Balance

In case you haven't been paying attention, I am currently volunteering at Arizuni Farm in Ezuz.  Ezuz is  an hour and a half southwest of Be'er Sheva which is - in it's own right - in the middle of the desert.  The Negev Desert, to be specific.  The farm is run by Avi and his wife Tamar and the only labor for his orchard, two fields for wheat, vegetable garden, greenhouse, and livestock is himself, his wife, their four kids, and any volunteers that happen along.  The oldest boy Raz (16) is now away at high school because they are too far away from civilization to commute but Shahar (14), Rotem (12), and Lulu (8) still live at home and are home schooled.  For an orchard that's only 10 years old and in the middle of the desert, it's incredibly productive.  It already produces enough for them to sell olives, apricots, plums, peaches, lemons, nectarines, pears, and apples (loads of varieties of each of these) as well as provide them to restaurants, dry loads of them, and make tons of preserves and jams.  Did I mention that they're in the middle of the desert and they only use one sixth of the water allotted to them from the well.  They owe it all to care and hard work, organic ingenuity, and ancient Nabatean irrigation techniques (no, I'm not concerned enough to look up how to spell that).

Now here are the highlights of what I love about Arizuni Farm:

1. The Negev - It's just plain gorgeous here.  There's no way around it.  The stars might not be as spectacular as in Kenya but they're pretty damn close.  Even when it's hot and you can see the heat radiating from the ground the lines of white sand and rocks are pretty breathtaking against the sky and the purple hills in the background.  The sand is so soft you can walk around barefoot within the compound where there are no thorns.  Looking into the orchard or the fields from above on my 20 minute walk through the desert to work is like stumbling onto an oasis every time.  

2. Siesta - We work from 5 am to around 11 am and then break until 5 pm and work through to 7:30 pm.  It's just not possible to work any longer than that.  Already by 9 am you're pushing into extreme heat.  So the middle of the day gives you a long long siesta.  You can read or work or more likely nap.  Sometimes the Arizunis watch classic movies on a projector in their living room.  Siestas here are even better than in Spain!

3. The Lodging - I'm living in a renovated train car with a porch and a swing.  There's so much charm and homemade craftiness I don't know what to do with myself.

4. The Food - Tamar. Is. A. Genius.  She makes the best most wholesome meals.  The first night was homemade pizza.  Everything was from the farm except the wheat for the flour (Avi and I are prepping the fields for growing wheat for next year as we speak).  The lunches are full of homemade cheese and bread as well as my favorite Schug (a spread of ground herbs that's spicy and delicious).  The best is the fresh yogurt from goats milk. I have a cup of yogurt and fresh homemade bread (baked daily) with fresh butter and jam every morning.  Pears are just coming into season so there's always fresh pears for me.  The beans she made last night were heavenly.  If I could cook for myself half as well as she cooks for the family, the volunteers, and to sell I would never go hungry again.

5. Library - I had completely forgotten how much I loved to read before High School and University did everything they could to beat it out of me.  Lucky for me I got here to loads of tranquility, peaceful places to sit, and books on every shelf.  I usually start a novel in the morning and read all through my siesta and late into the night.  I never liked sleep much anyways...

6. Cold Showers - After a long day working in the desert, a cold shower might be the most blissful thing I've ever experienced.  A true luxury.

7. Steady Hard Work - It just kind of gives you that satisfied feeling at the end of the day to know you worked with your hands to grow things all day.  It took a day or two to get used to but now I love it.

8. Thea (+Manon and Justin) - Thea is volunteering here with me and is an American (originally from New Mexico) who made Aliyah to Israel a year ago but has been living here for three years.  She's been great company and wonderful helping me transition at the farm.  I can't wait to steal her room but will be very sad to see her go tomorrow. Manon and Justin work at the goat farm down the way and invited us for homemade crêpes the other day.  Manon is a lively French girl going to agricultural school and Justin is a 40 year old ex professional rugby player (league, not union) who has just been traveling around the world farming for 5 years.

9. The Family - The Arizuni's are really sweet people.  Everyone know's I'm not a kid person but these are pretty sweet.  Tamar is incredibly interesting and knows everything and Avi is a jolly man full of infinite calm and wisdom.

10. Sunrise - I have tried in vain to take pictures for the past few days but it's not capturable.  Sunsets in Tanzania and Kenya have no rival but Sunrises here are just as unique.  I really couldn't describe them if I tried.


and things I hate:

1. Flies - They BITE. And they're EVERYWHERE.  They're clever too.  They wait until you're in awful positions such as holding a palate of fruit or trying to take a nap and then they bite your arms or your face or any exposed skin.  Sometimes it doesn't even have to be exposed.  They'll bite you through your shirt.  It's horrifying to watch them slowly stick their suckers into your skin.  They once even waited until I was going to the bathroom in the field to bite me.  There were none around when I was looking for a place to go and I thought I was lucky!  I hate them with a fiery passion undying.  I hate them more than dook and the lakers combined.  No but really.

