Birthwriting: Our Day in the Desert
We awoke dusty and close in our Bedouin tent ready to face a day in the desert. After a quick breakfast, the group was treated to an activity very few people ever get to experience. We walked a short time over to a line of dozens of camels and paired off to ride on top. Each pair picked a camel, hopped on and held on tight as it popped off face. And we were off. Slowly. The camels took us around a track for about forty-five minutes. We each got a chance to name our beast - the winner was an homage to our dear friend Dana (just because we missed her, nothing to do with the camels). With sore legs and excited hearts, we left our camels in the desert and boarded the bus and left the Bedouin area.
A short ride away, we arrived at a Israeli national park and a track through the desert. Except, it wasn’t how any of us pictured a desert hike to be. The park was a series of impressive mounts carved out by thousands of years of rain and floods. We learned that when it rains in the desert, it truly does pour. Dangerously so in fact, and the flash floods had cleared out some paths for us to climb. We saw our first Ibex and other plants that survive the tough desert conditions. Lior invited us to be still for a few minutes and take in the sounds of the desert - the silence, the birds and, unfortunately, the F16s from the local air force base. It was still unbelievably beautiful and when we made it to the peak we took in a nice breath of crisp desert air and an amazing view.
Jobi, our beloved bus driver, took us a few miles away to a different part of the desert. It happened to be the spot of a very famous kibbutz, and the grave of a very famous Israeli. David Ben Gurion, a hero in the founding of the State of Israel is buried up high on a mount in the desert and we visited the spot and learned more about the man. After visiting the Kibbutz in the desert, Ben Gurion decided he would live out his desire to make the desert grow and live there instead of involving himself in the bureaucracy of government. We paid our respects to the great man and left inspired.
Continuing on with the theme of life in the desert, the group visited a successful bio-farm nearby. There, we had a delicious and fresh lunch grown right in house and afterward “hunted” and ate some of the farms produce. Our guide at the farm reminded us that even in the desert, amazing things can grow and today the farm is thriving. We left the farm but continued with our tour. We found ourselves near the Gaza Strip (near, not in) and learned briefly about the conflict and escalation of violence in the region. The same tour guide that had told us about the different kinds of tomatoes growing, was now explaining the tanks used by the IDF and describing the historic heroic stands of Israelis’ in the region. She taught us that before the days of internet communication, villages had to use pigeons to communicate with each other. In that honor, a few members of the group got to hold their own pigeons and release them as they no doubt headed back to their home, the farm. It was an interesting experience in that part of Israel, culminating in a lesson of history and agricultural growth.
Back to the bus again. This time for a long trek. We spanned the horizontal line of southern Israel and ended in En Getti, a town on the edge of the Dead Sea. We unloaded at the hotel - ate some dinner and played a Jeopardy Game put on by our Israeli companions. We reviewed the immense amount of information we had learned already and picked up some new facts and stories along the way. After the game, many took a much, much needed shower and we got to bed early to prepare for our early morning hike of Mt. Masada the next day.
Our day in the desert was complete, though its lessons will go on further. Too often do we imagine the desert as a uniform, homogenous place. A continuance of nothing. But we learned that in the desert some of the most unique, beautiful, delicious and contentious forms of life can exist, thrive and struggle.
