The Desert Speaks - Ali Baba visits Be'er Sheva

The Desert Speaks - Ali Baba visits Be'er Sheva

Aaaah - I learned this on the sands of the Negev - not so far south of the city of Be'er Sheva. This is all true - as it would have to be to actually reach you here.  By my life and honor and by the lives and honor of those who have gone before me - this is so!  There are many secrets buried in the sands of the Negev. 

Years ago, as you came in from the north to the city of Be'er Sheva you drove past  a gigantic rectangular building, called Beit Ramet (Ramet House)  about four stories high, and another two, if you count the stairways that scaled another two empty stories underneath the building. It was off to the left of the road, back about a hundred yards or so. You could see another building  with palm trees in front if you stood on one of the  balconies in back of Beit Ramet and looked across an expanse of sand and the road from the north.

Most tour buses pulled into the drive and parking lot of the Desert Inn (Naot HaMidbar) that sat off to the right side of the road, just before you arrived to the city. It was all inviting, modern, and tastefully laid out.

You could see this "fortress" of Beit Ramet from there, not much further south than the hotel and placed back from the road from there, a huge concrete building. It's still there but much has changed since I lived there. It was a dormitory then for students attending the Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

My son was born at the hospital in Be'er Sheva and he lived with my wife and myself in the dormitory when he was an infant.

We would walk across the sand and the road sometimes and go for breakfast at the Inn. There's a huge shopping center now right where the Desert Inn stood. The food was good and it was a break for me to sit among a crowd made up largely of tourists, hear English spoken, especially American accents, as well as show off, in a way, for my Israeli wife's benefit, how well I got along in places designed for westerners - where. usually, I was the hesitant newcomer in most Israeli settings. It's interesting to look at people away from their element. There's a rhythm and way about Americans, an innocence, a childish enthusiasm and awkwardness, that some people find silly, but that I grew up in and which simply seemed a lot like home to me. I didn't realize then, that I was mid-process in some  sort of reorientation that didn't appear on the road maps. The middle east has a way too. It has a deep tradition of understanding of life and people. Most of this world is aware of it - to me - it was "Old World" -  after all, we had just put men on the Moon - the middle east was primitive - like the Navajo in the American southwest - well - similar anyway - the customs and traditions - full of superstitions and - well - definitely not scientific. Yes, I had a lot to learn. There was more in life than the technology I had been steeped in back in Philadelphia.  And, by the way, having studied chemical engineering, both in the US and in Israel, let me tell you, Israel is hardly wanting much in science and technology, except for access to advanced instruments, materials, and equipment.  

In the lobby of the Desert Inn were floor to ceiling pictures of Bedouin children, smiling in front of tents with camels and goats tethered. I think they were black and white photos, but they were intense. They invited you right into the desert, appropriately enough, so real, so friendly. You felt like you were standing right there on the desert in front of them.

Not so long after our first visit to Naot Hamidbar, a friend studying biology, asked me if I would help her along with a project and drive down to the desert so she could pick some flowers.  Her name was Nomi and she was an immigrant from Latvia. Yes, blonde hair and blue eyes and she would smile whenever she spoke, like a child at a recital. She was in love with  nature, Particularly the carbon cycle. "Bill', she smiled her warm bright child's smile, "don't you think it is amazing how everything in life comes from the sun?"  She would go over the entire cycle from cosmic rays and chlorophyll to cells, building sugars and cellulose, breathing in carbon dioxide and drawing up water from the ground. It was spring and the sand was packed hard and easy to drive over. We had driven south on the road that exited Be'er Sheva, and ran by Abraham's well and over the bridge that spanned the wadi that flooded each winter.

A mile or so south, and we cut off onto the sand and drove till we found a field that seemed appropriate. She came back with her handful of flowers and was followed after a minute or two by a young Bedouin who appeared over a small rise.  He was smiling broadly with the bright white teeth that characterize young Bedouin, so much like the pictures of the children at the Desert Inn.

