Closing Time

Just like the previous year, the workload of the last two weeks was such that I hardly had time to wash my clothes, let alone update the blog. As of now, no one is left in Karei Deshe but the core of the staff team. It has been a hard four weeks but also an amazing four weeks. Sometimes you wish It’d never end; other times you wish you could be done with it. It`s as much an emotional rollercoaster as it is a physical one. Right now, I wish I could have it all one more time: One final time of being ‘flown’ up to the site; one final time for that beautiful sunrise; one final time for seeing a pair of Russians shooing scorpions from the site, one final time for “GOOOOOOOOOOOD MOOOOOOORING HORVAT KUR!!!” when a plane passes overhead, one more night of swimming in the lake, one more time of hearing our new soundtrack performed live, one more time the shitty chicken that lost its taste in week two, one more time of “OK, NEXT!”. One more time for “Dear people of Horvat Kur”…

Big stone, is good!

We’ve been through hell and high water as a team: we suffered the usual exhaustion, some medical concerns and a lot of frights when the Tell burnt down in a bushfire and we lost most of the digging equipment. Yet, through all of those things we`ve always had a lot of good luck and high times (especially when we figured out that our site itself was more or less unharmed.

Skyview came by on friday to perform their magic

The hardest part of this dig is being a staff member, as you have to watch all the people you call your friends after four weeks of sharing blood, sweat and beers, leave in small groups. Each time again, you suffer that same uneasy and miserable feeling in your stomach as you wave goodbye. On Monday, I will suffer that feeling for the final time, but it will be all the more difficult because it is the final goodbye of some of my closest friends on this dig. Perhaps that is why small things like proper Italian ice cream and one final glass of Laphroaig Quarter Cask on the beach of Karei Deshe while looking out on Tiberias under a starlit sky seem all the more enjoyable, yet also depressing. I`m not simply sad that Kinneret Regional Project season 2013 has come to an end: It`s a mixture of searing heartbreak and awkward satisfaction, as if you are leaving home to go on a long trip.

There are so many memories to bring along on this road from home back to home. We`ve managed to fully uncover the building that was found in 2010, we sang the praises of Gufah, the great divine and almighty lord of Taybeh, we swam in the Mediterranean, met Fano: the slyest old man in Jerusalem, negotiated the prices in camels for certain people and argued why they make the best pets… but most of all we came together as a group and became brothers and sisters in more ways than one. It`s probably best summed up by the following anecdote. When coming back from storing our equipment, some of the staff members commented that this whole experience is a bit like Hotel California by The Eagles: you can check out, but you can never truly leave.

Such a lovely place...

My dear, dear friends of Horvat Kur whom I know will be reading this: it has again been a great honor and a tremendous pleasure to be together with you and to share so many wonderful moments with you. I have already prepared plenty of room in my heart and my soul: check in and stick around for some drinks and some laughs until we meet again in the future.

The dear people of Horvat Kur

Signing off, for the last time this year from the enchanting Sea of Galilee 


… *snif*

The Lost Dutchman