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Parting
from its realization in the exterior World
A DESERT PEACE PROCESS - 2002
Walking the 7 km
road from Avi to Gadi on 2002_08_24
2002_10_14-16 ; last update: 2003_03_01
Walking this lonely road brings up so many memories and emotions.
I'll start with 2 photos taken the evening before from the south west hills
opposite the Succayah.
They point to the east, to the road from Succah-in-the-Desert to Mitzpe-Ramon,
Gadi's town.
Ancient terraces in the wadi;
spots on the slope where herds gathered ,
Mount "Lekh-Lekha" to the right of the Observatory.
The 2,5 km dust road passes by the
high hill, which I came to call "Mount Lekh
Lekha",
after Yaron's theater workshop - in 1992 - had played the "Binding of
Isaac" [Genesis
22],
using the whole area, but imagining
the place of the NON-Sacrifice on
a rock of this hill.
Looking
back to the now official sign "Succah in the Desert" at the turn
to the dust road.
The little grove behind it was - like several others - planted by the "Keren
Kayemet Fund",
officials who started to reforest the country a hundred years ago and cannot
grasp the fact,
that the desert needs to stay the desert, if we want it to serve us as the
future hosting space.
The road ends at the Observatory and so does the unburried water pipe running
along to the right.
In the beginning I tapped water from an outlet for the Bedouins which is close
to the town.
Then the municipality installed a tap near the grove for Succah in the Desert,
from which we filled the two 300 liter tanks in the jeep.
Not in the morning, but in the afternoon, with Gadi and Efrat in their landrover,
we met Fadiya, her kids (her daughter Hamda
veiled herself the minute I asked if I could photograph them)
and her kids (a herd of sheep and goat, though only one is showing here)
taking water from the tap under the cypresses, the only place from where they
are allowed to do that.
The Bedouins in Israel - like elsewhere in "civilized and orderly"
states - have been evicted from the desert and confined to artificial "Bedouin
towns".
but in Mitzpe-Ramon one branched-out family has the priviledge to live and
graze, though in a meticulously defined area.
Once they asked me, if they could take water from our tap, since it was so
much closer to where their herd grazed then.
They would pay their share in the bill, of course.
Unfortunately my enemy, the ranger, discovered them there~~~~~~~
The shadows of the clouds driven by the wind race over the hills and wadis.
Where the cypress trees grow, a rarely used trail leads to the Alpacca-Farm.
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From this turn on the crest both can be seen: the Observatory in the West
and Mitzpe-Ramon in the East.
At first I had a bike, but as all my many bikes, it soon was stolen, and I
had to walk,
until we bought a jeep, for which the money was given to me by my oldest German
friend, Anke Ristenpart.
Still, there were many times, when I had to walk - the jeep was out of order,
or another team-worker needed it,
and when I made my lekh-lekha
as a hostess in 1994, I wanted to make a point of the Succayah's independence.
Except for a room in the office flat, I did not use anything from the Succayah,
including water and the car.
I bought a bike in order to go with it to the office every morning at 6, even
in winter, when it was still dark and frozen,
mainly in order to savor 45 minutes of talking to the
man I loved, which was possible only before his working hours.
Walking or riding this long distance, I was aware of Ups and Downs and every
turn in the road, even of the few bushes on its side.
Riding or walking down the road brought me to this closest spot to the Crater.
Often the view was spectacular.
Sometimes I stopped the car and sat at the edge.
It was here, that during a hellish depression I threw my rage at God:
"Even death would not help me! Why is it impossible
to not exist? This is outrageously unfair."
Finally I reach the little town, with its standard Israeli water tower, overlooking the Ramon Crater (invisible to the right)
Never before did my long walk or bike ride have this goal:
To prevent from my "partners" to sell out the Succah and themselves
to lawyers and courts.
