Balay Tubay

Out of all the great new experiences I had during this field school in the Philippines, I would have to say that just being able to immerse myself into the filipino culture and appreciate the new things from an outsider's perspective was the best part for me personally. My time in El Nido was particularly memorable, more specifically during the arts festival that took place during our last week in the Philippines. Art was and still is a very big passion for me, so when I found out that there was going to be an arts festival in El Nido through one of the students, I was beyond ecstatic to go support the local artists, attend the workshops, listen to the live music, and meet more people. The arts festival took place in one of the local bars called Balay Tubay, one of the places that many of us students went to after lecture for drinks, a place rich with history and raw talent, along with being unique in that it had a gallery attached to it. This bar had live music every night, the band playing songs from the Beatles to the Eagles along with filipino songs, and although we couldn't understand the words, the soul and passion that was in every song spoke for itself.

I had the opportunity to go to the gallery opening night at Balay Tubay along with some of the other students. The night started off with a presentation that one of our very talented students gave, Ian Ostericher, on photography. He had put together a slide show of his portfolio, explaining the meaning behind each photo and just about the art of photography. Afterwards we had our very own Professor Victor Paz give a lecture on what we had been doing on our archaeological field school and what we had found so far. As I walked around the gallery and marveled at each beautifully crafted piece, one of our students who was asked to help out at the arts festival, being a remarkable artist himself, was kind enough to introduce me to the local artists. Meeting them was just so incredible, matching the art pieces to the artist, asking them any and all of the questions that I had, and again just sharing one of my life passions with people who felt the same way...it was all exhilarating. I think that the whole experience was so significant to me because I didn't come to the field school with any expectations of meeting artists or being able to experience the Philippines art scene. Art is universal, no matter where you go. Even the styles of art that I saw in the gallery that night were pretty similar to the urban art scene that I'm most familiar with back in Seattle, Washington. It was refreshing to see that no matter where you are in the world, art translates in the same way everywhere.

El Nido Nights

El Nido was our reintroduction to civilization after our first two weeks of field work. I have to say the anticipation was building early on. I had been fantasizing about the use of the internet, a bed, and the comforts of civilization for at least a week and half prior. Just outside of town it was a welcoming site to see the towering limestone cliffs that characterized El Nido Bay. Upon arrival we worked quickly to unload the jeepney and find our rooms at the cozy Lally and Abbott resort. My room featured A/C, cable, Emperor Ming and Rachna. Being the first in the room I snagged the single bed. Rachna and Ming were forced to share the double which proved to be a troublesome parring. By the second night Rachna preferred the floor to Ming's trespassing. Even with the bed situation we managed to have some very lively discussions. Next it was the buffet three maybe four trips, I had a ravenous appetite. Afterwards a nice lecture and a few beers, not bad.

One of our nights out on the town Bethany, Sarah, Rachna, and I attempted to meet two of the staff from our resort at the "New Zone". This club was a rectangular shaped, very loud, and unwelcoming lazer-den. We got our drinks and took a seat alongside the wall. After a very-brief scan (for fear of provoking a knife attack) I failed to locate our girls among the scattered flocks of zipper-dress clad women. We decided it was best to suck our drinks down and move on. From the "New Zone" we happened to run into our girls on the street. Attempting to improve on our first experience together we decided to go to the "Bom Disco", a cozy little firetrap and sweatbox that featured chicken-wire over all the escapable windows. The highlights were, failing to break the ice with the girls, and after it became evident that the bartender had no idea how to make the drinks we ordered (from the menu) one of the girls in our group just went behind the bar and made them herself. EL Nido.

Backfilling

All good things must come to an end. In archeology this is expressed when the digging stops and the backfilling begins. As dirt falls from the buckets and shovels days, months, even years worth of meticulous digging can be wiped away in a matter of minutes. So, I suppose it was fitting that the last day of my archeological work was spent backfilling.

This trench was nothing special. In fact it may have been the most uneventful trench of the entire trip. In the five days that the team excavated the two by two by one and half meter trench they discovered three context layers and zero artifacts; that is equivalent to reading a two-thousand page book without a plot or ending. By the time we backfilled it the crew was more than delighted to put the trench behind us.

