A progress with the local women business initiatives

For me coming to Qasr A-Sir is always a great fun and even though I come to work I always make time on my schedule for it. So I start each meeting with a sitting in the Shig (Community tent), drinking coffee and tea and talking with the community members. Yesterday I also toured the village to see the progress of the local business initiatives which are doing great by the way. When the workers finished their construction work for that day, they joined us in the shig and we ate a great dinner together: an avocado with olive oil, a salad, Jamid (Bedouin goats' cream cheese) and the famous Madida ( Semolina cooked with cauliflower and potatoes ), Everything is served and eaten with Hubz Al-Saj (Bedouin Pita). I believe that untill I started the meeting which was my purpose from the beginnig it was already one and a half hours after I arrived.
Sometimes when I'm in the village I get to hear some amazing stories about the Bedouin heritage. For example, while I was in the shig I asked about the origin of the Bedouin tea, which is British by the way, though don't tell anyone. However the amazing stories was about the "Bandora" (tomato); apparently the Bedouins didn't eat tomatoes and even more than this - using that fruit or buying them was a shame for the Bedouin. It was such a shame that one could have prefered to leave a bag of tomatoes that he just bought, in order not to be associated it.

Well, I have left many more stories to tell but I'll keep them for another time.

Dor Fridman
Bustan's Unplugged tours' coordinator

Beit HaShayir, literally house of hair, in this case black goat's hair, is the traditional dwelling of the ancient Bedouins. For ages a set of strict rules and customs guided its construction in the desert to a point that any wanderer would recognize from afar the women's quarter (Machram) and refrain from accidently entering it. Aligned on the north south axis and entrance facing east the visitor would always look to the right to spot his host in the men's quarter (Shig). With more than dozens of terms to adorn the tent's individual parts, a unique taxonomy was formulated over the centuries. While we may never know for sure why each pole or rope was given a different name we can try to infer on the culture behind it. For one, it must be rich if so many distinct words are formed for simple items we tend to ignore daily such as "wall", "quarter", "central pole" etc. Secondly, it implies on a resource efficient society: packing and unpacking your physical house leaves no room to carry unnecessary things; the important items were given specific names to segregate them from other useless things and imply on their unique functionality as part of the whole scheme.

Taxonomy is the first step in understanding complex systems and consists of classifying concepts or things in the same manner as ecologists first try to sketch a simple picture of the organisms in a specific habitat before they even begin to appreciate the intricate relations between them. Back to the Bedouins, this hidden wisdom - what we tend to refer today as indigenous knowledge - is gradually disintegrating as more Bedouins abandon the traditional way of life. The grand understanding of what lies behind the 'words' might never be fully revealed to us. Though most of us are unlikely to seek permanent refuge in a tent, we should ask ourselves what can this elaborate phrasing reflect on our current life.

The movement from "mere observation" into "defining terms" is synonymous with gradual movement from unconsciousness to consciousness, from confusion to understanding, from chaos to order. Multiple functionality and relations, resource efficiency and more are at the heart of devising sustainable human systems. Terminology is the first step on that path.

I was lucky to have a window to the world of Bedouin society the other week, as part of a phototrip with my favourite school of photography Zilum Ba'am. The trip was coordinated by Zilum Ba'am and Bustan, an NGO promoting sustainability and capacity building in the Negev's Bedouin communities.
Approximately 180,000 Bedouin live in the Negev, where they are scattered across "recognised and unrecognised" villages. They are amongst the most disadvantaged populations in Israel, and this is reflected in their poor socioeconomic and health status and the glaring absence of adequate economic and social infrastructure in their settlements. I couldn't help but notice some parallels between their story and the story of Indigenous Australia, certainly as the current situation stands. On the positive side: proud cultures, tight knit family structures, true attempts at grassroots social and economic development, fostering community leadership. Yet on the other side of the coin: contested lands (to the point of forcible evictions and demolitions), severe exclusion and disadvantage, systemic state and social discrimination, repression of women (though educational opportunities are increasingly opening up to them), the pressures of modernity on a traditional way of life, and more.
There is heaps of information available online so I wont give a history lesson here but it's all very fascinating and there are great organisations trying to enable real changes on the ground - Bustan, for one, is focusing their energy on building capacity in Qasr-a-Sir with an eco-khan, a 5-month permaNegev program for volunteers (2012), women's entrepreneurship program, and more. We ate a simple and delcious lunch at Bat Hamidbar farm in Tel Sheva, home to the Bat Hamidbar cosmetics range. All products - lotions, soaps, oils - are 100% natural and are formulated according to time-honoured Bedouin knowledge about the remediative and restorative properties of indigenous herbs and plants.

This is a part of a blog that was written by Tamar Paluch. You are invited to read the whole blog and view more of her pictures.

