Arava Ahava

After the most extraordinary two weeks spent working in the Arava desert on an organic farm I'm back in Jerusalem, back at Danny's apartment. I'll do my best to justly describe the desert, but, to quote Yann Martel, "Words are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field - but they're all we have. I will try." So I will try.

It was love (ahava) at first sight. On the 2 1/2 hour bus ride down from Jerusalem I had my face glued to the window, in awe of the looming desert dunes. I couldn't believe how the people around me could sleep, or, worse yet, ignore what I was seeing. For a long ways the road winds between the Dead Sea and high cliffs; staring out across the Sea on a good visibility day you can see right into Jordan, but it had misted into indecipherableness on the day I went. It feels like the road has been etched onto the end of the world, as if there is nothing more than the hazy void that extends past the shoreline. Cleverly, I missed my bus stop, though not by too much. The owner of the farm, Ynon, picked me up and, after driving between a series of mine fields, I got my first view of Idan. Idan is a small moshav, an agricultural community, occupied by many families of Israelis and even more so by the Thai workers who are hired by different farmers.

When we reached Kayema Farm I was greeted by Adi, Ynon's wife, a selection of their four children who range from ages 2-9, four other volunteers, one of whom had also arrived that same day, and lunch. As an organic farm, food is clearly very important and the meals attest to that. Never have I chopped so many vegetables or eaten as much delicious food as I did at Kayema. They have an outdoor kitchen where the volunteers prepare and eat lunch and dinner; lunch is organized by Adi who is incredibly creative when it comes to cooking and will put us all to work making the most fantastic meals, and dinner is our own responsibility. Thankfully, many of the volunteers were adept enough at cooking that dinner is always great, too. Breakfast is a whole different story. We work in the mornings from 6-12 at the greenhouses caring for tomato plants and breakfast takes place around 7:30. We pack a box the night before with a loaf of bread, butter, cheese, jam, and whatever else is left in the fridge. Always there were fresh tomatoes straight from the greenhouses (one of the perks of being organic is that we could eat directly off the vine). Shivering in the early morning cold, we'd crouch on the ground and wooden slatted crates and lay our feast before us, with nothing more than our laps as plates and hands still dirty. There were always interesting mornings when we'd realize we'd forgotten bread or cups or the day we didn't have any knives, but it was all in good spirits. After finishing work we'd begin preparing lunch on Adi's instructions. This usually was about a two hour procedure: 1 1/2 hours of chopping and cooking, half an hour of eating. It's so wonderful eating food you picked or that you know is grown by one of the other farmers; I haven't eaten such delicious food maybe ever. It would give Shirah Paley a run for her money. Should you happen to go hungry between meals, there is an endless supply of cherry tomatoes we picked. I think I'm addicted, but only to the yellow ones. If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life it would be yellow cherry tomatoes.

After lunch is over the evening is yours. Providing you have enough energy, there were countless things to do. After being by myself for the entire trip, it was unbelievable to have friends and fellow travelers. When I arrived there was Molly from California, Yona (my first roommate) from Massachusetts, Sun from Korea, and Hannelore from Holland. Yona left a few days after I arrived and was replaced by Damien (my second roommate) from Australia, as well as some of Molly's friends from Jerusalem: Esther from Mexico and Inna from New York. It was a very diverse group, in ages as well; the range was 18-43. I wasn't really expecting to make any good friends but I became pretty close with Molly, Sun, and Damien, and maybe Yona though we only spent a few days together. Most often we'd walk across the street and enter the Badlands, an empty expanse of desert extending forever, all the way into Jordan (you could walk to the border from where I was). This is the part that's tricky to describe. I've taken hundreds of pictures, but looking through them it's only pictures of sand dunes. There's no way to capture the enormity of the desert in a photograph, no way to properly describe the energy of the place. Barefoot is the only way to be in the desert. Your toes break through the sun-baked outer layer of sand into the cool, squishy earth below. The desert is never the same as when you entered it; climbing dunes causes mini avalanches behind you and you've eternally changed the landscape. The dunes create a fortress where you can hide among the caves or dry river beds. Except you're never really hidden, you're always out in the open in this landscape stripped bare of everything. The desert is an honest creature, and maybe in the presence of something so bare and beautiful and uncloaked we take on a few of those characteristics. It's as if a truer self becomes present, and we can open up and let ourselves be seen plainly in the same way the desert does. It's not all good, but it's all there and true. It's not uncommon to find a few skulls while walking and there's no embarrassment on behalf of the dunes, it is what it is.

