Israeli warmth--> Yarok Az

In Israel, I always somehow found myself invited to someone's table or into someone's home. Twice I spent the night on a beach on Shabbat, and twice I was invited to share in a Shabbat meal with a large family of friends who was eating near us on the beach.

At first I thought it was because I was a girl, but once it took place with another Colombian girl and once with a guy, so it truly was just because it is a country of brotherhood. Imagine being a country the size of Jersey, having enemies all around your borders, and having something as fundamental as a common culture and religion in common with most of your country? It forms a commonality that makes inviting strangers to dinner, hitchhiking, or inviting a stranger to travel with your parents all that more normal. With this said, if I had been in a hijab, it's quite probable that I would not have had such success with Israeli hospitality. While I am an outsider to the Jewishness of Israel, I very much share a common Western culture with the mainstream culture that even an Arab who has lived in Israel all her life may not.

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Invitation Home
During the earth building workshop, a friend of the workshop organizer, Tal, stopped by. Rachele could not participate because she was with her first newborn in tow, but she lived nearby and wanted to see what we had accomplished. When we had a break, she came into the earthen hut where I was to breast feed, and we got to talking. Within 20 minutes, I had somehow mentioned that I had no definite plans for the weekend, it being Thursday already and she had invited me to go to her parents' home further North. They had been visiting, she said, and they were going to be driving back to their home near the Galilee on Friday evening. They live on the small farm that she grew up on, and just two years ago her older sister and family had moved back to help her parents develop an eco-bed and breakfast. They have goats and make cheese, have organic gardens, some earthen building, and it may be a very interesting experience. Just like that, Friday after the workshop her father came to pick me up, I ate Shabbat dinner at her house, and then I drove North with her parents.

Car Ride North with Avi and Esther
Avi and Esther spoke fabulous English, and we were engaged in great conversation the entire ride.
HISTORY
- Ester: Her mother is English while her father was Iranian and had grown up in India. They met in England, an eventually emigrated to come to Israel.
- Avi: his parents were Romanian. His grandfather died in the Holocaust. At the time, Romanian Jews were rounded up and packed in trains with no destination; there was not yet a proper camp or space for them. Instead, they were driven around for days with no real destination. The goal was to starve and suffocate them.

- Holocaust trials in the 1950's: Ben Gurion pushed for trials to purge the society. Most survivors didn't speak about the Holocaust; it was too difficult so instead they carried black clouds with them that clearly were not healthy for the society. His hope was to educate Israeli society and the world of what had happened. Many were ashamed because of the widely discussed "sheep to the slaughter idea." If they were to speak of it, they feared the questions, "Why did you go?" "Why didn't you resist?" "There were so many of you and so few of them; it doesn't make sense." "Or if perhaps you lived and others didn't, what makes you special? Did you bribe someone? Cooperate with the Germans?"
These questions, of course, were far too painful for many survivors to deal with, so the issues were left unaddressed. The answers aren't easy. The transition of sending Jews to camps did not happen overnight. Long before violence began, around 1935 Jews became separated from society legally, their professions starved, and their voting rights lost. They were then mandated to wear a star at all times, all based on law with a hierarchy of how many Jewish grandparents are necessary to create a Jew. While Jews throughout Europe came in many shapes, sizes, and cultures (reform Jew, anti-religious, secular, Zionist, anti-Zionist...) Hitler propagated one definition of them and made explicate use of terms like "germ" and "parasite" to describe them eating away at the Aryan body. The original camps were meant to educate Germansˆ; they were not yet ready to deal with Jews, and in fact the first camps were reeducation camps meant to deal with any Christian Germans who opposed Hitler. Before Jews were separated out from society, first in ghettos, then in camps and finally in death camps, the goal was to delegitimize their entire culture. Jewish books were burned. By the time there was mass killing of Jews, the Jewish culture had been so delegitimized and the people so lowered to a parasite status that many soldiers felt little to no shame.
During the same time that 6 million European Jews were killed, 27 million Russians (a difficult number to estimate) died during the war. Stalin caused the starvation of as many people as Hitler killed, but the people at least had hope. Many Jews of Europe knew absolutely no one to whom they could turn; everyone was an enemy and everyone wanted them gone. This could explain much of why less resistance is known today. If you were in a death camp and you escaped, where would you go? Everyone outside, as far as you knew, saw you as the enemy and would bring you right back inside. Roughly 2,000 Germans killed the first one million Jews. By the end, about four Germans were needed to kill 2,000 Jews in 15 minutes using a death chamber (not only Jews: other minorities such as Poles, Roma or Gypsies, disabled, etc.)

