It HAILED! In ISRAEL! Not only did in rain today on this disgusting day of election (weather wise, not politics--although now that I think of it, that applies too...) but hail???? Seriously?? This picture was taken right outside of our room. Mark was outside running and we were all worried about him; apparently he was at the front gate when it started and took shelter, but if his hair was a little fluffier he wouldn't have needed. It was beautiful. And coooooolllld out today. Side note: This is my ONLY PICTURE of election day, a very fascinating day in my opinion.
End result: Happy NANA and SAGE plants at our bayit!
Making our personal plants. Josh is making an incision for the water. He's so focused.
Experiments with algae.
Water falling from the pipes above. Water's falling from the sky above outside right now. I can here the thunder.
One of the coexistance projects was to build something that projected a sound to the other side of the room, etc.....
These water cabbages keep the water clean and have no practical use besides that whatsoever; sometimes that's enough.
My fingers are getting tired. This is the bottom part of the picture below.
Bioengineering. Yaay.
Irrigation system, more.
Irrigation system. Water from shower goes there and feeds the trees (not pictured)
More environemental impact stuff--when the sun goes up, the sun reflects off the mirrors and heats the glass; if you have a pot of tea out there, it boils in 10-15 minutes
This is a very very nifty system. When it's sunny outside the glass heats up and there is a suction that pulls the air in from the outside and carries into the black thing in the back... from the back side (not pictured), there is a door that opens and you can cook things in there slow-roast in the summer, or whatever cooks slowly. Very cool.
This is the front yard of the environmental-guru of the kibbutz. She also incidentally happens to be our Arabic teacher. Complete accident! We had no idea she was so cool. This is a public garden; what you can't see from this picture is the complex irrigation system she has set up to access the water and manipulate it for all the plants around.
Look at us, we're so cool. This is the middle-ish of the greenhouse; I'm hiding behind our guide-person-friend.
For Tu'Bishvat, we headed over Kibbutz Ein Shemier (not spelling it right, I think), a neighboring kibbutz that houses a non-profit environmental research lab. These plants are projects children have completed during their time at Ein Shemier. I mention these kids because not only is it an environmental research center, but it is also used as a coexistance place where kids from Jewish and Arabic households come together from very young ages to even 17 years of age and work on a variety of projects.
Arabic hospitality. Fortunately, they gave us lemonade, not tea or coffee-- I don't know how much more I could have withstood. These are typical sweets eaten after the fast day is over during the month of Ramadan.
Lawyer brother in action. I think that might be the son or grandson?
A giant plot of land that my professor's dad left behind for his children, 5 boys and 3 girls. One of the brothers is on his way to becoming the mayor of Taibe, another is a lawyer, and the divorced sister also has a house on this plot of land. Each one, once there is enough money, builds another house right next door. On the left you can see a house in the making, which is the lawyer brother, and the empty plot of land next to it that looks slightly cleaned out. That's where my prof's going to be. Eventually. He's a teacher, it's not like he makes a great salary. They have an apartment within the city-city area, anyway.
This is the first picture, but because the uploader is stupid, it loaded them in backwards.Anyway, this is Taibe. It's a very old, old city. My professor lives there, about four or five blocks away; there are actually people who live within these walls now. See, for example, the woman on the bottom right. This was the second or third stop on our way around Taibe--first being profs apartment for lunch, second at his family's funeral room, third here.
No comments:
Post a Comment