The most incredible moments I had at Kayema were in the Badlands. There was one afternoon I took my iPod with me and had a solo, barefoot dance party for hours on top of a sand dune until the sun went down. There was the extreme babysitting of 2-year old Achai and 6-year old Tanna with Molly and Sun; running and sliding and hollering with them across the dunes until they were finally exhausted. Sun is really into photography and has had an exhibit in Berlin and one afternoon she wanted me as her model so I ran and jumped and rolled and crashed about on sand dunes to her heart's content, a much more physically demanding (and life endangering, when I had to climb head first into a collapsible sand cave) role than I had previously expected. Damien from Australia is also a horseback rider and Ynon has three horses that we're allowed to take out almost whenever. They're a bit crazy and we would go galloping through dry river beds, partly urging them on, partly hoping we'd be able to stop them. And then there was the evening when Sun, Molly, Damien and I all ended up in the Badlands from different directions and on various sand dunes, all of us coming for the same reason: to watch the sunset.

Sunday through Thursday, as I mentioned, we work 6-12. So at 5:45 we wake up hurriedly and layer up our clothing for the freezing mornings. Ynon typically drove us to work in the greenhouses, but some mornings we'd hitch a ride on the back of a tractor pull with all the Thai workers heading there. The work was never very hard and usually just monotonous. My first week we spent trimming and pruning the tomato plants. My second week we did a variety of things from raking up what we had previously trimmed and then picking up all the leaves to picking cherry tomatoes and preparing them to be sun dried. We had breaks at 7:30 and 10 for 30-45 min. On Friday we worked a half day starting at 8 and doing chores and clean up around the house. Usually in the afternoons on Friday we'd help cook the Shabbat meal for which we were invited to join the family in the house, and then Saturday was an entirely free day. My first Saturday I biked the Peace Route with Hannelore and went to a crocodile farm. My second Saturday was a bit more interesting in that I went for a hike with Sun and Damien, but to get to and from our hiking destination we hitch hiked. Our plan when we left at 8am was to hitch hike to the Small Makhtesh, the small crater, and hike across it which Adi had told us could be done in 3-4 hours. The second person who picked us up on the way to the crater, after hearing our plan, told us we were crazy and it was impossible to get there and hike the crater in one day so "to help us out" he dropped us off at the base of another trail which he claimed was great. So we began his trail and it turned out to be a couple miles of climbing directly up. It was ridiculous. When we finally reached the top we decided to disregard this man's further instructions and began walking through the middle of nowhere to the crater. So we walked. And walked. And finally we made it the crater observation point where we met some kindly Israelis who shared a snack with us and encouraged us to do the crater walk. What I didn't realize ahead of time was that to walk across the crater...you first have to get down into it. I don't do well with heights and this was a steep, slippery, at time sheer cliff downwards with a few footholds and the occasional railing for the really dangerous parts. While Sun and Damien confidently made their way down, I hovered at the back nearly in tears for most of the way down. My legs were shaking like mad but it was one of those things that once you started you really can't go back up, and everytime I thought the worst was over we'd have another stretch of terror. But! I made it alive, as you may have guessed. And the walk through the crater was beautiful. It's filled with dunes of different colored sand, and not just sand tinged a little bit, but bright purple and green and yellow and pink sand. You're not allowed to take it but I think we all snagged a few colored rocks. After this beautiful walk we had a new problem: how to get home. The sun was threatening to set and the last thing you really want is to be in the desert at night when it's dark and freezing. We walked on a tiny road for miles as quickly as we could, ignoring the blisters on our feet, until we found some Russians and persuaded them to take us to the main road. From there we hitched a ride with two very creepy men. The driver started smoking from a homemade plastic bottle bong and he didn't seem to be so aware of the road. We almost hit a bus and he swerved onto the curb every few seconds. We were all so glad to get out of that car alive and then it was easy to get a safe ride straight to Adi and Ynon's house. After doing the math we figured we walked about 16 miles that day. It feels like it for sure, my legs are still aching.

It was with a lot of sadness that I said goodbye to my friends and Kayema Farm and the desert. Even with a shoddy bed and impossible shower and an unattached toilet seat, I was happy there and it felt like a home. I thought for a while, when I was in Jerusalem for any amount of time, that I could live there and be a city girl and while I do love being here, it's got nothing on the desert. So now I've got just over a week left in Israel and I'm really looking forward to going to Scotland and seeing my Dad and Grandpa. I hadn't really planned this far at all so I'm taking things one night at a time. I slept at Danny's 2 nights, I'm going to Tel Aviv tonight to see the last of my parent's friends, and then...we'll find out! There are things in Jerusalem I'd like to do Wednesday and Thursday night so perhaps Jerusalem again and then...I really don't know. In some ways I feel like I'm just going through the motions of exploring at this point and I'm a bit ready for a break and seeing some family. But I'm going to make my last week count! And now it's time to go to Tel Aviv.