2. Scorpions - When I was working in the field I was hacking away at the ground with a hand hoe and suddenly I looked down at my fortunately gloved hand to see that a yellow scorpion (semi-poisonous and known to hurt like a bitch) had crawled out from under the cardboard (explained under #6) and onto my hand.  It was also very agitated.  And stung me.  Which wasn't very nice.  Luckily my padre bought me extra thick work gloves that saved my life (hey.... they're known to kill once every five years... mostly infants... but they hurt everyone!).  

3. Ani Lo Metaberet Evreet - It's really hard to enjoy dinner and eat slow and talk and laugh with the family when I have no freaking clue what they're saying.  They try to speak English for the things that are relevant to me and devote about 5-10 minutes every meal for a conversation just with me but it's still frustrating.  I always finish my meal early but can't leave because I don't want to be rude or interrupt their conversation.  So I just sit there and listen to the Hebrew and play with stones on the ground and wait when really I would rather be back in our train car reading.  Sigh.

4. Lack of sugar - The Arizunis are clearly not very big on processed foods.  That's why they live in the middle of nowhere and run an organic farm.  But a diet coke every once in a while would be really nice.  Sweetening my yogurt with sugar helps but it's not quite the same is it?

5. Dehydration (my fault, I know) - One afternoon when there had been thieves about (explain later), I was sent to guard the orchard.  Everyone was taking shifts and I was feeling pretty good after morning work so if I took the 11 am to 5 pm shift I wouldn't have to work the evening work.  Pretty good deal, right? Wrong! I completely forgot how freaking hot it would be! I couldn't even sit on the mattress in the shaded greenhouse because they had just released bees in there to pollinate the melons.  Basically, the next day was awful and I got pretty miserably sick and ended up having to drink a homemade rehydration mixture of water, salt, and sugar that was pretty vomit inducing.  I'm fine now but I learned my lesson and will never skip siesta again.  Luckily they caught the thieves so I don't have to.

6. Crabgrass -  Guess what? There's crabgrass everywhere.  Even in the middle of the desert.  Since this is a small organic no till farm, the best solution is to hand weed it and then cover the area with cardboard so it can't photosynthesize.  Cardboard that hides scorpions and stink bugs and spiders that jump and dung beetles, etc.  Let's go over this again. Hand. Weeding. Crabgrass. In. The. Desert.  It's back breaking working when it's not in 115 degree heat.  Luckily, I'm done with that for now.  I weeded the olive trees surrounding the two lower fields and two thirds of the orchard while Thea covered it all behind me carrying stones in from the desert.  It was pretty brutal.  

7. Planes - We're right on the Egyptian border so military planes from Israel pass overhead constantly. Today hasn't been so bad but at twilight when they're sending out very low planes to supervise the border, it's a constant reminder of the political instability in the area.  There's no escaping it.  In addition, there are loads of IDF bases in the area that train in the desert so you hear booms that rattle the windows in the night as they practice who knows what with their tanks.  It's a crazy contrast to the peace of the Negev

8. Flies

9. Flies

10. Flies


So I mentioned thieves earlier.  It's kind of a crazy story.  The night I arrived, Rotem had seen thieves in the orchard.  Apparently they had been stealing random things for a week and finally had cut the fence to get food.  Avi and Shahar tracked them to a small shantytown near the border and called the army.  The next morning Avi escorts me to the field with a machine gun and tells me he's going to be guarding the field.  He says that the army and the police are no use because they're not authorized to shoot  the thieves.  Hum.  This began the round the clock shifts of people watching the orchard until the police arrived during my torturous siesta shift.  It turns out that the shantytown was most likely Palestinians illegally working in Israel building a wall that the Israeli government had contracted out.  Ironically, the wall was to go through the desert to keep out illegally refugees and immigrants from Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, etc. from crossing into Israel.  Well needless to say lots of people didn't like this wall.  When does anyone agree on anything politically in Israel? Especially about minority groups and security.  So some terrorists took it upon themselves to blow up this wall.  Two of them stood too close to the explosion and blew themselves up in the process but the third was at large.  This meant that the whole area was shut down.  No buses and the army combing the desert.  The upside to all of this for Avi and the farm is that all of the illegal Palestinians abandoned their homes in the desert to avoid being sent back to the west bank.  So no more guarding the orchard.  Also ridiculous... they gave the guard dog meat to shut her up but only stole a little bit of fruit.  I mean, what?

So this all wraps up with a thought that Avi left me with in his infinite wisdom.  Any time you ask him about anything, the farm, politics, life, etc.  He always has relatively the same answer.  He'll give his opinion and then wrap it up with, "I mean.... it will all.... balance. You know? Must have balance."  When I got dehydrated, he told me to rest more and not work so constantly.  "You work hard," he said, "but you need more balance.  Take time... look at the birds... listen to them... drink water.  Then you will have balance".  Balance might be the best thing I could possibly learn here at Arizuni farms.  That and their crazy impressive irrigation/ terracing techniques.

All my love from the Negev and I'll try to update with pictures soon.


P.S.  If I find a job/ have the money I might go farm in Sinai after goats & beer in Eilat and my birthday.  This guy on the bust Allen told me about it.  Sounds legit.