- (back to car ride with Avi and Esther) ...Gurion's trials helped educate people about the Holocaust, as did plane hijackers in the 70s. If one man with a gun can take over an entire plane of people, then perhaps holocaust is more understandable.
- In Israel, Holocaust education was not in the curricula of schools at all until the 1970s!!! (Imagine 30 years of ignoring the Holocaust in ISRAEL, of all places.)
- As we were driving, we passed the security wall. Where I had become accustomed to seeing simply a small, unassuming and not terribly high fence (with touch sensors) when driving close to the West Bank, here it was a solid, cement wall. As bad as a barrier is at all, this wall gave a message and a feeling much worse than the fence in the rest of the country. Avi explained to me that here, Israel is nine km thick. A thin passage of land nine km from Mediterranean to West bank, dividing Israel into North and South. One attach could divide Israel in half, thus the considerably heightened example of security. The security wall: In Israel, there is a very Berlin-esque wall separating Palestinian territory from Israel, which is very difficult for an unbiased observer to accept. What message does putting up a wall give? To the other? To children who will grow up seeing it as normal? To Israelis who will use it to assert their superiority? With all of that said, before the wall went up, in the early 2000s there was an average of 3 suicide bombers a week in Jerusalem. The 2003 suicide bomb at a hotel on Passover that killed 30 was one of the last straws. After the wall was built, the number of suicide bombers has fallen to relatively almost zero. Other issues, of course, are profiling of all Arabs, IDF guards taking advantage of their positions of power at border patrols, etc. but these are for another discussion.
- Average Israeli spends one month a year in military training, some two to three months, and pilots every Friday until their 50s. This is certainly a challenge to businesses and their growth, but with that said it also creates a strong sense of dedication to one's country that in turn helps build a strong country. Now, after having retired, Avi volunteers as a highway patrolman, giving tickets for reckless driving or not wearing seatbelts. Imagine, an unpaid highway patrolman in the US volunteering out of the goodness of his heart rather than out of necessity for a paycheck!
- Avi had some ideas to describe the reasons for Israeli generosity toward strangers. Jews lasted through a 2,000 year dispora becasue of their culture of caring for brother Jews. A Jew could travel anywhere and at synagogue could find people to take him in or offer him food, money, or anything he may need. Jews still feel constantly "the other" and in danger in their own state, so this culture of caring for their brothers has continued. Along with the reality that many of Israel's early imigrants were predominantly from socialist European mentalities, Israel's sense of loooking out for your brothers continues.
- I learned from several Israelis that Arabs are given less opportunities in Israel's society. They receive far less tax money for their school systems, so understandably there are less Arabs going to universities. Some of Avi's perspectives shed a little light on this issue. Avi said that the Arab world does not have the same culture of volunteering that the Western or Ashkanazi Jew population has. Because much of their society is based upon family units, extended families, and tribe systems, they have a dedication to their families rather than to a larger community of people and that community's common good. An Arab house is spotless, but many people have no problem with throwing bags of trash on the street. People do not want to pay for their trash to be collected and pay taxes for many of these services that service the "common good"; instead they see only their house and their family as their responsibility. This is far different from the mindset of Israelis. Israel is the country of the Kibbutzim movement, the world's best example of communal life, where not even your home is owned by you and everything is communal. Thus, in Arab communities far less taxes are paid than in Jewish communities. So while less resources may reflect the reasons that Arabs struggle more to get ahead in the long run, less opportunities are reflections of their refusal to pay more taxes (all opinions of Avi.) Arabs do not have to serve in the Israeli army, either.
- Avi said that there is a resounding hate in much of the Arab community for Jewish Israelis. With that said, when the issue of redrawing the line and placing those communities under Palestinian control arises, the people's response is "absolutely not." Apparently, despite Arabs' disdain for the Jewish population, they are still happier being in a stable state (again, all of this is "fact" based on opinions of Avi and other Israelis that I encountered.)

