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Day in the Desert June 13^th 2010

          Shalom!  First of all, we are sorry that the blog has been a little patchy lately as we have been traveling a lot and our internet connection capability has been limited, not to mention our time!  We have been very busy!  We could not post last night due to our accommodations.  You will understand when you see the pictures…

We woke up this morning (Sunday June 13^th) in Tel Aviv after our drive down from Haifa the previous night.  We started our trek to the desert about 8:30 in the morning.  We first met up with Raz Arbel who is the director of tourism for the Ramat HaNegev region in the south of Israel.  Ramat HaNegev is essentially what we would refer to as a county in the US.  The region has a mayor, which is more equivalent to our governors.  The regional council, under leadership of the mayor, also carries a lot of influence in the area as well as in the country as representatives of their respective regions. Raz has worked very hard to connect with the Jewish and Christian community of Denver and lived in Denver for two years as an emissary of Ramat HaNegev.  He also arranges for many of the youth of Ramat HaNegev to travel to Colorado for summer camps and activities as well as hosting groups from Colorado in Ramat HaNegev for the same type of thing. 

After a short overview of the region we drove through part of the area towards the Egyptian border.  Our first stop was to see some of the incredible agricultural achievements of what the Israelis are doing in the Negev.  First we found a new plant that is being sold as a salad leaf.  Raz told us that they simply call it the "salty plant".  This plant can thrive on very little water, and also very salty water.  We sampled leaves right from the plants and they were very tasty.  They had a light salty taste and would be very good in salad.   This plant also is very good for diabetics.  Right next to this we were able to see the incredible work they are doing with tomatoes here.  Recently in the Negev desert there was a huge aquifer found.  The water has a high mineral content including salt.  Some plants thrive on this water, and others can't grow on it.  Tomatoes and the salty plant thrive on this water.  Some of the "Tomatoes on the vine" that you can buy in grocery stores in Colorado are from here in the south of Israel.  It's amazing to see how they are growing them there in what seems to be just desert sand and dust!  We also saw incredibly large olive and pomegranate orchards, which are also thriving on the "brackish water". 

We learned that the when the brackish water is pumped from the ground it comes out at about 107 degrees F.  The Israeli scientists discovered that certain species of fish can grow three times faster then normal in this hot mineral water.  So they have many fish farms where they grow Barramundi from Australia as well as bass. 

Aside from the brackish water there is a large industry for growing chickens and cattle in the desert.  Because of the extremely dry conditions there is hardly any disease that could destroy a chicken farm.  They also have plenty of space to keep the chicken houses spread out which also keeps the birds healthy.  It is incredible to see how Israel is literally making the desert bloom and for life to flourish in such harsh conditions. 

Next we drove to the Egyptian border. And were able to see across into Egypt and how the commercial border crossing works.  The Bedouins of Egypt still free graze their livestock so there is very little vegetation on their side of the border. Because of all the agricultural projects Israel is working on you can clearly see on a satellite map exactly where the border is with Egypt.

Our next stop was for lunch with students from Be'er Sheva University who are part of a special project with Ramat HaNegev in a large Bedouin tent. 

After that we drove to a southern air force base to do our show.  We were able to see a short video about the base and the aircraft of the base.  Our show was next to the base pool and was kind of the entertainment for a base party.  The soldiers became more and more excited with every song and we danced with them for the whole last song.  David Anderson even flew off the stage with his bass guitar and danced with the dancers and the soldiers much to the delight of all.  We were not allowed to take pictures at this base so we don't have any to post from that show but we will have MANY pictures coming soon!

The show was great, and we loaded the bus while the base DJ's played more entertaining music as the party continued.  Next we drove to the wonderful desert olive farm to sleep, which was an experience that none of us has had before.  All the "single" men slept in the same Indian Teepee, all the single ladies also had a Teepee.  As you will see this is not the typical hotel in Israel, and the ladies took a while to go to sleep because of the abundance of bugs.  That far into the desert you can see millions of stars similar to the wilderness areas of the Colorado backcountry. 

We sat around the campfire and had Bedouin tea and hot potatoes, fellowshipped and sang songs with David Anderson rocking the guitar.  

After what felt like a short night sleep we were up and on our way!  Many, many, many pictures to follow and an account of today, which was incredible! 

Blessings from the Negev!