Qasir Al-sir (week 3)

**I'll be posting about week 2 later, just wanted to post this first :)

Friday March 1st –Sat March 2^nd

Fairly last minute Thursday evening, our leader informed us that we would have an opportunity to stay over at a Bedouin village that she had stayed on during her masters studies: Qasir Al-sir.

Qasir Al-sir would be hosting a Mud and Music event, where volunteers could help them build and improve a part of the village to prepare it for eco-tourism. This would be during the weekend (Friday and Saturday in Israel), so we would have to leave early Friday morning. A group of us decided to go, and we made plans to meet at 9:30. Now, that’s not really that early, but Thursday night is the beginning of the weekend, and a pub night. (Shabbat occurs during Friday night, so no pub). We made minimal plans: bring about 100 skekels for bus fare, some for food, water bottles, warm clothes and a sleeping bag.

Around the same time, people also decided that we should go to the zula (a shack in the desert mountain outside of the kibbutz), since we hadn’t been there yet. Many people had already left for the weekend, so we knew pub wasn’t going to be well attended. Still, it had been a long week, so people were still pretty intent on going. We broke into groups with the idea of meeting up in the desert later. I skipped pub and headed straight to the fire pit with a few people, thinking that I wouldn’t stay out late (haha). When we got there, some Ketura volunteers had already started the fire. They left quickly to go to pub, and the rest of the Arava kids met up with us. By then, some of them were a bit tipsy, and insisted we make the hike to the zula. Throwing sleep to the wind (that happens a lot, here) we all agreed to try and find the zula. Thus began our 30 minute wandering through the night desert, herding tipsy students back onto the trails. By the time we got to the foot of the sloped ravine that led up to the zula, a few of us were a bit too tired for the rowdiness of the large group. Three of us decided to hike up a smaller ridge and stargaze instead. The sky was clear, and we tried to point out constellations (they disappear over the horizon quickly).  The big dipper, little dipper, and Orion/Taurus are the easiest to spot, here. We could see the campfire from the larger group at the zula, where the light reflected off of the ravine's sides. The very cold wind eventually drove us back to Mahon Arava. We got back at the early hour of 2 am. I think the larger group got back around 2:30.

The next morning, I woke up early and grabbed some breakfast at the dining hall. My breakfast staple is toast with cottage cheese and one of the delicious jams Ketura serves. I also packed more of that, some hard-boiled eggs, cucumbers, tahini and jelly sandwhiches, an apple, and bread and zataar for lunch. This turned out to be a good idea, because lunch was a bit late. Ten of us met up at the bus stop and caught an Egged bus to Be’ersheva. I sat next to M and chatted with her about Israel v US education systems. We shared similar disappointments about the quality of primary education and also sincere appreciation for educators that put a lot of effort into their work. We stopped at a gas station plaza where we bought hummus (pronounced khou-moouse, not huh-muss) and petted an adorable puppy. That was my first experience of acute homesickness-missing my dog, Puppy. When we arrived in Be’ersheva, we headed straight to a bathrrom. You’ve got to drink A LOT of water here to stay hydrated, and it’s only in the 70’s F. Bathrooms in cities often charge at least a shekel for use, and they’re not always very sanitary, but we were still grateful. We walked a few blocks and dropped off the heavy clothes donation boxes we’d brought with us at a taxi service center we’d be using later. Then, we headed to an open market to buy food for our next few meals that we’d be eating at Qasir Al-sir.


Market

We arrived at one of the Be’ersheva markets with not much of a plan. A leader at Qasir Al-sir had requested that we bring some items: pumpkin (squash), coconut milk, curry, olive oil, veggies, etc. We split up into groups by what we would get: veggies, fruit, and miscellaneous-my group. I went with two other students. This was my first experience with an open market, and it took me about two minutes to fall in love. It was extremely chaotic: packed people were scrambling through the lanes, you had to sidestep fallen produce, sellers called out their prices and threw their sold items, and vendors playfully bickered back and forth across the lanes. We went first to a spice vendor looking for the odd requested items, and found curry, with the help of a vendor across the lane who translated for us. We attempted to buy olive oil from the spice vendor, but the neighboring vendor convinced us that his was much better. He had us try the olive oil in a cup, much like a drink. One of the students shook his head at us, laughing, but it was delicious! The vendor also insisted that we try his olives, free of charge. Before I came to Israel, I detested olives, but I'm learning to like them. The olive oil vendor then directed us to where we could buy pita. The pita vendor directed us to “the best” hummus (from the North, of course) which was easily ten times better than the best hummus I’ve had before. All the students reconvened to compare our buys, and to share lunch. Someone brought back Bamba, creatively marketed as Bambi. We thought that was hilarious. We headed back to the taxi service, hopped in a ten person van, and rode to Qasir Al-sir.

Qasir Al-sir

We arrived in mid afternoon. We put down our gear in the large tent we’d be sleeping under.

The tent-no electricity at night, but wonderful campfires :)

Then our leader took us on a hike up on the hills, so that we could see the Bedouin village(s) from above. She explained to us how this village in the Negev desert came to form, how a transient and nomadic people were forced to settle. The British Mandate coerced most Bedouins either into moving to cities/towns or settling in a random area. The settling was done without thought for infrastructure. As a result, many villages do not have sufficient power grids, water sanitation, water supplies, or health and education facilities. Historically, the Bedouin held no formal claims (deeds) to the lands they traveled in, or even settled in, and as more land in Israel was claimed by the government, conflicts arose. Most Bedouin villages in Israel today are unrecognized, meaning they have little to no legal protections or rights under Israeli law. Qasir Al-sir is one of the few exceptions, and only recently became recognized by Israel in 2003. If you want more information about Negev Bedouin villages,  please go here. Recognition by the state doesn’t guarantee economic stability, so the people in Qasir Al-sir are trying to come up with ways to support themselves. One idea has been to create an eco-tourism program in the village.

Boiling tea!

 Ideally, visitors would be able to stay in the village, learn about Bedouin customs, and also witness how the Bedouin are using permaculture to support themselves and keep a connection to desert ecosystems. After our overlook-tour, we went back down and got to work.

Olive Grove

More volunteers had also come for the weekend activities, so we split up into task groups. Most students chose to float through the jobs, but I stayed mostly with the terracing job. As the village is settled in a valley and there are seasonal rains, they experience both severe flooding and desert dry seasons.  To try to improve the water flow, we started on the most uphill section by preparing terraced gardens. We worked with the lay of the land, running the terraces parallel to the natural slopes. This method was chosen to decrease runoff and slow the water allowing for better percolation. To keep the terraces and built-up soil stable, we built rock walls. My Da has used this in a lot of his land developments, so the skill came in handy!  We first had to find the rocks, then fit them together, which is a lot harder than expected. We were able to finish one rock wall during our stay, so there is only left.

Other projects included: 

Digging out channels to decrease flooding of the olive orchards

Planting trees for produce and to soak up flood water

Mish Mish, the tree that we sponsored for 50 shekels

Making mud to fix the worn-down sections of the mud-houses

Building tire gardens

Preparing snacks and meals

Zataar and Breads

In the evenings, we ate dinner, sat around the campfire, told “scary” stories (pitiful, really), sang songs like "Down To The Water To Pray" (impressive harmonies!), cuddled to fight off the freezing temperatures, and laughed uncontrollably. This was an educational and fantastic trip, and we’re hoping to go back at least once more this semester.