The Gnome

I do not want to continue much further without talking about the Gnome. He was my Jedi-like master, who trained me in the ancient arts in the desert of Jordan. I was working on an archaeological dig there and was first drawn to him by the confident aura he exuded despite his stature and weathered face. I then watched him for a while and noticed a few things about him. It wasn't that he was anti-social, just that he lived by the old ways, when he made his own tea while others shared theirs. His tea was always made in his own teapot, on his own stove away from the others. I do not know whether others could contaminate his tea, but out of fifty Bedouin workers he was the only one to make and drink his tea alone. The same held when it came to preparing the on-site breakfast, careful and premeditated actions. He lived by the code, in fact he embodied the code of elite warriors that had passed through countless generations of the wisened few to our age. Now those since the last generation have incorporated modern technology with the old ways to create a new way of being. Here is a picture of the Gnome and one of both of us while working on the site (away from our training camp).