Jordan Valley: It is Passover Eve, the roads are empty.

It is Passover Eve, the roads are empty. Only road 5 cannot give up is sniper positions towards the cars driving in both directions. In each post a male or female soldier point their weapons at the road – at Barkan as well as Ariel Junctions.

It’s a warm spring day after a very rainy season and beautiful winter. The descent to the Jordan Valley reacquaints our eyes with the old familiar brown tones, the yellowing fields, and the hills that rock into each other like the sheep seeking shade between its neighbor’s legs.

The Palestinian Jordan Valley is calm and quiet. The sheep and goats can enjoy lapping up the remaining, drying blades of grass on the ground. After this short grazing session they return to their home troughs filled with wheat and rye. They then retire for a rest in the shade, and to be milked again. Life ain’t simple for a sheep in a dry zone.

The Jewish holiday accounts for total absence of the Israeli army and settler-colonists. A calm weekend may be enjoyed.

The encampment is teeming with laughter, birdsong, a dove nesting on herb stalks, chickens, a bird that has just been caught and for a Jewish eye resembles the quail caught in the 40-years-of-wandring in the desert. It will now be taken into a cage until the child sends it off free.

On our way back – winter is over. One can no longer ignore the thorn bushes caressing the roadsides all the way uphill and down.