Desert time - The Bedouin Hospitality
After leaving the city of Jerusalem late in the afternoon we boarded the bus for the drive to the Negev Desert. The entire group was worn out and very few people remained awake after only 15 minutes of driving. After approximately two hours of driving we arrived at a small Bedouin camp in the middle of the Negev. Upon our arrival we saw a small group of large, dark, heavy tents and one small cinderblock building. We stowed our gear in our tents, gathered mattresses and sleeping bags and headed for the main tent to learn about Bedouin hospitality. Saleem (whose name means peace in Arabic) gathered us all in his tent and began to tell stories and play traditional music while his son, Mohammed, served us coffee and tea. According to Saleem, Bedouins will always serve their guests three small cups of coffee or tea. The first is to honor the guest, the second is for the sword (representing the responsibility of the host to defend the guest), and the third is just for fun, After teaching us about Bedouin weddings and automatic camels (also known as Japanese camels or Toyotas) Saleem played us two traditional Bedouin songs before we left for dinner. For dinner, we headed to another tent where mattresses were laid on the floor around small raised metal triangles. We gather into groups of six around the triangles and our Bedouin hosts brought out a enormous meal. The meal was designed to be eaten without silverware (although they did provide plastic forks for the timid and the gramophones) and was absolutely delicious. The trays that they provided were stacked with chicken, rice, potatoes, hummus, tahini, and vegetables all of which were eaten with laffa (a tortilla-like Israeli bread). Completely stuffed from dinner, our group headed back to our large tent and engaged in a group discussion. Yonatan started the talk by telling the story of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held prisoner for 5 years by Hamas. We then discussed the ethics of prisoner exchanges and negotiations in order to retrieve an Israeli citizen, and at what cost we would be willing to do so. Without delving too deep into the discussion, I will say that the majority of the Americans were strongly against prisoner swaps due to the potential for released terrorists to kill more Israelis or others. Yet again, having Israeli participants on our trip proved invaluable. They were able to speak about their experiences and their opinions frankly and add to the discussion in a significant way. Filled with food and intellectually stimulated, we headed outside of the tent for a bonfire and some singing before we all headed to sleep. The next day, Wednesday, our Bedouin hosts saddled up two dozen camels and brought us for a short trek through the desert. While some of the camels didn’t want to stay in line, we all had a great time riding the camels, and touring the desert.
