27 kilos of bread and 40 pomegranates later...

We have left Ezuz.

Although it was an absolutely beautiful place, it was time to move on. My intestinal track needed some more vegetables in my life, and my legs haven't looked as bruised (from moving all the rocks for the stone terrace with a dolly) since I played rugby my freshman year of college. Although physically rewarding, the work was pretty difficult and required more work (~7-8 hours) than the typical Wwoofing amount (~4-6 hours).

So, off we go to a new place. We've been stationed in the parental kibbutz for a few days, but today we head off so as to start working tomorrow in Tzippori (the blue dot on the map).


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Tzippori is a hilarious counterpoint to Ezuz, in that is relatively lush, green, bourgeois, and we will be doing very different work. The family-owned organic olive orchards (see link here, in Hebrew only, but if you poke around you can find photos: http://rishlakish.com/ ) have a big grindstone press and do their own expelling and production of olive oil. Additionally, they have a small vegetable garden and a cafe they run on the weekends. They used straw bale mud building to refashion an old industrial chicken coop into the beautiful building that now houses the expeller and the cafe, and they sometimes have demonstrations or field trips for kids.

Work should be interesting and fun; I am interested in learning more about the production of olives and related products, and what this family thinks about what it means to be an Israeli (rather than Palestinian) producer. I am curious about how they actually bought the fields and property. The matriarch of the family is a Welsh woman-Israeli by marriage, and the couple has lived and farmed in many places including Venezuela.

Our last family (and the other volunteer that worked with us in Ezuz for a week) had very, how we say, "interesting" opinions about Arab and Palestinian work, Russians, Thai migrant workers, and the role of women in society. I'm encountering more and more stereotypes as I continue to be here, many of which make me pretty uncomfortable in their assumptions. I guess that means all the more fodder for thought and analysis.

There is a huge population of Thai migrant workers that form the core of the agricultural workers, positions that from my undrestanding were often filled by Palestinians prior to the 1st Intifada. It is accepted as given that the migrant workers are here, and yet there are no possibilities for citizenship given the stated aims of the Israeli state to propagate and settle a sort of ethno-racially/religiously homogeneous state. Likewise, the huge populations of migrant care-takers, often Filipina or Nepali, have a perpetual state of accepted-presence, rejected-settlement.

I'm super curious about the patterns and attitudes of migration here, both on a policy and a social level, especially for non-Jewish/non-Aliyah and non-Arab populations. It's pretty easy to assume what sort of treatment both of those populations generally receive, but the additional intricacies of the not-wanted and not-not-wanted peoples are such a grey area. My guess is that there must be a guestworker visa policy, but I haven't had a chance to research that or its terminology. At any rate, if anyone has any good resources or reading with regards to that, send it my way!

So, off we go to Tzippori to see what else we have in store.

However, as a final parting note, for your viewing pleasure here is a little video that Noam and I made of riding in the aforementioned "jalopy" (see last photo in the previous post) down to the terraces where we worked in Ezuz. Enjoy:

A non-sensical photo essay.

(Water tower at Noam's kibbutz,

one of our daily sights for my week there.)

(Spiky trees. My first encounter with the

dangerous ecology of Israel. Other encounter

have included: giant spider, lizards, mysterious

biting fish, houseflies that look harmless but

itch like crazy, a highly militarized state, centipedes,

scary-looking cockroaches, Noam's scorpion sighting, and

probably other things.)

(Noam in front of his old playground and
kindergarten.)


(Noam's sister's beautiful house in the North.)


(The first carob tree I ever met, and the first
fresh carob I ever ate, also at Tal's kibbutz)

(Walking around in Tal's kibbutz.)


(The 3 year-old twin nephews. Unbelievably
cute and precocious.)

(My first encounter with the Mediterranean

and a dog who decided to befriend me.)

(Cyclists taking over the road on Yom Kippur!

That road is a highway. See below...)

(On the highway!!)

(My second meal out. The spread is everything

left over from AFTER we ate. I was made to order

meat...unsuspecting that I would end up with

half a lamb on my plate..)

(Driving down to the Kinneret, only fresh water

lake in Israel, and right smack next to (in?) the occupied

Golan.)