Backfilling couldn’t have been easier. The amount of dirt was minimal, and the pile was as close as it could have been without gravity pushing the sediment over the edge. Besides the blazing sun and dust particles clogging my nostrils the experience was rather enjoyable. It was easy to savor work that had such obvious results – the shovel went in, removed the pile, carried dirt to the hole, and filled the hole. It was brilliant.

As our pile decreased and the hole disappeared there was little discussion. Some of us were distracted by a toad attempting to escape the pit; it must have hitched a ride with the dirt on one our shovels. My time in the Philippines was coming to an end, so I was lost in thoughts about the trip. I thought about the new friends that I had made, the amazing adventures I had experienced, and the beautiful places that I had witnessed for the first, and hopefully not the last, time.

Before I knew it, we were done. Our pile was gone and the trench was no more. I assumed that putting all of the sediment back would have appeared level, but as I took in the results of our labor I realized that there was dirt overfilling the trench. What a beautiful sight. My thoughts went to the sacrifices that were made to take the trip – job loss, time away from those I loved, the anxiety of leaving familiarity.

The cup that was empty when I arrived was now overflowing. Every sacrifice was worth only a small fraction of the life that came from my time during the previous six weeks. The stories, experience, and learning that I hoped to extract were more vibrant than I could have ever hoped for.

As I soaked up the image of the small mound that now existed where the trench once was, a member of our crew tied two large pieces of bamboo together to make a cross. I’m not sure if it was a joke, but he planted it firmly in the center of our mound. If that isn’t closure than I don’t know what is.

Pot Sherds and Palaweños

I could have never expected my experience on Palawan, as clichéd as it sounds. Leaving Seattle, I knew I would meet some great people and have a blast but there’s always that unexpected element to any new adventure. Tropical beaches, cave exploration, and jungles complete with monkeys, snakes, and the occasional scorpion. Besides finding myself in a brilliant location, the people weren’t half bad either.
We had some good times together: swimming in the Soule Sea, with a bottle of Tanduay; becoming extremely burnt from swimming in the Soule Sea; playing the beloved game of “Avoid the Branches” while riding on top of jeepneys; hanging out on deserted islands; swimming in the South China Sea, at sunset, drinking some San Miguel; exploring caves; intense games of charades; the list goes on and on. There were times I could have gone without, such as stepping on a rusty nail the first week we were onsite or being stung by a jellyfish (which I still have the mark from, over a month later now) or ever so gracefully stepping on a deadly snake in the jungle.
As bad as these were, or could have been, I found myself not just surrounded by people on my program but people who had come to be my friends and who would help me out whenever I needed it, whether it be bandaging my foot (while trying not to freak out) or graciously offering to pee on my jellyfish sting. Aside from all the action, adventure, and danger that accompanied our field school, the best times I had were sitting around the bamboo table, drinking some San Miguel or our invented Palaweño’s , talking and laughing and sharing stories (the best ones of course coming from Greg). Here it was evident that you were surrounded by a great group of people.
My 55 day expedition to the Philippines was the best field school I could have imagined. It was the perfect mix of academic learning and social down time, sometimes mixing the two, either over theoretical discussions complimented by a bottle of Tanduay or nightly lectures accompanied by San Miguel, the unofficial sponsor of our field school. I loved the adventure, discovery, and people on this field school. One thing I won’t miss however: checking the showers for cobras.

55 Day Expedition: Palawan Field School

One of my favorite aspects of the field school was the diversity of the students. There were those, myself included, who had no experience whatsoever, mixed with students who participated in numerous archaeological sites across all of Southeast Asia. As a group we excavated three separate areas on the island of Palawan and numerous sites and trenches within those areas. We worked in any given trench at most a few days, giving us the chance to see the entire site and work with everyone in the group in different locations.

At first I did not think I would like moving around so much and barely becoming familiar with the different contexts in any given trench but the more I experienced moving around I saw that this was so extremely helpful, especially to someone who had never excavated before. I was able to apply the basic techniques of identifying contexts and comparing sediments through color, compactness, particle size, and inclusions to all the trenches I worked in. Even coming across trenches that were archaeologically sterile proved useful as we were able to practice the methods of excavation and recording.