Yarok Az
Ilannya is situated between the Sea of Galilee and Nazareth, about 500 meters off of the Jesus Trail (a 4 day hiking trail on which many Christians come to walk in Jesus' footsteps.) Ilannya means "Tree" in Hebrew and "Yarok Az" means both "Green Goat" and "Deep Green" in Hebrew. Yarok Az is the name of the family's ecotourism guesthouse. Avi and Esther raised their family here, and two years ago their middle daughter, Hadar, her husband Sahal, and their two daughters of two and five, moved and expanded another house on their property. Shahal had been a navy seal and then had a successful business job in Haifa, but he left his job to follow his wife's dream of opening this ecotourism center. Now he milks goats twice a day and works on the farm, training young boys who hope to make it into the seals to help make ends meet. On the farm they have about 10 goats that they milk with a machine and then use the milk for themselves and for making cheese and yogurt to sell. They have a tiny little shop with their own cheeses and other local goods such as granolas and more cheeses. They have organized a monthly local farmers' market on their property to encourage local consumption and to try to give locals a venue to sell their goods. They have a big geodesic dome and two bamboo cabins for visitors to sleep in, a bathhouse, and one compost toilet. They have an organic vegetable and fruit garden and even an earthen oven and earthen bench.
When I arrived, I was invited to enjoy wine, tea, and cake with the family and their friends and then stay out in their lovely guesthouse. In the morning I helped (watched) the Shahal milk the goats and then talked to him about the farm over homemade granola and homemade goat yogurt. Avi took me to Nazareth in the afternoon (just because I had mentioned I had wanted to go!) and took me on a truly personalized tour. I had Arabic coffee in his friend's car repair shop. He took me to the shop where he buys Arabic coffee where I bought the perfect blend, one that he has spent years experimenting with to develop, and I bought Halva (a sesame and sugar desert) to give to the family and a local brand of sesame tahini for myself. He gave me a tour of the largest Catholic Church in the Middle East and the local market, and then treated me to Baklava (or specifically kanafe) at a giant, booming baklava shop that another Arab friend of his owns.

My Help on the Farm
At first I had only planned on staying for a day, then having Riki pick me up as she drove North to the Golan to experience her home. But staying for one day and two days was the difference between only taking and being able to give back. Once they expressed their hopes that I would be able to help their farm, I couldn't go. Instead, I helped them register onto the WWOOFing website, Hostel World, and Trip Advisor with my eloquent mastery of the English language. I also helped them with earthen plastering projects. Their stove and bench needed to be recovered with a final plaster layer, and their compost bathroom walls needed to be recovered and finished. These were projects that had just been sitting for 8 months, and noone had gotten around to doing them, but my being there made it happen. When I left, I had a confident feeling that I had truly helped this family. The morning that I left, two WWOOFers had already contacted Hadar about coming to volunteer; within 24 hours they had already noticed the post on the website. It was such a wonderful feeling to be able to give without expecting anything in return. Avi took me into Nazareth just because he wanted me to be able to experience it, and he bought me traditional desert and pomegranate juice because they were first experiences that he wanted to share. There was nothing in it for him; just the pleasure of giving. The same was for me. Other than food and board, I receive no payment for this work. But with that said, everywhere I stayed I worked incredibly hard. I think it was because I was working with the people who were directly benefiting from my work. In most modern jobs, every hour is clocked and accounted for, and frequently you do not see how your work comes together to benefit the whole. I remember, in jobs where I had to clock in and out, I would find ways to leave close to 8 minutes after the quarter hour; it meant that I would be paid for the next quarter hour including 7 minutes that I did not work. There was no sense of dedication to the cause for which I worked because I did not feel like I was substantially helping the people I worked for directly. In Israel, I worked with small people. Without my work on any given day, these families would be that much further behind in achieving their goals of building their houses or establishing their bed and breakfast. I definitely found myself working with as much or more drive than I have in any other job where I was receiving pay, simply because I knew that the harder I worked the more I would be directly benefiting the family. It was SUCH a nice feeling!

