Negev

Hot. Windy. Dusty. Desert. That about sums up the Negev. Today was field trip day and basically it was just another look at the geography around Jerusalem and a little bit of history as well. The first place we went was a Bedouin women’s weaving center. The Bedouins are a nomadic people that the country of Israel is trying to modernize by building towns for them with houses and schools. It is similar to what the early American’s did with the Native Americans with reservations. It has caused some conflict as you can imagine. But, we visited the weaving factory where they are empowering women to work and support themselves. It was interesting.

Second, we went to a place called Arad which is south of Jerusalem. It has ruins of an Israelite civilization on one side from about 3000 B.C and then a Canaanite civilization from about 1200 BC on the other side. It was interesting. Both had signs of “temples” with a holy of holies area and alters. Walking among the ruins reminded me of the old castles in Germany.

The last place we went was Beer-sheba which has to do with Abraham and Hagar in the book of Genesis. It was very similar to the first site. Except in this one there was a huge water cistern that was excavated under the city so we got to do a little bit of caving. Well, that is kind of an exaggeration; it was more like walking underground with hard hats on. It was really cool. It was a pretty long day.

We played volleyball for FHE and I did better than most people so I thought Andrew would be proud. But, it is going to be an even longer day tomorrow. 8 hours of class. Yikes.