Cave archaeology was something that I had never really considered before this field school. Two out of the three sites we excavated however had some sort of cave environment. In El Nido we worked in a cave called Pasimbahan, a cave known to have local religious connections but had never before our team been studied by the academic world. We opened up two trenches in the cave mouth where the majority of our team worked while a few of us explored the rest of the cave, in search of any anthropological activity. In the Dewil Valley, the third location our team excavated, caves were in abundant supply. Members of our team explored caves rich with archaeological material. Collecting vast numbers of pot sherds during the day turned into complex puzzles in the evening. Especially evident in the third area we worked, we saw how archaeology saturated the land.

I noticed over the course of the field school there was a strong curiosity and overall support that the local community extended towards us. In every location we excavated, visitors came to observe, ask questions, and just hang out. Kids as young as toddlers followed their older comrades to watch us working. Some spectators would come to help and others just to watch. The support we saw in the communities where we worked was easily seen in the highly successful exhibition we put on in Sibaltan. The exhibit featured a general history of the area and town, as well as what archaeology was and who we were. As a first glance at archaeological field work, I must say I was pretty spoiled to be a part of such a wonderful group of people in such an archaeologically rich region.

I was lucky enough to spend two extra weeks with students from University of the Philippines at the very end of the field school, participating in more field work. The difference in these two weeks from the field school meant smaller teams at each of the sites and an overall theme of areas that needed further excavation in the future. As part of the field school, especially to those of us who were learning for the first time, there was a general awareness that once the field school had a definitive end. By staying a couple weeks longer I felt I was part of a larger, longer project which extended into the years to come. Overall, this experience proved to be a great starting off point for my future in archaeology which this field school verified my deep love for.

Being connected to others

On my Philippines field school there were people from all over in our group. I met and made friends with people from China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Philippines and the U.S. This made my experience abroad even richer and I am so glad that we had the people that we had in our group. I think partnerships with a variety of different people is a smart way to collaborate and build on ideas of Archaeology. Different view points are what makes us keep asking new questions that can lead us to new methods and ways of thinking.

My first ever jeepney ride was exhilarating, sitting on top holding on to the sides as we ducked for branches going down the dirt road. Island hopping all day, having a BBQ on the beach and burying friends in the sand was a highlight for me. The way we kept living from "riches to rags", as Victor would say,was a brilliant idea. The first week we were in the Philippines was like a vacation as we stayed in hotels and resorts on the beach, following that we went to camping in tents at the Elementary school in Sibaltan. The camping was fine, I've done camping before, what I had to get used to was no in-door plumbing. The toilet situation took me a little bit to adjust to as far as going number 2. There was just a rim bowl that you had to squat over to go in and I always made sure to get toilet paper before I got in there.

The showering outside and dumping buckets of cold water on your head was actually really nice after a hot sweaty day of working. We had local people cook us food and I have never had so much rice and fish in my life, good food though and it was appreciated how much they cooked for us and did our laundry. After Sibaltan we headed to El Nido where we stayed in a resort for a week, amazing view and right on the beach. This is where we did our first cave excavation and it was a nice change because there was always a cool breeze in the cave. For our last week we moved back out to our tents by Ille Cave where we spent the last week of our field school, by now we were pros at digging and had made lasting friendships. This was also the saddest week saying goodbye to people as they headed off back home, being some of the last people to leave you could tell the mood had changed.

We exchanged gifts, emails and later photos, looking back now as people post more photos I realize more and more about this extraordinary opportunity that i had and I'm so glad I took advantage of it. This was by far the best learning experience and life experience that I have ever received and probably ever will for quite some time. I would recommend anyone to a field school like this, it will change your life.

The First of Many (hopefully)

photo credit: Ian Ostericher

It has been exactly a month since I had left the Philippines, saying one last goodbye in the Manila airport to a place I will now always remember. It seems like just the other day when the whole team would just hang out after a hard day's work, drink beer and play games like charades, poke fun and get on each other's nerves. As people are starting to slowly put up their Palawan pictures online, I can't help but to feel a little nostalgic as I flip through them. I didn't just grow to love archaeology, but I fell in love with the land of Palawan, the people, the culture, and the group of strangers that had become my family for the past month and a half.

