Much to my delight, we returned to the beautiful town of
Pina today, as per Carlos' request, to excavate some of the fossil material left behind last week. There are SO MANY exposed fossils out on the beach there that even this second trip was not enough to recover everything. Our main goal was initially to go after a dolphin skull lodged into a cliff face, but the nature of the rock and the amount of overburden made the task impossible in a single trip and it was high enough above the average sea level that it won't be going anywhere anytime soon. So instead, we spent the majority of our time out on a natural jetty going after a few ribs and vertebrae.
While working, we attracted the attention of a teenage kid, Amado, who lived in his grandmother's house along the waterfront. He offered to help us out and even brought his own hammer, so we put him to work. Before too long he was followed by his siblings and cousins, Jenny, Marieli, Jose, and Helen. They were all much younger than he, and so just watched, asked questions, touched the fossils, and pulled us away at the slightest chance to show us things on the beach and point out potential fossils they had found. These kids spoke Spanish with an incredibly thick accent and would give the funniest looks of bewilderment, irritance, and exasperation when I asked them to repeat themselves or told them that I didn't understand. When they would repeat themselves, it would just be a louder rendition of the slurred-together phrase given with a huge roll of the eyes. Because of this, the names given are just my best guesses at what they said. Amado was an impressive worker and was very careful not to damage anything that could be a bone. However, he swung his hammer like a madman, bringing it alarmingly close to our faces/hands/feet and spraying rock-shrapnel everywhere. His cohorts were incredibly cute, if also distracting, and I know that I appreciated their presence.
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| Amado in full battle armor |
As we were leaving, Aaron started to pay Amado for his help and the kid told us that if we were going to come back, he'd rather be payed with a cell phone. Almost everyone here does pay-as-you-go phones, so getting one for him won't be hard at all for us. But since Pina is so isolated, it would take Amado a full day, and a fair amount of money, to go get one himself. We'll more than likely be returning next week to continue working on the dolphin skull, so we gave him a few dollars for now and promised the cell phone for later.
For the last hour of our visit to Pina, we explored some new stretches of beach just to see what might be out there, and when we discovered only true sand beaches with no fossils to be seen, we were forced to lounge, eat lunch in the sun, and I even went for a little swim. The horror of it all! The surf was pretty strong, so I didn't chance going out very far, but I floated around and let myself get carried by the waves for a while. It felt so refreshing after digging for hours and getting sprayed with muck. It's such a bummer that the Panama City beaches are covered in trash and the waters are filled with sewage!
We had such a long day in Pina that we all but entirely missed our volleyball game at 6:00 pm at STRI. Our team had two matches that day, though, due to last week's bye, so we were still able to play in the second game and I got to start! There was an hour and a half or so between the two games, which gave us plenty of time to warm up and, perhaps more importantly, relax with a few beers. We may have taken the relaxing a little too far, as evidenced by our utter destruction in the second game. We all played reasonably well, but our teamwork left something to be desired and we were ultimately brought down by being out of position and not communicating with one another. Far too many times the ball touched down on our side due to everyone assuming someone else would get it. Regardless, I really enjoyed myself. Volleyball Fridays are turning out to be one of my favorite things here. I hardly had the energy to make dinner by the time I got home and passed out the second my head hit my pillow.
While working, we attracted the attention of a teenage kid, Amado, who lived in his grandmother's house along the waterfront. He offered to help us out and even brought his own hammer, so we put him to work. Before too long he was followed by his siblings and cousins, Jenny, Marieli, Jose, and Helen. They were all much younger than he, and so just watched, asked questions, touched the fossils, and pulled us away at the slightest chance to show us things on the beach and point out potential fossils they had found. These kids spoke Spanish with an incredibly thick accent and would give the funniest looks of bewilderment, irritance, and exasperation when I asked them to repeat themselves or told them that I didn't understand. When they would repeat themselves, it would just be a louder rendition of the slurred-together phrase given with a huge roll of the eyes. Because of this, the names given are just my best guesses at what they said. Amado was an impressive worker and was very careful not to damage anything that could be a bone. However, he swung his hammer like a madman, bringing it alarmingly close to our faces/hands/feet and spraying rock-shrapnel everywhere. His cohorts were incredibly cute, if also distracting, and I know that I appreciated their presence.
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