Day 2, Ready for Work!
Today we woke up bright and early, ready for another day of hard work, which is good, because that’s what confronted us from the moment we arrived at our work site! We started off the day by hearing from Efrat, a member of the OR Movement, who educated us about the importance of strengthening and building new communities Negev. After hearing about all of the 26 different OR farms, we got on the bus and headed to our work site, accompanied by two of our Ayalim friends from yesterday.
We drove to Tzel Midbar, an educational “farm” that teaches about life in the desert, and heard a little bit about their group. We broke up into teams, headed by six of our fearless participants who motivated us throughout our work. The teams built stone barriers, leveled out the rocky terrain to make it comfortable and aesthetically pleasing for visitors, and (almost) literally moved mountains using our muscles and teamwork. We took a quick lunch break, and then got right back to work. As each team finished its project, we joined forces with other groups, so that we ended our work day completing all of our jobs. It was such an accomplishment to look down at our blistered and dirty hands and know that we had just spent the day building something that will last and serve a purpose. Our hosts invited us back to volunteer anytime (and some of us might just go back for an extended stay)!
From there, we went to Nahal Havarim for a beautiful hike at sunset. Halfway through, we stopped to revel in the magnificence around us and the great company during a few minutes of silence. We finished the hike and went to visit Ben Gurion’s grave, where we were greeted with another fantastic view of the desert. It got a little chilly, which we weren’t expecting here in the southern part of Israel, but luckily we didn’t spend too much time in the cold before heading back to the hotel for dinner.
After we ate, we met with Kher Albaz, a Bedouin Israeli and a social worker in one of their established cities here in the desert. He spoke to us about the history of the Bedouin people and its struggles as a minority group here. We asked many questions and got very insightful answers from our speaker, which gave us a better understanding of the plight of him and other Bedouins.
We had a very long day today, with many rewards along the way. Although we are tired now, we learned a lot and put in a lot of hard work. Luckily, we have a masseuse in our group to help us work out the knots before tomorrow!
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