(The delicious, gorgeous Kinneret toward sunset.)

(Ruins of a Syrian village in the Golan...very

recent "ruins"..)

(Hiking in the Golan, past aforementioned ruins

and the multitude of fenced areas that have

landmines left over from the war when Israel

annexed the Golan.)

(The icy cold waterfall we hiked to

and swam in.)

(Moon rising in the Golan.)

(Our terraces in Ezuz where we work! These are the

kinds of terraces we are working to make. Incredibly

hard work, but rewarding also: building stone walls in the

desert (only rains 2-6 times a year)

in a flood valley to irrigate the newly planted orchards,

based on ancient Nebatean methods of irrigation.

(Our goat and donkey and chicken family!)

(Our restored train cabin home,

and some of the daily fresh bread

we eat...every day.)

(A view from my favorite place to sit outside

our cabin, under the palm frond porch and on

the giant swing bench.)

(Homemade goat cheese from the family's goats,

and fresh promegrantes picked from their tree.

Best snacks.)

(A view looking down toward the flood valley.

The valley is about a 12 minute walk from our cabin.

We usually ride on a bulldozer there.)

(Our favorite goat, Hamudah, which means cutie.

She has the biggest underbite you'll ever see...)

(My impression of Hamudah..)

(Noam's impression of Hamudah...whose is better?)

(Happily milking Sita.)

(The family's cabin and all of their preserves.)

(Blues, the family dog, is father to a

litter of 8 adorable puppies next door.)

(Tal and her family visiting us and camels

that live about one 1km down the road from us

in the Han, an outdoor tourist camp attraction site.)

(Jalopy, definition of.

Also file under...believe it or not: this car actually

works.

And can be seen flying down a super rock path

to the flood valley. With several kids riding the top

like a rollercoaster. Except, you don't normally see

the rusty steel frame of a rollercoaster moving as you

hold on to the "door handle" to avoid falling out the "door".

I can now say I have ridden in a jalopy.)

Ezuz.

We are here in our 15-family village, and it's pretty remote but beautiful - about an hour drive from the nearest city (1.5+ hours on bus). Our family's residences are comprised of about 7 (?) different train cabooses that have been derailed and transformed into living and working spaces scattered throughout a plot of land. Also on that plot of land are lots of fruit trees (peach, pomegranate, olive, fig), porches, a covering over most of the area that offers shade made out of nets and thatched with palm fronds, a small stall area for the chickens, goats and donkeys, a trellis for grape and other vines, a toolshed, a small garden with mostly tomatoes, compost, a small herb garden, a tire swing, lots of kid-sized bikes, a wagon, a bulldozer (that we ride down to the terraced orchards), two cars, a playhouse, and an area for hay. Woof.

About a 12 minute walk away down the hill and into the desert is the dry riverbed where Avi (farm patriarch) is building his massive terraced orchards according to the methods used by ancient Nabatians (spelling?), which basically consists of orchards (beautiful beautiful orchards) on large expanses of land in the riverbed with elaborate stone walls filled with mud and straw mixture and covered in concrete. The idea is that the stone walls (there are about 3 fields right now, we're working on building the fourth) help hold the water when there is flood water from the 2-6 rainfalls a year, so that the water can actually seep into the soil and hydrate it rather than just keep rushing down the riverbed. It's all trial and error but it looks pretty impressive. Again, pictures will be coming when there is adequate time! Our work is to help care for the animals (not very hard...feeding and milking (goats only) twice a day), but principally to help build the orchards with Avi during the day. We've only done a day or two of work with him so far, but it's pretty strenuous.

The family is two boys and two girls ranging in age from 6 to 13, mother (Tamar), father (Avi), 4 goats and a billy goat (more on them later), about 7 chickens and 2 roosters, 2 small donkeys, 2 cats, and a dog. Most of the family (human members, donkeys, and Blues - the dog) are all on a trek in the desert right now, leaving Noam and I in charge of the animals, a few side projects, and keeping everything under control while they're gone.

Again, so many challenges! In so many ways. But yet again, it's so beautiful - and I appreciate how much time I have to think and learn. Pictures will be much more illustrative than words for a lot of this, I think. But to sum up the past 5 days....milking goats is pretty great.