Back to Rotem
I had spent two weeks in Rotem at the very beginning of my stay, and I had given my word that I would come back at the end to work again before I left. I do not think that they really expected me to, and I do not know that I would have had I not already given my word (as always, when the end comes near you realize all the things that you wish you had done and try to fit them all in during your very last few days.) But they were SO excited that I had returned! They were elated that I had come to help them work, if only for 1 1/2 days. Yotam had lost all of his WWOOFers and most of his employees, so for about a month he had been in a bit of a rut. Working on such a huge project alone shows very slow signs of improvement, and must be very unrewarding and tiring. But my return really got him kicking again because we completed a lot! In the first day alone we tested some floor patches, filled in an entire door, and came up with a solution to their bedroom step dilemma. I think because of my enthusiasm, teamwork, and effort, toward the end of our full day working Yotam wholeheartedly said, "I am really going to miss you, Alex!" I feel like little moments like this are my raison d'etre in this world. Making people happy and embedding in them some of my own enthusiasm after I leave I am coming to think is perhaps one of the best uses of my aspirations and talents.

Eden's Herbs

What is a Ponzi scheme?

A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds in opportunities claimed to generate high returns with little or no risk. In many Ponzi schemes, the fraudsters focus on attracting new money to make promised payments to earlier-stage investors and to use for personal expenses, instead of engaging in any legitimate investment activity.
-- US Security and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov .)

In December of 2008 (when I was away in Asia) the biggest, longest, most widespread ponzi scheme in history was discovered. Bernie Madoff, a 70-year-old investment banker in New York whose hedge fund, Ascot Partners, was widely known for it's high stability and double-digit returns (although in retrospect such unrealistically high returns should have raised warning signs.) Amazingly, his scheme lasted about 20 years, creating a huge spiderweb of interests and investments involved and apparently 50 billion all told. (http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/12/madoff-ponzi-hedge-pf-ii-in_rl_1212croesus_inl.html )

Well, Bernie Madoff had an interesting relationship with Hofstra. He graduated from Hofstra in 1960 and in 2004 was named to the Board of Trustees.

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I arrived to the small town of Neti Vot to meet Bat Zion, who then drove me to the even smaller Moshav Shokeda to her permaculture farm, Eden's Herbs. On the way we had many discussions. She was quite negative about the farm, warning me that she would not be offended if I did not stay for long. This left me a little uneasy, but I tried to laugh it off and assure her it couldn't be so bad. She began describing what she does on the farm: right now she is doing a lot of Japanese translating online to pay bills (much more than she had to in the past) because of financial troubles. She grows medicinal plants, and she grows a very specific plant that is being researched for its cancer fighting potential for her "guru," or a specialist she works closely with in the South. The research on this was being funded by some sort of grant...and that money was lost in Mr. Madoff's ponzi scheme. As Bat Zion described this to me, she definitely felt like she needed to simplify it for someone who would not know what she was talking about. Perhaps someone unfamiliar with a ponzi scheme, and much less with the name Bernie Madoff. On the contrary, I sat there listening, feeling my stomach turn. 'No, mam-in fact, I am quite familiar with the man who is causing you such struggles. Actually, the university that I attend entrusts our important decisions to be made by him on the most influential body in the university.

I felt personally guilty on so many levels:
a) This egotistical man from big city New York (where I live) is ruthlessly taking advantage of this small farm woman trying to be self-sustaining, to feed her family, and to discover safer, more economical alternatives to unnatural pharmaceuticals and to potentially fight cancer (her).
b) Somehow, every bad decision that Hofstra makes I feel personally responsible for all of the bad decisions that Hofstra makes. He was probably on the board of trustees because of his well-know insane amounts of money; not because of his dedication to higher education or his real knowledge of what is best for a university or its people who spend every day there in the long run.

