This May Not Have Been the Best Idea: Digging in the Middle East: Musings, Ramblings, Subjective Observations, and Even a Few Random Facts

It started out as a what-if—if you had a chance to do something completely new and different, a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience, what would it be? Well, this experience certainly was new and different: hazardous weather, almost slavish work conditions, and tension verging on war throughout the area. And this was supposed to be vacation. In This May Not Have Been the Best Idea, author J. Lau presents a somewhat fictionalized narrative of the journey he and his wife took to Jordan as volunteers on an archaeological dig. The trip was intended to be a unique way to act out a childhood dream, but things went wrong quickly once they arrived. From travel difficulties to tremendously hot weather to horrible working conditions to the revelation that the dig was not sponsored by any institution at all, Lau and his wife encountered a series of bizarre and frustrating difficulties on this trip of a lifetime. Along the way, they explored Jordanian culture and met numerous friendly—and not-so-friendly—residents of their host country. In a combination of personal narrative, dialogue, and stream-of-consciousness writing, this memoir recalls one man’s trip to Jordan to ‘dig in the dirt’.