the back of the vehicle so I can’t usually see what’s coming at us! Anyways, to make the ride even more insane, and indeed slightly comical, the drivers enjoy honking not only as warning, but to “prospective ladies” we pass-in particular, school girls in uniform! When we reach the 10 min stretch of dirt road we continue to speed along, only now we have to duck slightly in order to save our heads from collision with the roof with each bump in the road. With no exaggeration I can say that I fear for my life, and that of others, each time we go to and from the site.
The site itself, Pedregal it’s called, is in the middle of the desert, as is everything else here, I guess. We climb up a gigantic cliff of dirt and rock to reach the north side of the Jequetepeque Valley. Kelsey, Laurel, and I have been playing apprentice to each of the head archaeologists. There are also 2 workers or diggers for each archaeologist. These workers are local Peruvians who have had no official archaeological training, but have been working and learning how to excavate sites since 1990. They depend on the archaeologists for work, and Carol told me that one year when nobody was excavating, the workers were really upset and desperate. This relationship between workers and archaeologists is really interesting to me.
So Pedregal is a site Robyn thinks was Moche. The Moche were in power prior to the Chimu, and are known by their ceramic style. The site is indeed littered with ceramic sherds, which is how we know it is a site. There are also compound walls, which we are now doing test pits on and around. There is a graveyard nearby as well, although units there have been relatively indeterminate due to the large amount of looting and disturbance to the graveyard. The extent of the looting of arch. sites here is enormous, and makes me sad.
After being in the field from about 7:30am to 1:30pm, we return to Pacasmayo and have lunch in a restaurant called Kat Cin. Peruvian food is good, although I’m thankful I started introducing meat into my diet again before I left-most meals include some sort of chicken, and vegetables are hard to come by. And after lunch we return to the house to enter the artifacts from the morning into the registry, and do other bits of analysis for a few more hours.
So we keep quite busy. Days are long and very tiring. But so far I like the work, and life here is still new enough to keep me on my toes. Sorry this email was so lengthy, I guess I had to get some of the basics of my daily life out to begin with, in order to be a bit more reflective later on.
The house I’m living in has been occupied by archaeologists for several years now. Living in the house are the members of the Pedregal project (Head archaeologists Robyn, Jorge, and Gabi; and students myself, Kelsey G., and Robyn’s sister Laurel). Working in the house daily doing analysis etc, is the famed Carol Macky and her team. Carol is known for excavating the Chimu site of Chan Chan in the 60s and 70s. We actually visited Chan Chan this past weekend-it’s huge! The part open to the public consists of just one citadel. A citadel is a large area (perhaps the size of a futbol field) that is enclosed by gigantic adobe walls, within which are various spaces and arenas. There are many citadels in the surrounding area, ten of which have been excavated, but none are open to the public. The area is also very dangerous because of looters and ambushers who hide out amongst the large adobe remains.
We’ve been in the field with Robyn for a week now. Our days start at 6am when we get ready for a bus to pick us up at 6:30 to go out to the site. Let me describe this bus ride a little: First of all, driving in Peru is terrifying! There are no real road rules as far as I can tell, everyone is racing and nearly colliding and honking their way to wherever. Our ride to the site takes about ½ an hour, traveling both on the Panamerican highway and a dirt road out to the site. We barrel past terrible poverty along side the road at a ridiculous speed, and pass cars and trucks slowing us down-even when there are oncoming cars! I’m glad I usually am sitting in the back of the vehicle so I can’t usually see what’s coming at us! Anyways, to make the ride even more insane, and indeed slightly comical, the drivers enjoy honking not only as warning, but to “prospective ladies” we pass-in particular, school girls in uniform! When we reach the 10 min stretch of dirt road we continue to speed along, only now we have to duck slightly in order to save our heads from collision with the roof with each bump in the road. With no exaggeration I can say that I fear for my life, and that of others, each time we go to and from the site.
The site itself, Pedregal it’s called, is in the middle of the desert, as is everything else here, I guess. We climb up a gigantic cliff of dirt and rock to reach the north side of the Jequetepeque Valley. Kelsey, Laurel, and I have been playing apprentice to each of the head archaeologists. There are also 2 workers or diggers for each archaeologist. These workers are local Peruvians who have had no official archaeological training, but have been working and learning how to excavate sites since 1990. They depend on the archaeologists for work, and Carol told me that one year when nobody was excavating, the workers were really upset and desperate. This relationship between workers and archaeologists is really interesting to me.
So Pedregal is a site Robyn thinks was Moche. The Moche were in power prior to the Chimu, and are known by their ceramic style. The site is indeed littered with ceramic sherds, which is how we know it is a site. There are also compound walls, which we are now doing test pits on and around. There is a graveyard nearby as well, although units there have been relatively indeterminate due to the large amount of looting and disturbance to the graveyard. The extent of the looting of arch. sites here is enormous, and makes me sad.
After being in the field from about 7:30am to 1:30pm, we return to Pacasmayo and have lunch in a restaurant called Kat Cin. Peruvian food is good, although I’m thankful I started introducing meat into my diet again before I left-most meals include some sort of chicken, and vegetables are hard to come by. And after lunch we return to the house to enter the artifacts from the morning into the registry, and do other bits of analysis for a few more hours.
So we keep quite busy. Days are long and very tiring. But so far I like the work, and life here is still new enough to keep me on my toes. Sorry this email was so lengthy, I guess I had to get some of the basics of my daily life out to begin with, in order to be a bit more reflective later on.