Friday, March 4
I would like to thank readers for being concerned about our safety. I assure you that the safety of our crew is our first priority. Most of the Preclassic construction fills at Ceibal, made of limestone-derived soils with high clay contents, have an almost cementlike quality. Those soil layers are difficult to excavate, as they are sometimes as hard as the ceramics that we try to extract, but they make very solid and stable excavation walls. We can even tunnel through those fills safely. To them, we add three types of reinforcements depending on their conditions: consolidation with lime mortar, braces with wood planks, and covers of wire nets. Daniela’s pit (shown in a previous post) is extensively consolidated with lime mortar.
Our larger concerns are the perils of the rain forest. Unlike the excavations, which we can control, nature constantly surprises us, demanding our respect. These threats range from mild ones like mosquitoes to more serious ones. Mosquitoes are vectors of malaria and dengue fever, and are a major nuisance, so Dani makes sure everybody is on a regular chloroquine schedule. Located on a river, Ceibal is known for an abundance of these bloodsucking insects, particularly during the rainy season (May to December). The repellent that we used, bottle after bottle, did little to help. Kazuo Aoyama brought electric-powered repellent dispensers from Japan, but it turns out that Guatemalan mosquitoes have no respect for Japanese technology. We had no choice but to adopt the local remedy — producing a profuse amount of smoke by burning palm nuts. Luckily, we are able to work in the dry season this year.
Many people would probably worry about poisonous snakes, tropical diseases and parasites. True, fer-de-lances are highly dangerous, and flesh-eating leishmaniasis is quite nasty. But what we fear most are the omnipresent trees that make up the forest. In a fierce competition for the sunlight, tropical trees extend their trunks and branches to their limits, and from time to time they fail, throwing their tremendous weight to the ground.