Meerkat

“You see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns and those who dig.” So the European archaeologists had acquired an extremely specialized and technical Arabic vocabulary: dig here, clear there, with a shovel, a pickax, a small pick, a trowel — the brush was the privilege of Westerners. Dig gently, clear quickly, and it was not rare to overhear the following dialogue: “Go one meter down here.” “Yes boss. With an excavation shovel?” “Um, big shovel . . . Big shovel no. Instead pickax.” “With the big pickax?” “Big pickax no. Little pick.” “So, we should dig down to one meter with the little pick?” “Na’am na’am. Shwia shwia, listen, don’t go smashing in the whole wall to finish more quickly, OK?”
― Mathias Énard, Compass