My birthday!

My birthday in Palau! What a great experience.

This place never stops amazing me

Things have been really good around here. This week we didn’t go out to the site Monday, for Memorial Day. I stayed in and caught up on readings and work. Tuesday I spent the day at the site wet screening. When we excavate, all of the dirt we take out of the trenches is wet screened. So that involves hauling buckets of water from the ocean up to the shore and pouring them over the dirt through the screens to clean the material. It’s really hard work. But a great workout!

Wet Screening!

Wednesday I got to work with Dr. Nelson, the physical anthropologist from the University of Oregon that’s here working with us. I worked in the trenches excavating human remains. It was really amazing- uncovering bones and figuring out what they were. But the preservation was just terrible, and unfortunately a lot of them broke and made them impossible to work with. Still, we’re recovering a lot of human remains, definitely enough to provide valuable information about the people that used this site as a cemetery so long ago.

Thursday night was Palau Night, a festival and market set up in town. There was traditional food, dancing, and crafts. It was a great time. The food was fantastic. I had taro soup, titimel juice, and tapioca in coconut milk. The traditional dancing was great.

Palauan dancing

Friday was my birthday! It was President’s Day here, so we didn’t go out to the site. We went to another market in the morning, which was mostly produce and plants. Then we headed to our favorite restaurant and beach, Riptide. It was a great day. I snorkeled with a sea turtle! We also saw vibrant bright blue and purple fish, called parrotfish. There are also a lot of lionfish around here, which are beautiful and super poisonous. We’re always careful to stay clear of them.

Snorkeling!

So it was a great birthday here.

Cheers!