1/22/11
Last week the ecos returned from a two week adventure of the mind and spirit at Kibbutz Neot Semadar in the negev. This was a completely unexpected part of the program that will surely be one of the most memorable. If I had come to Israel, spent two weeks at Neot Semadar and then gone home, I would have had a sufficient experience, but it was merely a two week “break” from the farm life we have gotten so used to over the past fourish mounths. Let me start by saying that Neot Semadar does not really consider itself a Kibbutz, moreso, it calls itself a school for studying the self. It is also a community in which no one recieves a salary, everyone is given a job at the kibbutz and is compensated by having all of his needs met, housing, food, community… The central point of the Kibbutz is a huge pink building that took about 16 years for them to build, it is the art center, what we called the space penis; it looks like a building pulled straight out of Disney Land.
I woke up every morning to either Marissa’s or my beeping alarm clock at about 5:15. I awoke to darkness and to silence. Lauren still asleep in the entry room and Naomi silently getting ready in her room. Naomi had asked told us that she didn’t like being talked to in the mornings. Me being me I intentionally pissed her off by jumping on her one morning and her reaction kept us silent for the remainder of mornings at the commune. I would wake up and brush my teeth in front of a mirror in our bathroom that was conveniently only a few steps away from our beds and use the flushing toilet, no mulch necessary. It was nice to have these luxuries, that I once took for granted, again for a short while. I would bundle into the few warmer layers I had and sleepily stumble out into the cold desert air finding the path to the dining hall through the dark (without getting lost only after the first few days). In the dining hall I would pour myself some tea and sit down to join the others in darkness and silence and center myself for a day of working at the Mata, the Date Orchard. When the Boker Tov was called we would all go through the kitchen to snag some of the wheat break instead of the white bread that they served every morning with sweet apricot jam. We met in the back of the dining hall and filled up water and grouped up, Micah, Jared, Alison and I would join the Israelis and two thai workers squeezing into the van for the ride out of the bubble and down into the crater to the orchard.
The date palm trees are actually in the grass family and damn is that grass tall. The sound of the doors opening woke us up from our sleepy squished ride and we would get out and join the donkeys in the orchard. The donkeys did their job to eat weeds and fertalize by pooping everywhere. We grabbed gloves from the box that hung on a tree and would warm up every morning by moving the palm fronds that had been cut from the date palms into the center path lined up vertically so that the tractor could come through and chop them all into mulch. Sometimes this would seem like a frustrating job as I looked down the long row that I had to prepare, but this is exactly the situation Neot Semadar loved to put it’s people in. This is when you look inside yourself and observe your reaction to doing the job and analyze why you are feeling that way. So each day was an intense journey of the mind that remained virtually hidden as we carried out our expected tasks. We would finish the warm up job as the sun began to peak over the mountains casting a beautiful light on our little microclimate and the extending vast desert scene.
We were then split into different groups for jobs. Either preparing breakfast in the little nook where a table and sink were permanently set up. Preparing breakfast was fun, it included making a fire and setting the table and toasting bread and making tea. One job was using huge machetes to chop the huge thorns off of the date palms so as to make harvesting a safer job when the time came. The thorns of the date palms have a poison in them so when you get stabbed you feel a numbing sensation. Another job was to pound posts for the fence in order to extend the zone for donkeys to roam. There were also jobs with irrigation and going to the pomello and grapefuit orchards to work with irrigation there. I could write a full blog on each individual job, on each individual day, on each individual conversation, on each individual realization, but I’m doing my best to pack it all into one fatty blog.
We worked in our jobs until 9 when we got to meet for silent breakfast. That’s another thing about Neot Semadar, every meal, save Shabbat, is eaten in silence. It seems crazy and I have my mixed feelings about it, as I did with almost everything at the commune, but it was something I got used to. It helped me to focus more on my food and it was nice not having to feel obligated to partake in forced small talk during meals. Instead we could chop our veggies and drink our tea as we over analyzed the shit out of ourselves.
Breakfast is always the same. A plate of full vegetables: tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, garlic, lemon, cabbage, two baskets of toasted white and wheat bread, tahini: one thick without any water and one diluted, a bowl of sprouts, a couple bowls of schug (green spicy stuff), hard boiled eggs, the best goat cheese you’ve ever eaten, apricot jam, and tea… lots and lots of tea. Each kibbutznik had his own technique for breakfast and the silence would be filled with the sound of knife on plate chopping away to create the work of art breakfast. I would love to observe more and write an essay on the breakfast techniques at Neot Semadar, because everyone did it their own way. We Ecos talked about how sometimes we felt like pigs because we would just dig in to the full vegetables instead of chopping them perfectly before eating, but this was just another opportunity to look inside ourselves… and drink some more tea. I loved mixing the hard boiled eggs (which I used to hate the yolks of) with the goat cheese and the schug and thich tahini and onion and tomatoe and that right there is a bite in heaven.
After breakfast we would gather around the fire and drink tea and coffee and smoke cigarettes. One of the Israelis would calmly say ”If anyone want to raise a thought or question, they can.” If there were a side conversation (usually between us loud Americans) prior to this comment, it would be broken up and we would be asked to address everyone so that no one was left out of the conversation. Someone would bring up a topic and we would discuss it in English, which was difficult for a lot of the Israelis; it was very convenient that we didn’t have to try and engage in these conversations in Hebrew. We talked about what it means to meet someone, does it mean knowing their past or does it mean knowing their present? We raised the question of joy and if it is something that just happens naturally or if it has to be self forced in a way. We had a lot of insighful conversations around that fire, some of which frustrated me, others of which got the hinges of my mind moving incessently in the greatest way possible.
Despite our involvement in the conversation, work was on the agenda. We ended tea and fire time by cleaning up the rest of breakfast, this is usually when I would take the toilet paper and dig myself a nice hole in the desert sand and pop a squat while I gazed out into the desert and at the mountains that looked like back drop. We would return to work, usually switching jobs. I loved when I had the opportunity to join Ahud (who strongly resembled grover from sesame street) becasue not only was he fun to work with, but then we got to ride the tractor to the work site.
If I was set to work with Jared we would have nice conversations, but working with Jared is like doing work for two people. He isn’t so great at working and talking at the same time. Bundled up and tromping through the desert sands felt like snow to me, it was a nice familiar but also new feeling.
To go along with the mostly chillaxed work day we had another break some days where we would sit and eat pomellos and grapefruits before a little extra work, piling back into the van, and heading up for silent lunch with everyone in the dining hall. The dining hall worked that you would go sit down at the next available seat.
To be continued at a later date… for now, just drink some tea and look into yourself.