My first encounter with the Bedouin community was when I was 17; Friends of mine and I went down to Sinai for vacation. Sinai is the beautiful desert between Egypt and Israel and it has a fantastic beach strip on the red sea which the local Bedouins turned into a resorts' zone. Staying there is cheap and simple yet absolutely fabulous. You enjoy delicious healthy local food, traditional music and storytelling, lovely walks along the beach, and of course everything the red sea has to offer: Snorkeling, scuba diving and a great swim. Any time spent between the great mountains of the desert and the beautiful serenity of the red sea, is always a huge pleasure.
During my first few trips I met a group of very smart, very funny and very loving local young girls. They were only ten or eleven years old, and I had a very nice and interesting time getting to know them. After a few years they disappeared from the beaches and when I asked about them they were apparently too old to spend time there anymore. That was my first encounter with the differences between the genders in the Bedouin community. The boys who have turned into men kept hanging out in the beach with the tourists, either working or just enjoying themselves and the girls were sent back to the village. I went to visit the girls every once in a while, which was an eye opening experience for a citizen from a "Western" country. It seemed to me that the girls were in quarantine. I tried to talk about it with them and with the men (who grew to be dear friends) but I never pushed the matter to much, out of politeness.
During my last year in university I had the opportunity to choose an organization which works with different communities in the Negev as an Intern in one of them. I immediately knew that I wanted to work with Bedouin women and that is how I got involved with "Bustan". Together with the organization I was able to define my job as in charge of the women empowerment program in the village Qasr A- Sir. The organization had grouped together a few local women in order to build small businesses they can maintain and eventually run. I was eager to start my job in "Bustan"; I saw this as an opportunity to help create a model where Bedouin women can use their power, knowledge and talent to not only make their life better but also the men, their families and their communities. The businesses are slowly coming together, the women run a public kitchen where they serve homemade sandwiches and meals on a daily basis, and they cater for small events in the village and for groups who come to tour the area.Other women are in the midst of a professional sewing course. "Bustan" provided state of the art sewing machines, and they are slowly learning how to use them. The rumor is spreading from ear to mouth and they are already taking up mending jobs. The third business is a greenhouse; the plan is to grow traditional plants there and also to be able to teach groups about traditional medicine, cosmetics and herbs - all natural.
The different businesses are just one aspect of the change "Bustan" wishes to see in the village; we are hoping to start a regular meeting once a month, a "Women Circle" where all the women are invited to join (not only the dozen or so who work in the different businesses). We have activities and lectures about topics that they are interested in lined up: family, children, health and anything else that comes from them. This week we are learning how to knit from PARN, which is yarn made out of plastic bags. It's ecological, cheap and fun.
When I first met some of the women, they mentioned they would like to improve their English; since then we have been having weekly English teaching classes in the village and the women's English is getting better and better. While I thought that the empowerment would come from outside sources, I slowly understand that the only way to make a real change is from the inside. The women are enthusiastic, optimistic and willing to learn and change which is more than I can say about a lot of "Western" and "Modern" communities. It has been a true gift to be part of this development and I hope that this is just a tiny beginning in a huge revolution for women from all faiths and countries all around the world.

The other day I was visiting the village to maintain some meetings and had some free time in-between, so I was just strolling around and talking with people. I met Amin who just came back with fodder for his flock. This is the time of year when the pastures are green. Some flock-owners go to graze, while other supplies fodder back to their villages. The fodder is very important to the survival of the livestock, thus it is provided to them at least 16 days a year.Many families in Qasr a-Sir, rear all kinds of livestock: some chickens, goats and sheep, and even camels.
I was intrigued by the potential of this behavior as a basis for local food production. Apparently it has many advantages in terms of local economy; As Amin said to me, his modest herd provides him with fresh goats milk during 6-7 months each year. This milk is was and still is a very important ingredient of the Bedouin diet. It is processed into many different products, one of them (Affig) for example is preserved by salting and drying for long periods of time. Goats and sheep are also sold either for herding purposes or to the meat industry, and can generate an extra income particularly when their owner is short in funds. Opposed to the common thought about the Bedouins they are not tend to eat meat on a daily basis; Slaughtering of livestock is dedicated to special tribal, cultural and ritual events. When I do see meat, it is mostly poultry. Chicken rearing is much easier, thus much more common than flocks rearing. It also supplies fresh-eggs on daily basis, and Amin told me that he doesn't buy eggs at all. In Qasr a-Sir there are also many olive groves. In the past wheat and barley were also common crops but they are much more rare today since the quantity of precipitation has decreased over the years. This year Amin had succeeded to produce about 50 litters (about 13 gallons) of olive oil, yet when I asked him if it was a sufficient yearly amount he laughed, saying that they eat so much olive oil and he needs much more of it.
Every year I'm fascinated by the herds that roam the region and by those small flock owners who bring fodder back to their villages. Every time I arrive in Qasr a-Sir I'm amazed by the seemingly simple life-style and wonders about the potential of achieving self-subsistence. Anyhow it will be much more complex to measure the advantages or dis-advantages of this life-style in terms of environmental impact.
Read the full blog post in Dor's local economy blog

