End of the Week at Bet She'an

Happy Friday everyone! My first week here at Bet She'an was fun and exciting. The work I've been doing has been interesting and I am enjoying it a lot.

Tuesday I continued working. I filled in holes and cracks with lime mortar. I didn't make quite as much progress as on Monday, but that was due to the way in which the work was done. Holes are easy enough to fill. You wet them, slap mortar everywhere, stick in a big rock to fill most of the hole, and then fill the rest of it with more mortar. Cracks, however, are much harder to fill. They are usually smaller than holes, but it's harder to put the mortar in them. One of the cracks I had to fill was only a few millimeters wide, just big enough for me to be able to stick my dental tool in. Since it was so thin I couldn't tell how deep it went, so I didn't know how much mortar I would need. It was incredibly difficult to put the mortar in the crack. I had to push small amounts in with the dental tool, trying not to drop any. It was a very slow process to feed in enough mortar to completely fill the crack.

Tuesday was also one of the other worker's birthday. He brought bourekas (pastries filled with cheese or potato), vegetables and brandy for a little celebration during brunch. Now is a good time to give a little more information about the team I'm working with. Besides me, there are three other workers: Ilan, from Israel, Octavian from Romania, and Alexander from Russia. It was Alexander's birthday. Everyone speaks some level of Hebrew so we are able to communicate well enough. Our boss, Ilan (different from the Ilan on the team) comes to check on us for an hour or two every day to make sure we know what to do and that our work is good. So far he's been happy with the work that I've done. The guys are funny, laid-back, and typical Israeli workers.

Wednesday my job was to fill in the holes made to put grouting pipes in to fill the interior with liquid mortar. The end of the project is coming and all the grouting has finished, so the holes left by the pipes have to be filled in. I rolled mortar into thin cylinders and stuffed them into the holes as far back as they would go to fill any remaining spaces within the stones. Thursday was mostly spent removing the wooden scaffolding. The World Cup started last night, and I tried to stay up to watch the first match (Brazil vs. Croatia), but I fell asleep before half time. Hopefully I won't be so tired to watch some of the other games.