By Hillary Weppler
A few memories of the 2015 study season (Photo by H. Weppler)
It’s been business as usual here in Madaba for our team, we’ve all been hard at work drawing pottery, digitizing and photographing objects, some of us have even been making day trips to ACOR to conduct research for our papers. Last Wednesday night was Annlee’s last night in Madaba; we celebrated all her hard work this season with a dinner of her choice – a BBQ on Mount Nebo with Mashoor and Aseel! To send Annlee off in fashion a few of us students snuck away after work and found her a pair of pants from the famous Pant Store. All of us have purchased one or seven pairs from this Mecca of patterns and pockets throughout the summer. Annlee departed on Thursday morning, as a special treat Deb picked up Starbucks for us at the airport. What a treat to have non-instant coffee! In typical fashion Emilee and I were sure to document the experience with a picture or two.
On Friday we headed for Rainbow Street in Amman. Rainbow Street is full of boutiques and a large craft market. One of the highlights of the market was the discovery of the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature’s booth where we found Madaba T-Shirts featuring the infamous Last Melon. After a delicious dinner at Firefly Burgers, Emilee, Célynne, and I stumbled upon Mr. Lollies’. Mr. Lollies’ is a popsicle shop which allows you to design a custom popsicle using one of their many flavours! On the way home from Amman, our driver did not speak very good English, and had a little trouble understanding where in Madaba we wanted to go. Célynne helped him find his way by trying her hand at some Arabic, it turns out that not only is Madaba a beautiful city, it is also a zaki city!
On Saturday it was back to work for all of us, as we race to finish our projects before our ever looming departure dates. During this study season I have been developing a series of Museum Management workshops for the Madaba Archaeological Museum. These were planned to be small interactive workshops, all of my plans changed when Deb got a very interesting call from the Department of Antiquities. During this call they said they wanted to host the workshops at the DoA for all the curators of the archaeological museums in Jordan. Needless to say, I needed to rework my workshops for a larger audience. My workshops covered three topics, Accessioning Objects to Collections, Object Storage, and Exhibit Design. Each workshop discussed the industry standards for each topic and inexpensive methods for achieving these standards. On Tuesday I presented my workshops. To start the day Deb and I were introduced to the audience by the Director General of the Department, Dr. Jamhawi himself! The day flew by with the workshops being very successful. I hope that the curators present at the workshops were able to take something away from the day and apply it to their own museums. As well, I owe a large thank you to the Department of Antiquities for inviting me to present my workshops and for being so accommodating throughout the day.
On Wednesday we celebrated the end of a very successful study season with dinner at Haret Jdoudna; much fried halloumi was had by all. We then travelled to the airport to bid a fond farewell to Emilee and Célynne. It was bittersweet to see them off but Mashoor brightened up the evening by getting us together for a selfie. Tonight we say goodbye to Lauren and Laila, meaning that Deb and I will each get our own apartment in the house for the next few days as we finish up work and pack up the house. Thank goodness our friends and neighbours from the Dhiban excavation are still around to keep us company!