Words have great power to shape reality in a certain way. Unfortunately it takes a long time, at least for me, to get a grasp on the latent distinction that is found in each and every word. As the Unplugged tours coordinator of Bustan, I have had the opportunity to roam around the Negev. I have heard stories of Bedouin, Jews and government officials; all describe the same conditions from their unique point-of-view. I have also noticed that there disputes and disagreements within those groups, even on those matters that seem to be under a unanimous consent. Nevertheless, as it was hinged in the first sentence, this post is not about the heterogeneity of neither the Bedouin nor the Jews in Israel; it is about the use of different words, which refer to the same phenomena, by different people. It is found out there in stories, academic literature, newspapers, and other kinds of media.

As you may know the Israeli government established and developed several towns for the Bedouin communities, starting at the late 60s. Few stories I've heard, describe the chaos in which the new townsfolk were; for example, they were using the new houses as winter dwellings for their flocks, while constructing their own winter tent behind the house. Even today there are many families who rear goats, sheep and camels at their yards in town. Seeing few goats eating the grass that grows in the sidewalks' cracks in Tel-Sheva, is quite a common sight, therefore it is not a surprise that some of the townsfolk refer to it as a big village. It in some way reflects their desired way-of-life and disguises the current one. The Bedouin towns were an initiative that was meant to organize the Bedouin settlements in such a way, which the Israelis were familiar with. Yet, before that initiative the Bedouin were already populating different villages that were spread around a confined area east to Be'er Sheva; those villages became known as the un-recognized villages. Not everybody agrees about this name and when the Bedouin, left-wing NGOs and the international community in general refer to them as un-recognized; most Jewish-Israelis, government officials and other NGOs see them as illegal: illegal buildings, trees and animals shacks are all under the threat of demolition. It is true that according to the Israeli law those villages are in-fact illegal, however it was the same law that didn't recognize them from the beginning.

It may sound as a figure of speech and nothing more, only words are powerful. The difference between un-recognized to illegal is the difference between two narratives, two stories and two truths. It is not an attempt to promote any of those attitudes, neither an analysis of the resemblance and difference between them; the only thing that matters is that people will pay more attention to the use others make with their words. The conflict between the Israeli governments, since 1948 until the present, is full with these dualities. Each side, and there are many sides to this story, tell his narrative in his own words, which he picks carefully; that's how different words create different perception of realities in people's minds, which in turn being translated to one complex reality out there in the Negev.

PermaNegev Archives: By Yossi Rouch
PermaNegev Week 2!

The week started in the rhythm of the desert: "Shwai shwai" that's Arabic for slowly, slowly. We gathered back at the village after a nice weekend when we each had our own adventures around Israel and started our week with some coffee, tea and more spoken Arabic lessons. Then, after lunch we added more cob to the main house, which is a work-in-progress. Then, one of the bedouin farmers from the village took us on a tour of his olive groves and explained to us his method of terracing his fields in order to optimize the benefit from the small amount of rain that occurs here in the desert.… But, the most fun part of the day came next! We gathered a bunch of the kids from the village and told them it would be really fun to pick up garbage and made a game out of it. So, we filled many bags of garbage that was littered around and separated it so that we could use it again later and we plan to gather the group again in the future to show them that this garbage can be a resource.

PermaNegev Archives: By Jonathan Hughes

Its Friday, 19th May, 2012; and the end of an action-packed penultimate week on PermaNegev; the permaculture design certificate in a fledgling Bedouin permaculture project in the Israeli desert. We have gone from 5 to 12 participants (approx) with the permaculture exchange students up from Lotan Permaculture Kibbutz. Alice kicked Monday off with a seminar on desert tree selection over a workshop, germinating seeds and setting up a tree nursery. We boiled, soaked and learnt about Akasia raddiana, Akasia relifka, Albitsia lebbeck, Carob, Gum Arabic and Lueina. In the afternoon we split into smaller work groups; made pots and planted seeds, worked on the shade structure of the neighboring woman's garden project, put the roof on and repaired the tire-rubber hinges of the compost toilet, buried some plumbing, finished the fence and planted a cactus perimeter. After finishing a few of the previous night's jobs on Tuesday morning, we enjoyed tales from our local herb master, Sheikh Ali, over a forty herb brew. Ali started studying the medicinal properties of desert plants in his early twenties, collecting traditional Bedouin knowledge. He then spent years investigating the medicinal properties of new plants, combinations and preparation methods to interrogate and expand on this knowledge. For these experiments, he was his own guinea pig and would occasionally eat something that really messed him up. He has since completed a related degree, developed a range of useful plant based products, made many sick people feel better and plans to develop a herb garden and preparation facilities in the permaculture project that is our base. Alice gave an afternoon talk on soil management.

