קומפוסט (compost)

There is something magical about this place – only here could anyone convince me to get up at 5:30 in the morning to dig through dumpsters of rotting food and manure. We started our week bright and early Sunday morning in the eco-kef to make our first sheet mulch garden bed. Essentially, we took bin after bin of organic waste and made a big pile that in a few months will have decomposed for us to plant corn in. Composting is starting to consume my thoughts, and on Sunday its presence in my mind was especially intense... the nasty taste and smell of our long pile of future soil haunted me the entire morning and well into the afternoon. However, as disgusting as the experience was, it was sort of fun in a way – composting is beneficial in many ways that a lot of people don’t think about. Not only is compost an amazing source of nutrients for gardens, but it is a way of recycling waste that would otherwise continue to produce more waste – garbage takes gas to be transported to a landfill, where it takes up space and is sealed off so it cannot decompose aerobically. Instead, harmful gasses are released into the environment as it rots. Composting is a simple and very easy way to turn waste into food that doesn’t have to be smelly or attract animals. I hope that when I get home I will be able to continue composting and that more will follow.

Fortunately, I got to leave the stench of the sheet mulch compost bed for my first Hebrew lesson. I’m really excited to be learning the language – it’s going really well and I can tell that within one week my vocab has grown drastically. Being around so many Israelis, its exciting to be starting to understand bits of their conversations. Then, after breakfast, we spent the majority of the day in the classroom for our gardening class, and the first session of our permaculture course. By two months from now I should have my official Permaculture Design Certificate. Permaculture, in case you were wondering (I didn’t know the definition until about two weeks ago), means permanent agriculture – basically, it is all things sustainability, closing of cycles, growing food, etc. It’s all super inspiring and thought-provoking, but we are all suffering a little from what we call the “greenroom effect”: our classroom is called the greenroom, and whenever we go in it we fall asleep from the heat. Its not too bad, though, because we spend most of our time outside.

On Monday we checked in with our compost piles, continued discussing the 10 principles of permaculture, and had a lesson on the history of Kibbutz Lotan, which is soon to be entering its 30th year. More importantly, however, Monday night was Israeli dancing night. A delegation of about ten of us from the bustan showed up, and our hilarious “dance teacher” taught us some “Israeli folk dancing” (although, I don’t know if I would call the Macarena an Israeli dance). I laughed harder than I have in a long time – it was really fun, and apparently we are now all in a dance troupe that meets every week... we’ll see. Tuesday morning we started our first big mud building project. At the eco-kef (Lotan’s eco-tourism playground and educational garden space) are the beginnings of a mini-golf course made of recycled materials. We spent the morning building a mud bench that might become part of the golf course. After about 3 hours we finished the first and second coats of mud, which are over a base structure made of recycled tires filled with plastic garbage. Tomorrow we’ll add the last two coats and see how it looks! We cleaned off  that afternoon with some time in the pool and then at night I met some of the other teens my age that are living at the kibbutz. Everyone is really cool, and I’m excited to be making some more friends outside of my program so I can become more a part of the kibbutz community.

This morning we woke up early to plant a garden in our neighborhood. Among others, we planted basil, corn, beans, squash, cilantro, onion and dill. A lot of the plants are right outside my window so hopefully in a week or two I will see some green in front of the goat pen. I am planning to experiment this week with growing a plum tree to see if I can get one to sprout in this climate. We also had a green architecture class all afternoon, and now we’re off to celebrate a friend’s birthday! 

More later!

Shabbat Shalom

We ended our work week on Thursday with a potluck dinner. Using all the equipment in our eco-kitchen, we all worked on dishes to share: we made pizzas and bread in the taboon mud-oven, several salads and stews, and for dessert we had watermelon solar-oven baked brownies. It was fun to all cook together, and everything tasted amazing (or maybe I was just tired and hungry from the three hours of cooking).  We didn’t stay up too late because of our impending early wake-up Friday morning. In order to get ready for Shabbat, there were no classes on Friday morning. Instead we headed out at 6:00 in the morning for a hike through the desert mountains before it got too hot out from the sun. A guide from the Kibbutz brought us up into the rocks and taught us all sorts of things about the history of the land, and also about the hundreds of thousands of birds who migrate over the Arava desert every year. This desert is one of the driest in the world – this year they only got about 6 millimeters of rain total. It is amazing that so many people have been able to cultivate the land, following Israel’s first president’s dream to “make the desert bloom”. 

We made it back in time for breakfast, and then spent the morning in the pool. After lunch we all bummed around relaxing in the bustan. I sliced some apples and put them in our solar-dehydrator to make apple chips. They were just a first test, so they weren’t perfect, but they did come out pretty good! After this, it was time for Kabbalat Shabbat services. About 35 of us came for services, in a small community room on the Kibbutz. Sitting in a circle on the floor, a few Lotan teens played guitar and we sang many of the same tunes as we use at camp. It was a really magical service... I didn’t understand much of anything anyone said but I could feel the passion in the air and hear it in the voices of the community as they sang in harmonies. It was a short service, only about an hour as the sun was setting, and then we all headed to dinner. It was a nice meal, served to our tables instead of the normal buffet-style set up in the chadar. After dinner all of the people in the Living Routes and Green Apprenticeship program walked about a mile off the residential part of the Kibbutz to have a bonfire over by the date farm. We made tea from herbs we picked in our neighborhood and looked at the stars in the clearest sky I have ever seen. At about 12:30 we made our way back to the Kibbutz for a party that lasted until about 3 in the morning and then finally conked out for the night.

Because of Shabbat we got to sleep in today, so I woke up around 1:00 just in time for lunch. Today is a chill day, nothing on the schedule, so we’ll probably hit up the pool and then join some of the Kibbutz teens for an ultimate frisbee game. Tomorrow morning we return to our normal schedule and also start our hebrew lessons. Until later, Shabbat Shalom from Kibbutz Lotan!

