Making the Desert Bloom

We started the day off continuing our painting in Yerucham until lunch time. After lunch we drove down south further into the desert to do an hour and a half hike. It was beautiful to see the natural desert. At one point I hiked up a steep hill and was able to look down in all directions from the middle of the nowhere – I was on top of the world! After the hike we visited the grave of David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel. He is buried in Sde Boker overlooking the desert we had been hiking in. After being Prime Minister he moved to this city and joined a kibbutz which fulfilled his dream to develop the desert in Israel. Such a well respected and important man in the beginning stages of building Israel as a country took up regular jobs in the kibbutz, where is first job as the past leader of Israel was a sheppard. We learnt about his vision and foresight to realize that Israel’s greatest challenge as a country in able to succeed as a nation is to develop the destert, which makes up 60% of the country. Israel must find a way to cultivate the land and make the desert bloom if it is going to succeed.The hill I climbed (I'm the speck on the top sitting on the left). Our tour guide Yishai is in the forefront of the picture.

The grave of David Ben Gurion and his wife Paula. The desert mountains can be seen in the background.

In the evening we had dinner and went to a bar where David Broza was performing (somewhat comparable to John Mayer, but much older). We had a great time and partied well in to the early hours of 2009.

The city of Be’er Sheva, as well as many other cities had decided to cancel school for the day due to rocket attacks reaching the city for the first time ever. Thank G-d for this because Hamas had fired many rockets today including one that hit a school in Be’er Sheva. Had school not been cancelled, the damage would have been much more than structural. Additionally new years eve parties were cancelled, and a limit of 100 people were allowed in one place for security reasons. Be’er Sheva like many other cities has now become a ghost town as people are staying close to or in their bomb shelters.