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.

Snorkeling Sites

Thursday morning (after the hike) we went snorkeling again. This session was even cooler. We didn’t have a guide, so it was more of a “free snorkel.” And we found some really awesome stuff – a lionfish, a moray eel that swam with a school of fish for ten meters or so, and a sizable octopus that was moving around a good amount. =AWESOME.

Dawn Hike!

Thursday morning we were treated to a dawn hike up a mountain in the desert overlooking the Red Sea. Talk about a glorious hike and a wonderful view. Saw four countries at once - Israel, Jordan, Egypt (the Sinai Peninsula) and Saudi Arabia.

Off to the Qibbuz!

We're off to Qibbuz (Kibbutz) Lotan, and I'm not sure what the internet status will be like. I will check back in with you as soon as possible!

Off to the Qibbuz!

We're off to Qibbuz (Kibbutz) Lotan, and I'm not sure what the internet status will be like. I will check back in with you as soon as possible!

Snorkeling!

Welcome to Eilat, one of Israel’s southern-most cities. Located on the Red Sea – and actually very close to the Sinai Peninsula, the location of my first coral reef snorkeling experience last year in Egypt. We’re learning about coral reef creation, preservation, and destruction. We snorkeled in a reef reserve. Parts of the reef are roped off, and there’s a line across the entire shelf so that humans don’t travel too close. In non-reserve areas, there is very little to stop tourists and others from walking on the reef, breaking off pieces, etc. We’ve had one lecture thus far, and I’ll be leaving for another soon. It’s been great so far, and I’m not just talking about the swimming!

Dear Facebook

1. No, I do not speak Hebrew, nor do I want to participate in the translation project. I already am! Note the Arabic.
2. Why did I just type "military entombed" as the phrase to post a website as my status? Can you not find other, less morbid words with which to create security? Good grief.

Fun for Becca!

Becca got to play in more dark, dank, constricted spaces today. I had a very wonderful day hiking and crawling. We saw the monastery constructed on the site to which they believe John the Baptist fled. Several childhood fantasies were relieved. (To my never-ending chagrin, I had the most absurd crush on John the Baptist when I was six. Don’t ask. I don’t know.)

FoEME

Friends of the Earth Middle East was generated over ten years ago as a joint project between Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. Originally, its creator saw an opportunity with the peace wrought by the Oslo Accords to start looking at environmental sustainability. With the breakdown of the peace process, though, this turned on its head: Environmental sustainability projects were now a road to peace. FoEME now does a variety of educational, advocacy, and sustainability projects focused on joint needs (wastewater treatment, conservation of regional water sources, etc.). It’s been very successful. A particularly joyful story: In one region, FoEME’s advocacy halted construction of the Barrier in a section that would have cut off a peaceful Palestinian village from a nearby Israeli area – neighborhoods that had been previously friendly. Rather than arguing on the basis of human rights, illegal construction, etc. (arguments which have been made before but have not carried the day), FoEME argued against the construction on ecological grounds. And they won!

Further Arabic Puzzling

In Arabic graffiti, it's easy to miss a dot. I woke up this morning wondering if perhaps the "ر" was actually a "ز." If this is the case, the sentence read
لن نزمل عنك يا قدس
And one interpretation would be "We will not go with you, Jerusalem."
I can see that as having some political meaning. So perhaps that's it.

My First Monday

Had a nice, uplifting Monday...or not.
We did a tour of the Palestinian neighborhoods (that is, slums) in East Jerusalem this morning. Saw the Wall nice and close. Read some graffiti in Arabic.

One incredibly fun (at least, that's the way I choose to see it) saying written repeatedly on the Wall:
لن نرمل عنك يا قدس
This is my translation and interpretation of the saying, so I'm not exactly sure of it. But some general thoughts:
لن is the Arabic negation (not, no, etc.)
رمل the noun means "sand," "grit." The نرمل means it's a verb applying to the person the sentence is addressing.
عن is "about," "on," "for;" the ك is a second person plural. So عنك=for/about you.
يا comes before you name someone/something you're addressing.
قدس=consecrated/holy/sanctified; it is the Arabic name for Jerusalem.
So they're saying something along the lines of "You will not ____ for you, oh Jerusalem." I am still trying to figure out what they're trying to say. I shall keep you updated, because it's now going to be on my mind all night. It's complicated by the fact that they're talking to Jerusalem, not to Israel. Though the Palestinians may be speaking in anger against the municipality of Jerusalem...

Got home decently early and wrote a bunch of stuff...so go read the many new entries on the "Issues in Development" page!

Not just peace, but Just Peace

The Holy Land deserves more than just peace. It deserves justice.
Listening to people speak about a possible two-state solution, the Barrier, the “other,” I worry that people desiring peace are aiming for personal security rather than justice. By “just peace,” I mean negative peace – the absence of war. Many Israelis and Palestinians are for this negative peace. They desire to live without fear from gunshots. Over time, they have come to recognize that this may well come at a price (giving up part of Jerusalem, ceding territory, etc.). But all too often, I fear, this concession comes from a pragmatic realization rather than a commitment to true peace. A mere ceasefire – just peace – is no peace at all.
And the Holy Land deserves more. How can we claim this region to still be holy if gross injustices to humanity – treatment all of our faiths condemn – is allowed to run rampant? We cannot point fingers; no one can. All of us allow the injustices to occur. Christians act unjustly towards Jews, Muslims, and other Christians (not to mention those of other or no faith). As do all other people. And we, the perpetrators, cannot excuse ourselves. We must actively work to bring justice to this land. Because if it cannot happen here, how can we expect it to happen anywhere else?
So I have found my goal for the summer. Not just peace, but Just Peace.
(Let me add that I’m not expecting to achieve it this summer. But I do seek to find those who are working towards it and learn how I might, someday, manage to make it happen…with a LOT of help.)

Sunday, June 13

Huzzah for academics! Today we had a fairly light day. Left in the morning for the Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus campus (where I’ll be staying during Yael’s program). After getting through security (always a delight when you don’t have ID and the guards aren’t expecting a random visiting group), we headed for a classroom and were treated to a lecture by Noam Levin. Noam studied sand dune shifts on the western bank. I have discussed many of the issues in the essay found on the “Reflections” page of this blog, so I won’t describe the lecture in detail here. Suffice it to say that I greatly enjoyed the academic discussion, dork that I am.
We then had a good amount of time between lectures. Eric took us to a gorgeous view of the Old City on campus, where we took some group pictures. We had a leisurely lunch, during which we got into a discussion on religion and faith. After lunch Eric took us to the opposite end of campus to see the view towards the Dead Sea and treated us to a mini-lecture on the history and current status of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
At 2, we met with Itay Fischhendler to learn about “unilateral environmentalism” in Israeli wastewater treatment. “Unilateral environmentalism” refers to decisions made by a single body (in this case, the state of Israel, without cooperation or consultation with the Palestinian Authority). Many water basins transcend the Green Line (the Israeli-Palestinian border), resulting in water polluted by one population to affect the other. Currently, Israel has abandoned cooperation (or bilateral environmentalism) in favor of creating treatment plants at each border, treating water as it enters Israel’s borders. This is a suboptimal solution, both politically and environmentally. The cost is taken from taxes collected by Israel on imported Palestinian goods (collected legally under the Oslo Accords in exchange for the providing of water and electricity), but much damage is done by the wastewater before it gets to the Israeli border.
And now, we’re done for the day and I have several hours. Hurray for catching up on the blog (finally and at last, I’ve typed up field notes from the airport discussion) and other miscellaneous tasks!