Earthen Building Workshop

While I was in Rotem--the first WWOOF stop on my trip where I remained for two weeks doing earthen building--I met a wonderful Israeli woman named Riki from the Golan Heights. She had grown up on Kibbutz En Gedi, and throughout the past years has become very involved with earthen building and has become quite the specialist earthen plasterer. Yotam from Rotem would have her come work every so often for expertise to help build his home, so for a few days we worked together as she helped us with plastering projects. She had invited me to visit her at her home in the Golan, so I called her when I had a few weekends left to take her up on her offer. She said, "Actually, I am doing an earth building workshop right outside of Jerusalem in Sataf. It will be three days next week. I think you would really enjoy it. Do you want to come?" I had been already on an unsuccessful search for a new WWOOF farm for that last week, so the timing could not have been better! I spent the weekend in Jerusalem couch surfing and then took a bus headed for Sataf. Tal Bash picked me up at the train stop to take me to her secluded home in Sataf where she lives with her husband Gidi, a forester. The two, along with one other family, where chosen 25 years ago to live in Sataf, an ancient village that today is a park/ nature reserve. Sataf is known for its terraced agriculture system, which has been rebuilt and reused by the many peoples that have lived there and is still being used today. There are also two springs and lots of hiking. City dwellers from nearby often pay for a plot of space on the terraces to have their own gardens or come to run or bike in fresh air. Tal and her husband's job is to care for all of Sataf. It is, in fact, a pretty good deal. They have wide open space for pretty much any project they choose. Tal can grow anything she chooses on the terraces and can do these building workshops with no shortage of Earth or building material. There is a giant public garden that we went to in the morning before the workshop to gather an abundance of tomatoes, cabbage, eggplant, etc, and they have their own garden of fresh herbs along their house. Behind their house, they have 300 fig trees. !!! 300 fig trees! I made it my job every morning to go out to pick figs for everyone to enjoy, and became quite the fig connoisseur. What a wonderful fruit. It has the delicacy of a flower. It is truly a local food, because it is only realistic to enjoy figs if they are from your backyard or someone elses very close. They are difficult to pick without partly squashing, and they are far too delicate to successfully transport long distances or to keep for a long shelf life, making them truly a pleasure of the moment. Luckily, they can also be enjoyed dried or as jam...but still, all three are better fresher and thus closer to the source. I love this: it teaches us to truly enjoy in the present. Tell the average American he cannot have apples, oranges, or bananas the moment he wants them and he will a) not understand and b) feel affronted by the audacity of being told "no" for an answer. Tell someone who understand small scale agriculture and appreciates food that he cannot have certain fruits or vegetables, and he will patiently wait until they are in season and enjoy them that much more when they finally arrive. In my year living with a southern Italian village, when we had apples, we had baskets of them. When we had plums, we had an abundance of them and when we had chestnuts it seemed that there was little else in the world to eat. Perhaps overdosing on figs or chestnuts can have its own negative impacts and scientifically having all of our necessary nutrients spread out evenly throughout the year is ideal, but mankind has survived along with the season for quite a long time successfully.

Earth building and Moroccan basket weaving Workshop
- Three Days
- July 28-30, 2010
- Tal's backyard, Sataf

- Moroccan basket weaving uses dried date branches to create a variety of baskets, purses, hats, and ornaments. I actually made two baskets...but didn't have room to bring them home with me.

