Wandering the Desert

So, here are some stories to accompany the pictures of last week's HUC trip to the Arava Valley in the Negev Desert. We left bright and early on Wednesday morning and headed, well... south. I can't recall much from the first day, other than the feeling that all we did was stop to use the restroom. This trip was much less history-oriented than the past two HUC trips, and more focused on the geographical wonders of the Negev Desert. In fact, the only time that a faculty member stood in front of us for an explanation was for a few minutes in Sde Boker where Ben Gurion "made the desert bloom".

We spent the afternoon hiking around the machtesh, a very special kind of nature-made crater. The entire area of the Arava Valley was made by the Syrian-African rift. As such, there are all sorts of crazy natural phenomena that occur there. Wow... I learned something! We had two amazing educators, our "Desert Roses" - both doing their national service, sheirut leumi, an alternative to military service for women of army age. The amount of knowledge these young women had about the desert was incredibly impressive. Also impressive was the lack of whining (overall) that came from our group. I thought it was going to be a four day kvetch-fest, but surprisingly, everyone seemed to really have a good time!

Kibbutz Yahel was our homebase. The first reform kibbutz in the country, Yahel is 30 years old and going strong. What I found so interesting about this kibbutz is the changing demographic. As it is a 30 year old kibbutz, most of the children of the members are now starting to have children of their own (and not that many seem to be doing so on the kibbutz itself). The kibbutz is dealing with this challenge in, what I thought to be, an interesting way - by opening up the community to non-members (most of whom are not Reform Jews). The kibbutz does still have a strong agricultural drive, but, like most kibbutzim today, many members work outside of the community in non-agricultural enterprises. Yahel's main produce are dates, pomelos, watermelon, scallions (??) and milk. Other than that, the kibbutz itself is beautiful. It felt like a mixture of camp and... for some reason... the Oregon Coast. :-)

The second day of the trip was the hard-core hiking day. There were three hiking options, I opted for the "medium-difficulty". We had a small group - which was nice, especially considering the amount of down-hill climb we had. A larger group just would have made me nervous. Our educator was great at knowing when to stop, give us breaks, and do a little bit of desert education. The first 30 minutes of the hike were uphill, and I mean straight up. For those of you who have seen the second Lord of the Rings: you know those "stairs" that Gollum leads Frodo and Sam up? Yeah.... it felt like that. Only shorter. Once that was over, however, the rest of the hike was downhill into a dried out riverbed, or wadi. My favorite moment of the hike, and trust me - there were many favorites, was when we were climbing down a dried out waterfall. The waterfall led into a canyon. The scene itself was beautiful, and when Ronni, our guide, pointed to the waterfall and said "that's what we're climbing down. It's perfectly safe, just watch your step." (I think she also said "Don't worry, no one has died doing this" to which the guard responded "yet" funny Israelis...) So, we were climbing down this dried out waterfall (see pictures) into a canyon. I was pretty well freaked out, but on auto-pilot, as there was no other way down. Deeply concentrating on my next step, I was towards the back of the group, still, freaking out, when suddenly one of my classmates belted out in his baritone voice, "Deeeey-Oh. Dee-eh-eh-oh. Daylight come and me won go hoooooooome." Best moment of the trip. Laughing, we all managed to make it down the waterfall and into the wadi for our walk out through the Red Canyon.

Now... here's my one gripe about the trip. After a full day of hiking, in the sun (the weather was amazing, by the way) where did HUC take us? Back to Kibbutz Yahel for a nice shower and a comfortable bed to sleep in? Nope. They took us to a "Bedouin Tent" I say that in "" because it wasn't run by Bedouins - it was just for the experience. Boy was it some experience. I wasn't so into it. I was sore, tired, and granted - they had showers - but they weren't quite what I wanted after a long day of hiking. Now, I'm usually a heavy sleeper, but I couldn't get to sleep in this tent. Picture it: One big tent, pitch black, with 50-some-odd HUC students, their significant others, and faculty, sleeping on the floor. It felt like a NFTY shul-in ... in the desert. One amazing thing about the location of this tent is that it was so far from civilization that there was hardly any ambient light blocking the stars. I haven't seen stars like that since camp. It looked like a planetarium and was amazing. But I digress. Anyhow... I woke up after a fitful night of sleep in a fake Bedouin tent smelling like real goat... riddle me that.

After the tent, we spent the morning at Kibbutz Lotan. The second Reform Kibbutz in Israel, just outside of Eilat. The kibbutz is doing some amazing things in the area of ecology and green-building. We spent the morning touring their eco-areas, and we got our hands dirty making mud bricks. I forget how much I enjoy playing in the mud until I'm actually in it. The thing is, I like getting dirty and being "at one" with nature... but then I really like a nice hot shower and a warm fluffy towel - and bed. :-) Like my friend Adam (the farm-boy) said, "I like playing in the mud, but at home we have a separate mud-room, we don't track it around with us all day".

After Lotan we headed down to Eilat for some snorkeling. Now, I'm not going to lie, dear reader. I did not snorkel. No, about 6 of us defected to another Bedouin Tent - this one across the street from the beach where our classmates were frolicking underwater - which had, according to our friend Hannah, really amazing pita. There were 6 of us, all women, all decked in our hiking/beach wear. We were the only people in the tent, and, of course, the owner sat down to schmooze with us. The best part of the entire interaction was when Yussef, our host, told my friend Aimee that he would give her father 400 camels for her. He proceeded to tell us that we were all "good" but Aimee was "the best" that she had a big heart - he could tell. He wrote Aimee a note wishing her much success. While it was sweet in the end, there were some moments where we weren't sure how appropriate the conversation, or the interaction itself, was. Ah, random moments in bedouin tents. I also saw a man riding one camel, and leading another, while wearing an Oklahoma sweatshirt. Confusing? Yes. Amazing? Yes indeed!

We made our way back to Kibbutz Yahel for a restful Shabbat. For some reason, the patio outside our room, and the hammock outside our room ("our hammock"... Aimee and I got very protective over the hammock that was clearly on our "property"), turned into one of the party spots. I recall a lot of singing... and wine drinking... and game playing. All in all... a lovely erev shabbat. The next day we woke up somewhat early again for a shabbat "hike" and pray. Not my bag. But then I got a nice shabbat nap - and felt much better. We should have just spent Saturday night on the kibbutz, but instead we loaded into the buses around 6:30 and made it home to Jerusalem by 10:30. Crazy bus driver - but his haste was appreciated once I was in my own bed by 11.

So... that's the exciting trip to the Negev!