The Jordan Valley - guards against settlers
Our mission was to bring a hospital bed to the Palestinian Jordan Valley for a patient who needs it. With the help of "The Road to Recovery” association came the pickup truck and its gracious driver, and we took a bed from the center for patients’ accessories at Kufr Qar’a – Al Shifaa wa Al Rahma – grace and compassion, and learned that it is cheaper to purchase the bed and mattress than to come there once in a while and borrow them. So now there is a hospital bed in the Palestinian Jordan Valley.
In addition, there is now a lack of help in shepherding and guarding against violent colonists, so I found myself doing house chores, shepherding, feeding the sheep, etc., while the shepherd himself drove to give testimony at the police station about the recent harassments coming from the nearby colonist outpost. The Binyamin Police which is supposed to receive complaints nearly always makes the Palestinians wait for hours and then claims there is no translator so they should come tomorrow… That’s how it worked this time too. As though the Palestinians have all the time in the world to sit and wait and think that this would bear any results.
For the first time, I alone filled troughs for a group of about 300 hungry mouths. I realized in practice why the shepherds suffer constant back aches.
The grazing in the afternoon went well, the sheep know their way on the hills alone, and the way back. They just need to know that someone is “RRRRRRR” -ing them in a thick Polish accent, and back they come.
In honor of Yom Kippur, there were no colonist ATCs and a day and night went by peacefully.
The dogs bark at the moon and stars all night, and if someone ever thought that chickens cluck at the rising sun, he/she should know that the chickens never learned that line in their textbook. They begin at midnight and take regular breaks. So one’s thoughts may wander wherever they like for sleep is rare.
I wished to photograph the rising sun, but it didn’t rise. Could it not rise today?