I remember being nervous a few days before leaving for the Philippines. Nervous about living with a group of people I had just met, adjusting to a completely different lifestyle, actually doing archaeology every day, and just not knowing what to expect from a field school. However, by the time I landed in Manila and stepped out of the airport, I was so excited that I felt like I could just take on the world of archaeology; I was ready to dig, trowel in hand, eager to take on directions and find artifacts. Although we didn't get into digging right away, once we did, it was just an eye-opening experience all together. From using surveying techniques such as the total station, and seeing how one could build a model of how the land used to look like centuries ago just by mapping out points and taking elevations was incredible to me. Even the digging techniques that Helen Lewis took the time to show us was a memorable experience because before that, I thought archaeologists just dug until they came upon something, using no special technique, just piercing the ground with a trowel. I learned that every detail was important, even the type of sediment we were digging in, making sure we recorded all the different contexts, describing the soil by the color, texture, and hue. I learned what a cut was compared to a fill, and how we can either dig in spits or just follow the natural contours of the land. Even making the trenches turned out to be a lot more technical than just measuring out a square and putting boundaries on it to start digging. Each trench had to be facing North, and by using basic pre-calc math, we had to make sure we were precise in making a close-to-perfect square before even thinking about lifting our trowels. The labor was hard at times, but the artifacts that we found were definitely worth any and all of the physical strains. One of the most memorable experiences for me personally was when Reed found a full adult skeleton and I was able to help excavate it out in trench one at the Sibaltan Elementary School site. Although I learned a lot about the art of archaeology including the digging, sieving, sketching, note-taking, surveying, etc, I think I would have to agree with Greg and say that it was really impressive how much the community was involved with our excavations. It was encouraging to see how interested the people were and even by just showing up at our trench rounds, it made me feel like I was doing something, even if it was a small thing, to help the community be aware and learn more about their history.

Apart from doing archaeology, learning new techniques and information, and exploring the land of Palawan, I would have to say that the people I met made the whole experience. Each person played a role and made a contribution in the small community that we built. If it wasn't for the people, I don't think I would have had the same wonderful experience that I had at this field school. I would definitely recommend going on a field school if this is something that anyone is interested in trying out. There are some things that you can only learn by putting yourself out there and being open-minded. I also hope that there will be other excavations and opportunities for me in the near future because I haven't had my fill quite yet :)

Palawan Field School

My first experience participating in a group project this size was an encouraging success. The logistics ran smoothly and we were lucky to have such an easygoing and diverse group of people. The nice variety of paces and conditions throughout the field school kept things interesting. We experienced the spectrum of Palawan accommodation from our relaxation periods at the resorts to sleeping in tents in the rain. This balance worked as the 7-4 work days made the resort days all the better. The work was hard but interesting and having a good work crew always made the time go fast.

On the archaeology side of things I was impressed by the community outreach project we conducted in Sibaltan. The community was very curious about our work and came out to the site each day to see what we had found. Rodrick our local team member would translate our daily summaries into the local language. The community exhibit that Lace and Mindy put together was great. They really made the most with a limited amount of supplies. On the final day we held a big gathering in the town center to open the exhibit and say thanks to the community. The event really made it clear what community involved archaeology was all about.

Some other highlights for me were the mangoes, Danny's fresh baked bread, flirting with waitresses, the "Palaweno" (hot water, cane sugar, and G.S.M Blue), not wearing a shirt for solid month, our soccer matches, tea-time...Bonanza!, the line at the first aid station after every work day and comparing infections, the roosters!#@&, coconuts, jeepneys, and most of all the people!

I hope to someday be involved in another group project that runs as smoothly as the Palawan Field School. Thanks

The Archaeology of our trip

My first field school to the Philippines was amazing! I learned so much about Archaeology from the people and the artifacts that we found. One of the most exciting finds that I personally helped uncover was at the Sibaltan Elementary school site where I uncovered a child's burial. I learned to look at not only the skeleton itself but the orientation of it and the contexts in which it was found to determine all that we could from it. The bones were not laid out nicely but disturbed, perhaps from roots since there were some present and there were lots of beads around the pelvic area and feet. The amount of pottery that we kept finding in the trenches and the caves were astounding to me, I didn't expect to find so much all the time. Something that was unexpected about field Archaeology was how much precision was involved; with the setting up of the trench and recording contexts. I liked how we excavated by context, it made you think about the sediments differently and a part of the Archaeology. The communities that we were digging in seemed to respond warmly to our arrival and the reasons why we were there. Because we made sure to include the locals and inform them of our plans they were very inviting. They genuinely seemed interested in what we were finding and wanted to learn more. I learned that Archaeology is more than just finding artifacts, it's piecing together the past and learning about the current culture that lives there now. Making the connections with people and developing relationships is very important in doing Archaeology so that cultures can be represented well and truthfully. I had the most amazing experience of my life educationally and personally and recommend that everyone should take the opportunity to go on a field school!

