Yesterday we learned more about the Bedouins of the Negev. These Bedouins have become villagers rather than nomads and yet they retain many of their old customs. We met Sarah who showed us how she spins yarn and cooks a special kind of bread. It looks like a giant thin tortilla. The mixture is only flour, salt, and water. We had fun taking turns dressing up in traditional Bedouin wedding clothes. As Muslims, the Bedouins are allowed more than one wife (up to four wives, I believe).
From the tiny village of Lakia we drove south and west to the Dead Sea. Along the way we passed the valley where David fought Goliath. We also saw Acacia trees which supplied the kind of wood used to make the ark of the covenant.
Just up the road from our hotel is a Nature Park which is the Oasis of Engedi. This is the place where David was hiding from Saul in 1 Samuel 24. The landscape surrounding the Dead Sea is absolutely barren. No green, living thing can survive the intense heat and lack of rain. That's what makes the Engedi Oasis so amazing. A natural fresh water spring makes a kind of paradise in desert. Five of us hiked to the top of three water falls located in the park.
Pic descriptions:
1. Sitting on the floor as we begin our visit.
2. Sarah displaying yarn she has spun and dyed.
3. Chet and Maxine dress up for their Bedouin wedding.
4. Reese and Edna do the same.
5. Sarah demonstrates making Bedouin pita.
6. Euda shares with us the beginning of her vision to create "The Association for the Improvement of Women's Status, Lakia."
7. Getting ready to hike in the Engedi Nature Park.
8. Yours truly in front of the lower falls at the Engedi Nature Park.
9. Upper falls.
1 comment:
As a real Bedouin, who still lives in a tiny gathering of a bedouin tribe, I can understand tribalism, I actually feel it as I was grown up a tribalistic one of the old age.
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http://samibedouin.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/tribalism-a-bedouin-approach/
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