When we landed in the Jordanian capital Amman on July 10, 2024, after a somewhat turbulent flight, the country greeted us with heat and dust. From the airport to the city of Madaba is just under 45 minutes full of first impressions. Dogs, cats, camels, goats and children on car loading areas waved cheerfully at us as we made our way through the eventful traffic. Our accommodation - very luxurious by digging standards - offered us double rooms with private bathrooms and lots of communal areas over four floors, which were used intensively over the next few weeks. The view from our roof terrace allowed us to look out over the whole of Madaba, over several mosques and churches and even into the garden of our professora. We quickly got used to the nights (hot and loud) - but this could also have been due to the general exhaustion caused by the daily excavation routine.

Already known for our immense physical strength, we were welcomed by our team in al-Jumayil. Abu Nader brought us our tools every working day at 6 a.m., sometimes more, sometimes less punctual. The team of local workers provided us with motivated support every step of the way and more than once we wondered whether people - like ants - could lift several times their weight. The mystery was solved when our Bedouin colleagues offered us chai, so-called “Bedouin whiskey”. This has a similar effect to Miraculix's magic potion and so it was no problem for us to clear the area of table-sized stones. Within two weeks, we were able to uncover the southern church of the double church complex - and we were entertained by the different interpretations of the responsible specialist from the Department of Antiquity in Amman. Sometimes the daily excavation routine was livened up by “Ballermann” music, sometimes by conversations in our broken Arabic with the Jordanian workers. Neither we nor our colleagues from the local area were too good for jokes.

The days of our 6-day working week were highly structured: 4 a.m. wake-up - 5 a.m. departure from Madaba - 6 a.m. start of work on the site - 9 a.m. breakfast break/Istiraha - 12 noon departure home - well-deserved lunch break until 3 p.m./6 p.m. - documentation work until 6 p.m., usually on the roof terrace with a wonderful view. The housework was done by rotating teams of two, and thanks to our cooking skills we always had a very good dinner (self-praise stinks!). We liked to spend our evenings socializing on the roof terrace with Arak, Shisha, Among Us and Ono (not Uno!).

One evening we skipped our homemade dinner and instead visited the Austrian ambassador Dr. Marieke Zimburg in Amman to present our project in al-Jumayil. The Austrian-Jordanian fusion cuisine worked very well (we were lovingly served schnitzel, potato salad and hummus, among other things) and we had a wonderful evening that we talked about for weeks to come.

As usual in Jordan, Friday is a FREE day, so in addition to the excavation work we were also able to go on some excursions. Among other things, we floated in the Dead Sea, followed in Jesus' footsteps at the Jordan River (in Bethany Beyond the Jordan, Jesus' baptism site), enjoyed the view of and from Mount Nebo and explored the almost deserted towns of Jerash and Petra.

The four weeks in Jordan were over far too quickly and the somewhat emotional last day of digging came all too soon. On this day, our Jordanian colleagues surprised us with chai and cake. We thanked them with soccer shirts of the Austrian national team. After that, we had no choice but to deal with the reality of returning to Austria - which this year turned out to be a little more complicated than usual. We had our final meal at the “Pizza Church” in Amman, which offered a nice change of pace with its Italian cuisine. In addition, the Limonana gelato, which you can't get anywhere else in the world, was literally “to die for”. What remains are many impressions, new friendships and an awakened love for a country that no longer seems so far away.

Many thanks to the whole team, to our great tutor Lisa Schlamp and of course to our professor Dr. Hamarneh, who very patiently explained every move to our excavation newbies several times and also made sure that they enjoyed their work and had fun.

Jordan is a wonderful, colorful experience. We'll be back next year!