He was exceedingly polite and invited us to join him and his tribe in a wedding ceremony. We accepted and it was not long and we were seated in the middle of a tent, men on the left and women on the right, the women all covered, except for their eyes, in their tradition dress, and my friend Nomi in her short pants, which embarrassed the living heck out of me.

You had to be there - no other way! It was like being transported back a thousand years or more. The same desert, the same tents - camels kneeling on top of their folded legs, goats tethered, a man pounding on a cup full of coffee beans with a large thick stick and chanting with the same rhythm as the grinding process. Old, ancient songs. The car disappeared from my mind, the road was worlds away. We were back in time. This was how the Hebrews lived on the desert - possibly my own ancestors. I was comfortable here sitting on these carpets in the middle of the Negev, away from everything I had experienced growing up. I had heard that the Bedouin were very hospitable, but this was more than that. It was the Chapel where I said Kaddish (mourner's prayer) for my parents. It was the same place. It was the deep understanding of a people who lived on the desert for thousands of years  - so similar to the tribes of Israel described in the Bible. This understanding had spawned three of the most influential religions of this world. In a few moments of song and in a sip of very strong, dark, over sweet coffee, all this came across - the bride and groom kissed, and somehow all this became a memory.

I'm not sure of course, but it's written that Sarah, Abraham's wife, banished Hagar, the Egyptian mother who bore Abraham a son, Ishmael, fearing that her own son Isaac would somehow lose the blessing of the covenant - and they were sent out alone onto the desert.

 "Hagar entered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba where the two soon ran out of water and Hagar, not wanting to witness the death of her son, set the boy some distance away from herself, and wept. "And God heard the voice of the lad" and sent his angel to tell Hagar, "Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation." And God "opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water", from which she drew to save Ishmael's life and her own. "And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer." (Genesis 21:14–21)"

In 1972, I had been making souvenirs which were doing very well in the stores of Be'er Sheva - I used my knowledge of chemistry to etch brass plates in acid baths and made little miniature coffee tables - people really liked them. I had extra strings of wooden beads I used to serve as parts of the table legs of the tables, and brought them down to the Bedouin Market, just south of the town of Be'er Sheva to sell.I went with my friend Arieh, who was a fellow student and an immigrant from Argentina - his English was very poor, as was my Spanish, and so we spoke Hebrew. .We had set up a little table in the middle of the "Shuk" (market) Strings of wooden beads and colorful fringes of cloth tied onto them were spread out on the table. Tourists were getting off the bus. One of the main tourist attractions at the Shuk, which was held once a week for centuries now, was having your picture taken sitting on a camel's back. The camel would be kneeling, see, and you' get on - this was half the fun - and the Bedouin camel driver would move something and grunt and the Camel would stand. There you were, to show all your friends and family, like the picture in Paris with the Eiffel Tower in the background. We were a few rows of tables behind the road and the Camel.  "Harry, look real Bedouins", this woman was speaking with a heavy American accent to her husband apparently. I told Arieh as they approached, "She thinks we're Bedouin". He smiled. We were wearing what everybody wore - T- shirts and short pants and sandals. Also we had been living in Israel for many years, and in Be'er Sheva, where the sun blazes most of the day, for a few years. We were very dark and had longish hair. We looked very Bedouin. She came over to us. "Do you speak English?" - I smiled, and came back with my best Israeli Bedouin accent - "Of course - you  very beautiful lady - with the broadest Bedouin smile I could muster - you like -  beautiful beads - you  - very good price?" i don't know what came over me - but that really happened - I never confessed to her that I probably grew up a few miles from her. I don't know why - it was a secret - till now.Sometimes I think it would have been better to laugh and tell her that I was an American too, just like her.But, I wasn't. I had changed in ways that she wouldn't quite understand.  I had become a desert wanderer and we are cloaked in mystery you know.