The Three “D’s” of Archeology

Digging, dining, and drinking; rarely in that order and often overlapping. Some days we would forget about digging all together, and in the most remote locations, drinking was not an option. I first became aware of the three “D’s” in a conversation with Mandy Mijares, a faculty member at the University of the Philippines. Still wet behind the ears, I asked Mandy what archeology was all about. Needless to say I was delighted by its simplicity.

An impatient man, I feared digging would interfere with my enjoyment of the trip. Thankfully I neglected to consider the tranquility that monotonous manual labor can bring to a mind that never stops. You know those little Japanese sandboxes with the rakes that people keep on their desk to reduce stress? Well, my sand box was two meters by two meters and instead of a rake I had a trowel. Not all of the digging was peaceful; digging in some sediment layers was thrilling, like when we excavated the remains of a 700 year old skeleton, while digging in other layers was so laborious that we needed a local to stay on call to fix the pickax because it would break every tenth swing. Our hard work was balanced with rest, and our mindless excavating was balanced with complex high-level thinking as we attempted to connect our finds to a larger historical tapestry.

I’ve never eaten so much rice in my entire life. If you took the amount of rice that I consumed over six weeks and put it all in one place, it would fit up three of our sieving buckets, maybe four. After spending the day in trenches you could have put anything in front of me and I would have eaten it. Sure there were strange foreign foods that you would never consider consuming in the States – duck embryo, chicken intestines, goat blood, and fish eyeballs – but in reality the cuisine was fairly basic. We ate a lot of fish, some chicken, and the occasional pork (a local delicacy.) We ate well, but, if I had to complain, I would ask for fewer bones and more sweets; oh the things I would have done for a piece of chocolate after every meal.

The best beer I have ever had was enjoyed on this trip. It was the second can of San Miguel that I drank during lunch on our island-hopping day in El Nido. It was ice cold, unexpected, and accompanied by good friends and good music. That beer taught me that while happiness may not be entirely situational, a good beer is. Our team certainly had a lot excuses to indulge – a new destination, the end of trench rounds, or even the end of a lecture (or during.) Depending on the night you had three options – cold beer, warm beer (if you didn’t get to the local store before the crowd,) and rum. It didn’t matter the occasion, drinking was always accepted, nay, encouraged.

Some might argue for a forth or even fifth “D” – documentation or danger perhaps – but when I look back on my time in field school I have to tip my cap to ole’ Mandy for helping me stay focused on the necessities.

Following on from Peter, but from the perspective of co-directing the project since 2004, I totally agree with him that this was a special year for people. We always have good people on site, and it has always been a very enjoyable time, but this year, amazingly, everyone was laid-back and got on with each other, despite spending 24/7 together for weeks in a heat wave and drought. The archaeology was kind of quiet: usually Ille Cave, of all the sites investigated in Dewil, is a bit like ‘Lost’ – every year we answer some questions but come away with several more. This year, as far as I know to date, there were no surprises – but we managed to begin to sort out some of the questions of the project which we had not been able to focus on previously.

For instance, because we had so many experienced archaeologists (and brilliant students) this year, we were able to test several open-air sites at Dewil and re-visit some of the other caves, which we had wanted to do for many years. I have come away from this season totally convinced that we should make a major effort at Makangit – previously I was interested in that landscape, which comprises a number of karst towers in the locality of a spring, but had never had the time/energy to go and really have a proper look at the caves there before. This year Peter, Victor and I were able to go off for extended periods of time and visit Sinilakan and Makangit. We collected some amazing pottery from both, and checked out a huge looters’ pit at Makangit Idulot. That site looks like an interesting place for a future test excavation, and we plan to do a detailed map of the whole Makangit area. We also managed to get some of the guys to go and map a couple of the caves – using caving and climbing expertise we haven’t had available to us before.