College: Mud, Seeds, and Poop 101

I’ve been here only three days and it already feels like home. Mornings are my favorite. I wake up around 5:00, when the sun is starting to rise, to the sound of the goat milking about 20 feet from my window. The air is cool, but not for long, and the bustan is peaceful and quiet. I brush my teeth at our outdoor sinks and kill some time walking around and looking out at the surrounding mountains. By seven fifteen I make it to the chadar ohel (dining hall) for breakfast; fresh plums and pears, eggs, salad of cucumbers and tomato, and some bread with tahini sauce. It feels like a treat at every meal to eat such delicious fruits and vegetables. We then start our day at 8:00 on the lawn with our morning celebrations and warm up.

My first college class was gardening. We looked at different types of seeds, discussed germination, and our first project – planting twenty onion seeds to observe throughout the semester. After this, we made our way through the eco-playground to our next class: building adobe sun-dried bricks. Apparently, playing with mud is more technical than I thought. We learned the basic ratios for mud construction. But then, we got our hands dirty, mixed big batches of mud, and made a bunch of bricks. That evening before dinner we all made more thorough introductions, explored the kibbutz and played in the pool – a much needed cool-down from the 38º C desert heat. After dinner we stayed out late singing songs (both I and an Israeli brought guitars) and socializing in the moa-dome (moadone is hebrew for clubhouse). Day 1 = successful.

The next morning we had a class on sustainable communities (eco-villages), and the roots of our world’s global crises. It was really interesting and exciting to feel like what I was learning about was relevant; within my lifetime the world will be facing many necessary major changes, and I feel like here at Lotan we are on the verge of big things – real practical solutions. After that we made some seed balls, and then made our first compost piles. My group’s was “kitchen-themed” so we used food scraps, corn husks, egg cartons, etc. We are hoping to replicate a compost pile someone could create in their kitchen, to see how well it would work for people to do at home. In the afternoon we had big group team building exercises including a blindfolded trust walk through the desert, and some games that felt like camp – actually, all of my time here has felt like I am at camp... except there aren’t really any rules. I love it here. 

Today we did some more mud-brick construction, and learned all about the different ovens in our outdoor kitchen. Tonight we have our first potluck dinner in the eco-neighborhood. Somebody is making pizzas in the taboon (basic mud-oven), somebody has been baking brownies in our solar oven, and I am very excited... I don’t know what I am making yet, but I am thinking of making some chocolate covered pomegranate seeds from the pomegranate tree just outside my dome! Also this afternoon we spent some time learning all about our compost toilets. We have a "kaki classroom" underneath our bathroom where we learned hour our human waste is turned to compost which is used on trees throughout the kibbutz!

I was really nervous before coming because I knew I would be the youngest here, but it doesn’t matter. I'm having so much fun meeting new people from all over the world who all have different stories. They are all very inspirational – it is going to be hard to transition from such a magical place with such original and thoughtful people to go to regular college... The things we have been learning about and experiencing have already opened my eyes, and I am very excited to be learning about something "real". For the first time I feel that the education I am getting is important. Everything has been fun so far – making seed balls and mud bricks, hanging in the bustan late at night, and even having more serious discussions and classes – everything is so interesting to me that I have a hard time not getting excited about it. I can't wait to see what else is in store for me this semester. 

Arrival

Flights to Israel are always interesting. From the Orthodox Jews praying in the aisle next to you to the group of obnoxious middle schoolers singing, it is hard to not let others’ excitement wear off on you –– not that I could take on any more anticipation, having been waiting for an entire year for this day to arrive. I didn’t sleep a wink on the plane. Ten and a half hours in the air, the flight from Philadelphia to Tel Aviv went by fairly quickly (except for during the times I sat watching our plane move like a snail across the GPS screen). Stepping off the plane I felt the heat of the 91 degree Israeli afternoon with the biggest smile of anyone in the airport. I made it through customs, baggage claim and getting my passport stamped in about 30 minutes and searched the crowd for the group with the Kibbutz Lotan sign.

We then packed all of our stuff, and the six of us, into a van and started driving South. From the shotgun seat I watched the green turn to brown as we got further and further in to the desert. It was beautiful watching the sunset over the empty Negev as we made our way (about 100 kph) down the dangerously windy freeway. We stopped after about three hours, which we had mostly spent asleep, and had a picnic dinner at Mitspe Ramon – the “Israeli Grand Canyon”. I recognized the street from when I was in Israel two years ago; when I was in Israel then we had practically the same first day: arrive in Tel Aviv and drive for 5 hours straight South into the desert. After dinner, an assortment of fresh fruits and cheeses made at Lotan, we drove for about another hour and got to our Kibbutz at about 10:00 pm.

We took a quick tour of our bustan eco-village neighborhood, but it was dark so we are getting the real tour tomorrow. We unpacked in our mud-huts which are called “dome-atories”, had a quick lesson on how to use the compost toilets (more details to come) and saw where to get water in our outdoor kitchen (which was being used by a hedgehog when we first stepped in). After we finished unpacking, the five of us in the Living Routes 4-month program explored the rest of the Kibbutz with a few of the Green Apprentices (who are on a shorter 2-month program that also started today). We went to “the pub” where all of the people our age were hanging out and had an impromptu, but huge, bonfire until about 1:30 in the morning. Due to our 7:00 wake up tomorrow, we decided to call it a night. I can’t wait for our first two classes tomorrow morning: “seeds” and “mud”. I will definitely post some pictures soon!

Dome 3 (my mud hut)

Our outdoor bread and pizza cookers

eco-village community kitchen (outside)

The "Moa-dome" (our hang-out space)

inside the eco-kitchen