- Earth Building: we did a variety of projects to practice the many different stages of building. The finished products weren't necessarily what was important, rather it was the processes to get there. We designed and made a bench out of earth and straw and plastered it with earth and donkey dung (because cows have too many stomachs the fibers are broken down too small, but the dung of donkeys, horses, elephants, or camels works just fine.) We also made bowls from clay and paper pulp by using a sand mound covered in fabric as the mold, and we made small nic-nacs from clay and donkey dung using small twigs to hold inside to act as support (if, for example, we were making an animal with legs.) We painted the side of one of Tal's cobb huts with natural paints, the north side that doesn't receive any rain. At last year's workshop they had built a wood burning stove, creating the dome with much the same method as we made the bowls (but with a much larger pile of sand!) so this year we made a rocket stove.

| (Pot)|
|______|
| |
| ^ |
| ^ |_____
| ^
| __<__<_<_(air flow)
|____|_______

A rocket stove was developed to use energy much more efficiency. In many parts of the world it is much easier to find small twigs than giant logs, so the flame is fed through the bottom with branches, bamboo, etc. In the combustion chamber the flame itself is lifted off the bottom, keeping air constantly circulating around the fire, thus creating less heat loss to smoke. The rises straight up the the pot sitting on top, usually surrounded with some sort of skirt to further direct the heat up the sides of the pot. The stoves design allows it to use about 1/2 the energy of conventional stoves and allows it to use less desirable wood fuel sources, and it's insulation creates less hazard potential.

At this workshop, a man who had taken it the previous year returned to volunteer as our chef. Thus everyday while we were out working, he would be cooking at least a 3/4 dozen dishes for us to feast on in the afternoon. I believe that once there was a tiny dish of meat: that was it. The rest was unquestionably vegetarian. Salads, vegetables of every sort, bulgar, lentils, eggs, Israeli Shakshuka (a tomato and egg dish,)and a laundry list of deliciousness.

Permaculture to beaches to Holy ruins

After my week of cob building in Beer Milka, I spent a week in the tiny Moshav of Shokeda living on Batzion's permaculture farm. Batzion moved from the States 8 years ago to Israel and is now on her fourth year of developing this permaculture farm. Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in natural ecologies. Permaculture is sustainable land use design, often using patterns that occur in nature to maximise effect and minimise work. Elements in a system are viewed in relationship to other elements, where the outputs of one element become the inputs of another. Within a Permaculture system, work is minimised, “wastes” become resources, productivity and yields increase, and environments are restored. Permaculture is based on 12 principles (http://permacultureprinciples.com/principles.php) that can be applied to any environment, at any scale from dense urban settlements to individual homes, from farms to entire regions.

I learned less than I would have liked during my week on this farm (between distractions within the family and a day of fasting) but I was able to share with them my knowledge of ecological design and begin them on an earthen building project to carry on after I left. I did see a small window into how a permaculture farm functions. For example, their compost toilet is portable. They build a deep hole in the ground and place the compost toilet over it. After several months of filling the same location (human nitrogen plus straw or sawdust) the entire structure is moved to a new location. The first continues to compost until eventually a tree is planted to make use of all of the nutrients. There are long pipes leading out of the shower and the kitchen sink: one leading to the roots of the banana trees and the other to the willow and surrounding tomato plants. Passion fruit vines are growing up the side of the house and over the porch roof, providing cooling for the roof and delicious fruit. There is a solar cooker outside--a box lined with tin foil and covered in glass, to slowly cook or heat food during the day. Food is mostly from local farmers, and flour they grind themselves. Batzion made her own rocket stove, developed originally for third world countries to use small twigs to produce a very high combustion efficiency for cooking. She grows plants that are native to the area and that take little to no extra watering, she grows medicinal herbs to hopefully eventually bring affordable relief to all income levels, and she uses her own seeds and clippings to grow plants affordably.

