Farming in the Desert

This morning we went to a farm. This specific farm is called a lone farm. It is one family who had a farm outside of Yerucham, thus located beyond the middle of nowhere in the desert. Before we went to the farm we were supposed to have a woman come speak to us about other lone farms around the desert. We were told at the last minute that she had to cancel. She lives in Be’er Sheva and she said that she could not come because her son kept her awake all night in their bomb shelter. Since Hamas has begun shooting rockets at Be’er Sheva the town has basically shut down and people are spending a lot of their time in these shelters. The lady’s son was scared that if he were to go to sleep in the bomb shelter he would not be able to hear the siren if an incoming rocket is approaching – which is not the case. For the entire night, the lady was trying to convince her son that he was safe and that he needed to go to bed. The lady was too tired to meet with us having not gone to bed all night. This shows that the threat of rockets is not only a life and death situation but can also be traumatizing and have lasting effects on people, and children especially. In the city of Sderot, every child suffers from PTSD because of rockets being launched daily for the past 8 years.

The farm we traveled to was really in the middle of nowhere (which everything seems to be). We helped out in a crop field by picking up plastic and water hoses that were used to help cultivate the crops. The second job I had was to insulate the outside of a building. To do this we mixed dirt, straw and water to make mud that had straw in it – duh! (I don’t know of the technical term for the material). We coated (threw mud at) the outside of the wall with it and once it dried it is supposed to be a good insulator for the building.

After we left I found out that the group that took over the garbage clean up in the field got to have a lot more fun because they also got to drive the tractor and then they burned the heaping piles of garbage hat was collected. That would have been pretty cool, but throwing mud was lots of fun as well. After lunch we headed to the city of Arad where we spent Shabbat. We went to a local synagogue for the evening prayers and then had a nice Shabbat dinner and a relaxing evening.

Picking up trash in the middle of nowhere!

Our completed muddy wall!
(L-R) Jenny, Me, Lisa, Jocelyn, Laura, Samantha, Matt