The ultimatum of Oren, the manager of Metzuqe-Dragot was due on February 24, 1999.
Tamir and I had been packing the two vehicles the whole day,
and towards the evening the truck came to tow the bus to the Fieldschool of Ein-Gedi

[I intended to tell how we lived and worked and communicated there until October 31, 1999,...
but see our sudden reunion at the beginning of "Noah's Shore"!]

From ugliness to beauty:
the succat-beton or the concrete-succah

In May 1999 I was working on a path from the Fieldschool down to the beach of the springs.
This beach then looked much more naked then now and the water level was 3 m higher.
A yet small jungle of tamarisks provided shade & hiding for an English family with 3 kids.
"Do you know a spring outside of your "compound", where I could dig a pond for healing?"
I told them how strangely I had been guided lately to participate in a course of WATSU.
[See the video about Watsu on the website of WORLD WIDE AQUATIC BODYWORK ASSOCIATION]

We climbed across bolders, some 400 m to the south, passing several sulphur springs.
But then he let me taste from the water of an almost hidden tiny stream, about 1 m long.
When David came to visit me, we started to dig a pond, and leveled a tiny area next to it.

During the first war against Iraq - 1991- this tune came to me to this prophecy:

New sweet water flows into the Salt Sea

[information about Ein-Gedi
see the site of the Jewish Agency

The Ein Gedi Reserve
(Getting Israel Together)

The Ein Gedi reserve, on the eastern periphery of the Judean Desert,
is bordered by cliffs to the West,
the Dead Sea shore to the East,
the Mount Yishai Ridge
and the Ein Gedi lookout to the North,
and Nahal Hever in the South.
The lowermost section - the lowest point in the world - is 400 meters below sea level,
and the highest summits are 200 meters above sea level.

The oasis is fed by four springs:
David Spring (in the channel of Nahal David),
Shulamit Spring and Ein Gedi Spring (on the southern slope of Nahal David),
and Ein Arugot (in Nahal Arugot).
Together these springs supply about three million cubic meters of water each year.

The supply of water from the springs is quite steady, with only slight seasonal variations.
It is not direct affected by the amount of rainfall in a particular year,
even though the springs get their water from the rainfall
that flows eastward from the Hebron Hills watershed, in the direction of the Dead Sea.
The Limestone and dolomite in the Hebron Hills are jointed
and the water seeps through the rock until it reaches the layers of impermeable clay and Marl.
The water flows east over the clay and Marl, running in the direction of the rock strata, until it reaches the cliffs.
At the cliffs the water gushes out as four springs.
The springs are all more or less at the same altitude: about 200 meters above the Dead Sea.
A visual marker of the groundwater level - the point at which the springs emerge - is provided by the moringa trees growning nearby.

Ein Gedi's geographic location on the Syrian-African Rift, coupled with the combination of a hot climate and plentiful sweet water in an arid desert environment, created a unique oasis, the largest on the western shores of the Dead Sea.

History

People have been aware of the extraordinary conditions of the Ein Gedi oasis since the ancient settlement in the land of Israel,
as we know from the Chalcolithic temple found above the Ein Gedi Spring and the biblical references to Ein Gedi.

...
In I Samuel 24:1, we are told that after David ran away from Saul,
he wandered through the Judean desert, and
"David went from there and stayed in the wilderness of Ein Gedi."

A number of descriptions of Ein Gedi are found in the Song of Songs:
"My beloved to me is a spray of henna blooms from the vineyards of Ein Gedi" (1:14),
and an image appropriate to the landscape,
"O my dove, in the cranny of the rocks, hidden by the cliff" (2:14).

...
Jews continued to reside in Ein Gedi after the First Temple was destroyed.

Ein Gedi had a large Jewish community during the Second Temple period (second century B.C.E.).
This Jewish settlement, which grew dates, is mentioned in the book of Ben Sira.
Josephus Flavius tells that that the residents of Ein Gedi were massacred by the zealots - followers of Elazar Ben Yair - at the end of the Second Temple period.
Letters Bar Kokhva wrote to the local commanding officers (135 C.A.), found in the Nahal Hever caves on the Ein Gedi slopes,
shed light on the period of the Bar Kokhva War and the part Ein Gedi played in the events of this time.
The first letters are worded like orders and threats; the later ones are reprimands.

The many unique finds from the Mishna -Talmud period, including a synagogue and a bathhouse ,
attest to the size and special nature of the community.

The settlement in Ein Gedi flourished during the fourth to sixth centuries.
The continual settlement of Ein Gedi ended in the sixth century.

The archeological remains point to a large, thriving, and well-organized settlement,
which utilized every piece of land and drop of water for agriculture, as is illustrated by the terraces, aqueducts and reservoirs.

Balsam was the "special secret" of Ein Gedi. This fruit was used to produce a particular type of perfume, which was especially valuable for trade.
The central authority in Judea long considered Ein Gedi to be imperial property, most likely because of Ein Gedi's wealth of economic resources.

The gradual decline of Ein Gedi began in the Byzantine period.
We know from the testimony of nineteenth century researchers and travelers,
especially the well-known zoologist Henry Baker Tristram, that a large part of the agricultural system became run down.

From this time, Ein Gedi was portrayed as a wild place, with a few Bedouin families of the Rashida tribe living in reed huts at the foot of the Ein Gedi Spring.
In the mill building, the sugar (or flour) mill, which used water from the Ein Gedi Spring to power the upper and lower millstones, dates from the Islamic period.

The renewed Jewish settlement of Ein Gedi began with the arrival of the Israel Defense Forces in March 1949.
A route was opened from the South (Sodom) and Kibbutz Ein Gedi was established.
This transformed the area into an agricultural paradise.

Today the kibbutz has about 250 members and 300 children and most of its income comes from tourism.
The Ein Gedi area also has a field school and a youth hostel.

This was to call attention to the miserable conditions of labor, especially the unorganized ones exacerbated by the policies of globalization. Two-thirds of the marchers were women, some in their 60s, mostly working in construction.

Gabriele introduced me to one such woman, N. Rukmaniyammal, 57 years old, district secretary of the Movement for Women's Rights, who was among the core group of the organizers of the march and who walked all the 850 km. It was really great to meet such strong and courageous women. Women of Gabriela, hindi tayo nag-iisa!

From a site on Social Emancipation:
Gabriele Dietrich, born in Berlin, Germany, started her life in India with a research project on Religion and People's Organisation at the Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society. She has been teaching Social Analysis at the Tamilnadu Theological Seminary, Madurai since 1975.

She has been deeply involved with women's movements especially among slum dwellers and workers in the unorganised sector including fisheries.

She has also been working intensely with National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM). She has published widely on women's movements, organisational questions, ecology, communalism and culture. She is an Indian citizen.