After a week with Batzion's family, I head up North with another WWOOFer from her farm. While initially headed for water hiking in Nahal Yehudiya in the Golan Heights, several detours changed our weekend plans. First we ended up on the beach in Palmakhim, a little south of Tel Aviv, for a nature party. This beach was a wild beach, and for years people have been fighting developers from building a hotel on the beach front which would ultimately take the beach away from the hundreds that come regularly now and enjoy it. Recently the battle was won--no hotel will be built--and in celebration there was a big, day long rave on the beach. We arrived around 13:00 to people already dancing under tents. We set up our tent right on the beach right on the outskirts of the action, and shared some food with our neighbors (one had studied agriculture and knew Yotam and Tammi, the family I stayed with in Rotem, and their earthbag building project!) We took a swim in the sea, and then enjoyed the party of dancing into the night. The next day we enjoyed some Yemenite food and barbecue with our neighbors on the other side (a few families who camp every week on the beach, quite normal here,) and left to go further north. We ended up visiting Heifa instead, slightly easier to reach than the water hiking in the Golan, and spent the day visiting the Baha'i Gardens and nearby Akko. The Bahai'i Gardens were built for the Baha'i faith, founded in 19th century Persia. It emphasizes the spiritual unity and equality of all humankind and recognizes all profits (Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha, Abraham, etc.) and two of its own. There are 6 million Baha'i and, while the Baha'i religion's most important buildings and holy sites lie in Akko and Haifa, Israel, Baha'i are not suppose to live in Israel near their holy sites and instead are scattered all throughout the world (from Persia to Australia and Chile to the US,) usually coming to Israel for one to two years as volunteers at the gardens. We then headed to Akko, 20 minutes further North along the coast, a city of about 40,000 with an overall Jewish majority but a distinct Muslim feel within the walls of the old city. It is one of Israel's oldest continuously inhabited cities; it's name appears in Egyptian writings from the 16th century BC. We walked through the lively Shook, or market, and arrived 1/2 hour after Hommus Said's close to miss out on some of the best hommus in Israel (sigh.) but got some fabulous falafel on the street. I bought a full kilo of the amazing Za'atar that I ate daily in Jordan--a mix of dried spices, sesame seeds, and salt--and took in the middle eastern feels of the boisterous market. Now I'm in Jerusalem staying with a couch surfer, ready to begin a new epoch of adventure!

Rotem

Rotem is a settlement of all young families, about 20, that is only nine years old. There is already one completed earthen home, this one in progress, and who knows: perhaps more to come? Yotam and Tammi thought of nearly everything when designing this home, and because of the size of this house they are building, Yotam is probably one of the leading earthbag specialists in the world. Because he was adamant about building his home the most ecologically possible, he did not build it to Israeli home safety standards, with a concrete floor and bomb shelter. With stones as a foundation houses were built safely for 1000s of years (as concrete is only less than 200 years old) so certainly Yotam can do it safely today. The house has three bedrooms, two baths, a huge living room, a kitchen, and a cut out left in case they choose to add on in the future. There is the possibility for a second story in all three bedrooms. There is a green roof, or a roof planted with a variety of plants to increase green space, act as the family garden, and help to insulate and regulate the temperature of the house. Everything from the wall paint and the floors, to the master bed frame and the bathtubs, to the bench couch in the living room is made out of earth.

On two days I plastered a bathroom wall with lime along with a really groovy woman who grew up on a kibbutz and who is a "specialist" on earthen plastering (a dream specialization of mine: I would LOVE to be able to put that on a business card.) The plastering technique is a very intricate century old Moroccan method. Morocco has a great history of earthen building, and this technique prevents water from entering the surface of the walls in areas vulnerable to water and humidity like bathrooms and kitchens. Apparently other people pay a lot of money to learn this technique...which I learned for free!

My last contribution, before leaving Rotem, was to paint two murals on the walls in the house. This way, there will be a little mark of Alex for as long as they live there!

Going on Week Two at Rotem

First entire week of Earthbag house building complete!

In my first week I worked mainly on building a mud floor and a swimming pool. My average work week is Mon-Thurs, 7:00 until 3:and change with a half an hour break for breakfast...and then usually am finished for the day after lunch and dishwashing by 5:00. Luckily I'm enjoying myself, or this would border on exploitation!

We eat wonderfully. No meat (they, as should be the norm in the world, eat meat or fish about 3 times a week,) lots of vegetables, grains, and an abundance of tahini/ hummus.

I took a Moroccan basket weaving class from a neighbor who learned in Morocco to make almost anything from fig branches, which perhaps I will continue this week.


