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.
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