Read the full archieves at Bustan's Perma Negev facebook page

When I was a little boy, I loved to eat with my hands.  My mom was less thrilled about this than I was, so one day she said: "Fine! If you're going to eat with your hands, why not eat your soup with your hands?"  So, I did.  Coming to Qasr A-Sir over a decade later, I finally found a place where it is not only acceptable but preferable to eat with a piece of bread in your hand rather than a fork.  Although, of course, no one here eats their soup with their hands (and neither do I, to my mother's pleasure). In all seriousness, throughout my time here in Qasr A-Sir, I have been very lucky to share many meals with residents of the village, who I have come to know as friends. 

During Ramadan, the men of the neighborhood along with their sons all eat a communal dinner each night after the fast.  These meals, like much else in the village, are about more than delicious food--they are about community and family.  Eating communal meals every night for three weeks without a fight--can you imagine?  Taking part in these meals and so much else in the village these past 10 weeks, I have in a sense, "joined the family."  On more than a few occasions the men joked of needing to arrange a marriage for me, and for weeks Atiya, one of my closer friends in the village, has taken to calling me "My brother." 

Of course, I remain an outsider, as is perhaps inevitable in work such as this.  But after spending so much time in the village, I have come to understand much about the hopes and dreams, struggles and setbacks, and daily realities of Bedouin life in the Negev.  Living with minimal electricity, no fan, no air conditioning, and no refrigerator, in a country with so much, has been a humbling experience.  Of course, life in the village isn't always so rough--I also got to watch the European Cup with some of the men and their sons.  Electricity isn't provided by the state, but most people now have solar panels (even if it doesn't nearly take care of their needs).  But as I have come to see, Qasr A-Sir is far from a place of despair--it is a place of energy, hope, and above all change. 

On one of my last days in the village, two men from the Israeli government came to the village to learn about how to bring the Bedouin of Qasr A-Sir development.  When I asked them if they had ever been to the village before, they replied that they had not. This, to me, was absurd.  Qasr A-Sir, after all, has struggled for recognition, land rights, and development for decades, and has been formally recognized by the Israeli state for about ten years.  I later learned that the two men were recently appointed by the office of the Prime Minister--yet another government task force for the "development" of the Bedouin.  Inevitably, these men were peddling the same excuses and diagnoses that have haunted the Bedouin of the Negev for the past 45 years or so.  This was a sobering experience for me, at the end of a long summer in the village.  But it was also an important reminder that after I leave, the struggle for the future of Qasr A-Sir will continue.  And I plan to remain a part of that struggle. 

I have only begun to unpack the complicated and often disheartening environmental politics surrounding the Negev Bedouin communities. I was provided with the opportunity to visit the village of Qasr Al Sir, with the assistance of Dor Fridman from Bustan. My visit was during an introductory research project on the lack of waste removal in the Bedouin communities. The openness and knowledge with which Dor approached the topic allowed me to gain a far deeper insight into the issue than I had anticipated.

The first port of call was to understand that the issue of waste is deeply rooted in the history of Bedouin sedentarization. While their health was far from perfect before - many suffered from anemia - the Bedouin used to lead a generally waste-free, closed-cycle lifestyle. Our pop in to the local grocery store in the village proved the extent to which their consumption patterns have changed. Packaged polysterene products and frozen foods are abundant. Alongside this change, as Dor clarified, "there is now the odd situation in which people don't know how to handle their own waste".

The gap in knowledge is accompanied by the fact that there are an insufficient number of green waste containers in the village, and they only get cleared on an irregular basis. The locals thus generally resort to their own removal methods, which is often the dangerous practice of burning garbage. Dor and I were able to view many barrels filled with the remnants of burnt products; diapers, building material, cream, even a television.

Not only does burning trash have severe physical effects, but the burnt material attracts the attention of unaware animals, the diesel and oil employed during the process leaves the soil contaminated, and some matter flies and drifts into the wadi. And, of course, there are problems connected to the smell and people's wellbeing. An added and often overlooked area of concern, is that the Bedouin women are generally the ones to conduct the burning and are thus most at risk to the health-related hazards.

It is clear that the ecological and social cost of improper waste removal can be found deeply tangled within a web of challenges facing the Negev Bedouin. The solutions on the other hand, seem few and far between. It is for this reason that I was, and continue to be, impressed with Bustan. Not only does the organization focus on environmental empowerment, but it co-ordinates projects initiated by, and served to, local Bedouin women. I believe it is through these types of initiatives that could inspire Bedouin women to learn about and take higher leadership roles on waste and other equally rotten and accumulating matters of concern.