Bus 5:

After a great bus ride to the farm, Bus 5 participants went right to work on various projects with the local farmers -- including building a rock fence, weeding, picking up garbage and creating a compost heap.  The farm was located on the edge of Machtesh Ramon, the largest natural crater in the world; the view of the Negev was amazing and the weather was perfect.  After a hard morning of work, participants of Bus 5 were treated to a well-deserved "workmen's lunch" that consisted of various lunch meats, salads, and a special treat of falafel!  We then met with teenage Bedouins for an impromptu question-and-answer session and reflected on our cultures and experiences.

 

Bus 3:

Bus 3 headed to Na'ama Farm for the day and quickly got to work hoeing in the vineyards, graveling a road and sifting sand to prepare to make mud. The morning was hot, and the work was intense, but everyone worked hard, even when the tasks were sometimes tedious. After a delicious lunch (that included falafel!), the participants switched projects so they could see other aspects of the farm. Our final hour brought the entire group together to make mud and pack it on a hut for insulation. We all got our hands (and faces, and clothes, and everything else) extremely dirty and had an amazing time throwing mud on the wall. It was a great way to close out a day of hard work on the farm. Yehuda, whose farm we were working on, came to tell the group about how helpful they were, and to thank us for lending him 64 extra hands for the day.

 

Bus 4: Today was our most exciting and rewarding day of the trip to date! After a short session with members of the OR Movement this morning, we made our way to a local vineyard, where we raked fallen branches from the fields and cleaned up the area around pomegranate trees. The locals were very appreciative of our help and our impact was immediately felt. Seven hours in the desert sun left many bus members a bit rosy – some a bit more so than others! As a token of appreciation, the group was presented with two bottles of wine from the grapes grown at the vineyard. Members of our bus also met with a local videographer where they discussed their spring break experiences and the great projects they've been working on this week.

 

After a shower break and dinner at Sde Boker, all the buses met with Cher Al-Baz, head of social services for a local Bedouin community. The participants had a lot of insightful comments, and are clearly taking to heart all the work they have been doing this week. Everyone is looking forward to heading up north to Jerusalem tomorrow – and the chance to show-off their Purim costumes to the rest of the group!