| Stories from Israel The Bedouin Tent: Our group spent a night at a Bedouin Tent in one of the Deserts of Israel. Bedouins are cool people. They have excellent food, great hospitality and tell some good stories. This was one of my favorite memories of the trip ( other than going to the Kotel, but that's another story for another time...) I remember that we drove from the Dead sea to the Bedouin encampment. I don't know how long it took, all I remember was falling asleep. I woke up as we were arriving at the encampment. When I exited the bus, I couldn't really see anything. We went first to the tent in which we would sleep. It was large and warm, being made of Goat hair.....there were piles of mattresses on which we would sleep. I grabbed three for myself and set up my stuff next to that of my friend Rachel. We hung out in the tent until it was time for dinner. About dinner. Our hosts first ground coffee in their traditional way ( rhythmically, and it sounded really cool) and served us coffee in tiny cups ( which was bitter tasting but good and strong) and showed us to how say without words that we didn't want any more. Then we drank this sweet tea in glasses. ( Russian style!) I would give ANYTHING to have tea from the Bedouin tent shipped to me here in Tahoe. ( Along with Shwarma and Israeli Falafel....Mmmm!) Dinner was served in front of us on the ground. It was delicious like everything else had been served thus far.....unfortunately or fortunately the dinner got disrupted by a bunch of the other groups raucous Israeli Dancing. It was hard to join in and they sang some songs that I didn't know. The dancing went on for a while..... Afterward we went into the Sleeping tent and one of our Bedouin guides told all of us a story in the Bedouin tradition. Then he asked for one of us to tell a Jewish story....I volunteered and told the Isaac Bashevis Singer story " Lyzer the Meiser and Shrewd Todie." Everyone clapped! Then we sat down and just hung out. I got bored and proposed a game of Limbo with my white scarf. Most everybody joined in and Shayna turned out to be the person who could go the lowest of us all. After some more talking until late in the night, our group started to try to go to bed. Unfortunately, there was a problem....... The group on the other side of the tent just didn't want to shut up?! Everybody was getting tired of it! So somebody from our group ( Rachael? Ronit? Rochelle? I can't remember!!!) finally put them in check and we settled down for a few hours of sleep. I had to get up and go to the bathroom sometime later and as I left the tent and ran to the bathroom, some dude started following me! I went into the stall and closed the door and when I came out this Bedouin guy was standing in the bathroom. I tried not to look at him ( being that I was a little scared) and washed my hands. Then this guy started making kissing noises at me and motioned that he wanted to kiss me. UMMMM.....NO THANK YOU!!!! I ran out of there as fast as my legs could carry me!!!! I then went back to sleep. In the morning, we all went to breakfast ( which I wouldn't eat much of, being that I don't like Israeli yogurt and pudding, and there were no bagels!) and went out to ride the camels. Camels are graceful animals, I am not kidding. I like riding a camel better than riding a horse. Don't ask why. Okay, so there were only enough camels for half of us to ride, so some of us walked alongside the camels on the way out, and those who rode did the same on the way back. I was one of the ones who walked first and rode second. When I eventually got the chance to ride a camel, it was amazing to feel so lifted up into the sky so to speak. As long as I didn't look down, I was fine. I was so happy that I started to sing. Loudly. Apparently, one of our Bedouin guides knew the words to "Hinei Ma Tov" so he joined in with my singing. Rather cool, don't you think? The End! To Back to the Main Page Click Here! To Go Back To The Israel Page Click Here! |
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