On Thursday evening I went to Tel Aviv for a lovely weekend and returned Sunday with my host Yotam, who is studying Tai Chi at Tel Aviv University. I stayed with a wonderful couch surfer who provided great conversation and a fabulous insider tour of the city, including the best:
- ice cream (Pistacchio and Havla, or a seseme seed dessert
- Yemenite food (Jachnun and Malawach, both doughy, heavy, and delicious!)
- A hole in the wall restaurant with one cook/owner and a daily changing menu
- A live drum circle on the beach
and probably covering at least 10 miles by foot over the course of the weekend. He's Russian and moved to Israel in about '91, during which time large numbers of highly educated Russians moved to Israel, some finding university jobs...and others working as taxi drivers.

I spent ALL DAY outside Saturday, getting a few jellyfish stings and worse, horrible sunburn on my chin. And by horrible I mean big red blistering by Sunday. Upon returning to Rotem, I put honey on it as per a recommendation, and put extra in a cup covered in plastic to use in the morning. When lifted the plastic cover in the morning to reapply, I was greated by a giant cockroach belly-up who must have died a very bittersweet death. I assume he had been the one I saw scurrying across my floor before I turned off the light. Or perhaps the one who I usually see hanging out by the dishes in our kitchen. Either way, I decided to forgo picking around him and got fresh honey to redress my wound.

Today I continued building the pool, which looks wonderful, and am now practicing my Hebrew with renewed enthusiasm. Tomorrow I begin teaching myself the Hebrew alphabet!

First WWOOF Experience 6/21/2010

Brief first description: I do not have so much time. Or much finger patience.

Not because of the rearranged keyboard as is often the case while abroad, no no: but because my hands are absolutely worked raw. Today was my first day of hard manual labor.

After my ADL Campus Leaders Program ended, I spend three days in Tel Aviv staying with a couch surfer. I did not get to experience the city much because he lived outside of Tel Aviv, but I will definitely make it back to dance tango with my Argentina tango partner (an Israeli who happened to be in Buenos Aires at the same time I was;) to see my close high school friend Ruben Rehr from Germany who was an exchange student in Port Clinton the same year my dear sister Julia lived with us; or to meet my new South African friend Siyalo (who I literally just met there)! Sunday morning I left Tel Aviv with Yotem--in a vehicle that had to be older than the first Honda I can remember my mom owning from my childhood and in significantly worse shape--to come to his house in Rotem, outside of Bet She'an. It is a tiny settlement of about 20-30 families in the MIDDLE OF THE DESERT. Quite literally we drove through an hour of desert to arrive, and there is little other life to be seen from where we are, other than Jordan as we look out at the beautiful view to the East. I am staying here to help them build their earthbag house. http://picasaweb.google.com/alisonlebovic7/Israel2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCJrlrK3j4prkDw&feat=content_notification# (here are old pictures; the house is now almost completely constructed and we are working on the inside.)

This week we will be working on the floor, a backbreaking proceedure. I started the morning at 7:00 sifting rocks with a shovel, and continued by laying down a floor of a thick mix of clay, sand, earth, and straw in just one of the numerous rooms. At 10:30 we took a break for breakfast, and after 15:00 we called it a day. You do not realize how pruned your hands become working with wet clay until you wash them, and you do not wash them often. By the end, my hands had been so soft from the water that when I washed them I found at least a dozen cuts and open sores. I am using neosporin like lotion and taking the pain like a soldier. You remember those work gloves I had you help me search for the night before I left, mom? Now I am reminded why, only a day too late. Sometimes my forethought is even better than I am prepared to know how to use!
I think that I will sleep outside tonight; this family also built an earthen community space that is fairly open with a roof and numerous sofas and chairs underneath. I am here with Yotem and Tami, the parents, and four children of about 6, 4, 3, and 1. Moshe and Joshua are also working with us, Moshe from a nearby village and Joshua from Conneticut (but quite uncommunicative, so I may not have much more luck with him than I do with the Hebrew speaking rest of the community.)

Wish me luck on Day 2 of work; hopefully the gloves help!