“Se ba Ales

Se ba Meno

Y se ba Corina

Y todos mis amigos

Y Manolo se queda muy triste

Porque se keda sin patrones y sin amigos

Yo no boy a encontrar

Que hacer

Kisiera irme tambien a Olanda” (Manolo on the blackboard of the school)

It is hard to say goodbye. Today I said goodbye to the site and the villagers and the village. I pulled out the metal pins and filled in the excavated holes and tried to take a hard look at the site to fix its impressions on my mind to summon up at later stages of inspirationless-office-drudge. I want to remember the relentless sound of the sea, the blues and greens all around, the palmchats chatter (if this is what makes that cheery chirrup), the pelicans flying by, the vultures sometimes hovering, the lizards on the paths, the feeling of what it’s like to be in the flat bitten out segment of the cliffs between two headlands to north and south, the feeling of sitting on a rock and knowing you are not even the 1000nth person to have done this here (I always remember the comment of someone at TAG in Glasgow, not an archaeologist, who said that archaeology was a way of dealing with collective loss – this is sometimes how I feel about the people in the past who we try to know, but will never know).

I went to say goodbye to Margot (Belto’s wife) and Juana (the mayor’s wife) and their families (these are the people of El Cabo we do know). This year we are not only leaving them, but they are also leaving us. If we come back next year, most of them will not be here. They will be in Beron or Higuey, seeking another life, dispersed and no longer los caberos. I saw Monolo on his donkey on the way to work, with his son propped on the back, on the way to build a house for someone now that we can no longer offer him work. I saw Kelby and Ramona on their motorbike, off to pick up the mayor from hospital in Higuey, I sat on Juana’s bed and hugged her and all her children, and then off to do the rounds at Margot’s house, and hugged her in her hammock and Kelin, and walked out of the village and drove fast away.

One joke of which the locals never, ever tired of in the field was making a comparison between someone and the face on a ceramic adorno. It didn’t matter what the adorno looked like (bat, frog, monkey), or how many we found in a day (could be up to 20 or 30), they would still rush up to someone, student, local, whoever, and hold it up against their face and break down with laughter. Somehow it was pretty funny each time.