Qibbutz Lotan

We are happily installed at Qibbuz Lotan. There is internet; huzzah! Yesterday we had two lectures – one on ecovillages and local/global communities and another on the right kind of plants to grow in the desert. We got a tour of the kibbutz. In the nineties, Lotan decided to become an ecologically-friendly community. They compost, they have a playground made of trash, old tires, and mud (that’s awesome and a blast to play on), composting toilets (seriously…no flushing, and the stuff all becomes gorgeous soil), and mud/straw bale dome huts that require very little cooling and heating. It’s all incredibly amazing. We cooked our own pita last night for dinner – very yummy with tomatoes! (Speaking of which…organic garden=fresh tomatoes and basil=Becca is disgustingly happy.) We made seedballs – combine clay, soil, seeds, and water to make a clay ball too big for an animal to want to eat. Throw them on a field and the first big rain will wash the clay away, allowing the seeds to appear and sprout on their own. Unfortunately, those won’t be able to come back to the States.
Today, we started at 6:30 am with a yoga session, “tuning in” (a few moments of silence to acknowledge the fact that you’re alive, and whatever else you’d like to say “hi” to), and some gardening. I picked tomatoes (heehee) and learned how to make sun-dried tomatoes and prep the bad ones for next season’s seeds. Becca is in some major amounts of bliss, folks. (For those of you who don’t know, tomatoes and I have a rather passionate, lifelong love affair.) Breakfast involved more tomatoes and really tasty strawberry jam. We then learned about compost…and the hardcore among us (myself included, of course) started a compost bin. (Involving more than just dumping stuff in a pile – we learned how to make the optimal compost pile that will go fastest and produce the best kind of soil. A favorite moment was watching Zac water cow manure in the desert – seriously. Manure’s a great component, of course, but it’s too dry by the time it gets too compost, so it needs to be watered.) Lunchtime, showertime, and then making clay bricks and building arches. We successfully built structures we could stand on!
Tonight starts Shabbot (Sabbath), so I’m off to a Shabbot service, followed by a wonderful, celebratory meal.