The Sibaltan site was a great success – this was a new look at an old village and trade site, known for its trade-ware pottery. Our aim was to see if we could find evidence at the open-air sites we investigated in Sibaltan to compare to our excavations at Ille Cave, to gather some knowledge of what was happening outside of cave sites. We excavated two locations: the Sibaltan Elementery School site and the Acosta site. Of course we found burials (we always do), including some that are comparable to graves found in the caves. We also found at least one buried soil level in a couple of our trenches, associated with probable post holes – this would mark an old period of stabilisation of the beach sands, with organic topsoil. At the moment we have no idea of the date of this phase. One of the best parts of the Sibaltan excavation was the reaction of the local community to our presence. Every day we had many visitors, and many villagers came for our daily rounds (where we tell each other what has happened in each trench that day). We were so popular that some of our crew who were fluent in local languages were asked to translate from our usual lingua franca (English) every day – and someone even remarked that our dig was like a new local soap opera... The people of Sibaltan were very welcoming, and we hope the exhibit created for the village by some of our crew will keep up their interest in the fascinating history and archaeology of their community and locality. Hope that we can arrange to do some more work at Sibaltan in the coming years!

I have been working for extended periods of time in this area for quite a while now, and every year I have a new type of animal encounter. Sometimes the project feels like an episode of some BBC nature show – the rock under a tent that turned out to be a turtle, giant pseudoscorpions with yellow-green babies on their backs, jumping spiders in Pasimbahan, foot-long flat worms, huge skin-shedding gheckos on the ceiling, the frog madness when the typhoon came, etc. – always in a back-drop of regular sightings of snakes, centipedes, scorpions and millions of interesting bugs. This year I encountered a weird, white ‘fluffy’ beetle, which I tried to no avail to get a photo of. We discovered that stink badgers are alive and well in the centre of Sibaltan. And we had a few new types of snake encounters. I was there for the cobra nest at Ille base camp – the first night we arrived to set up we met not one, but two baby cobras in the campsite (next to the eating area) – one unfortunately (?) died in the encounter, but the other we only managed to chase away. So we spent our first night camping in the knowledge that somewhere (probably under the hut) was a cobra nest. It was a long night... The next day a clear-out of the bags and equipment under the hut expelled a third cobra, and one other, apparently harmless, snake. No mother was ever found.

Another successful field school

This was the second year of three planned archaeology field schools in SE Asia, funded in part by the Henry Luce Foundation. The goal of these field schools is to build international relationships and advance archaeological field research by bringing students and senior scholars together for intensive field archaeology projects. From my perspective, this year was a huge success. I have been back in Seattle for a week now, but it already feels longer. Amazing how quickly we can move from total immersion to nostalgia! Looking back, the highlights for me were:

The people: most field projects bring together a diverse bunch of people, and the chemistry can be unpredictable. This year, the group worked better than I could have imagined. We had people from ten different countries (Philippines, USA, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, China, Canada, and Ireland). Everyone brought differing levels of experience, different archaeological traditions and culture, not to mention strong personalities! But somehow it all worked and many new friendships were formed. Our host country director, Victor Paz, is a master organizer and leader, which helped smooth all the rough patches, Helen Lewis brought her own expertise and organizing abilities to the project that was just what was needed, and the staff of graduate students from UP and UW made the day-to-day running of the project almost too easy. Most importantly, every day was fun, even when we were hot, exhausted and discouraged. It takes a special group of people to make that happen.

The sites: We got to work in what I would call an archaeologist’s playground in northern Palawan Island. The beautiful Dewil Valley, which has seen 10 years of ongoing research, is filled with caves with records of long term human use, some well known and others waiting to be explored. Sibaltan proved to have the early open sites we were hoping for, though we had to tediously chip through cement like sediments to get to them. El Nido’s Pasimbahan cave was better then expected, with what looks to be pre-pottery deposits found already in our short project there. I’m looking forward to going back in future years and building on the work we completed, particularly the so-called “Neolithic” period, which remains murky in N. Palawan (and Island SE Asia generally).

Local communities: UP has a now long standing relationship with the people of New Ibahay, and that relationship was evident in the way people cared for sites in the area and participated in the ongoing research. Sibaltan was a new place for archaeology. Mindy and Lace’s exhibit was very well received there and I think we will be welcomed back to that place. The tourist town of El Nido may be a tougher nut to crack, but Victor has laid down the important infrastructure to build on in the future.

In all, a great project! I look forward to reading other’s perspectives here on this blog.

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