Jordan Valley - holiday for all

Palestinian Jordan Valley

Fields spread over to the horizon, no ancient olive trees nor mountains, but the full beauty of piles of golden harvested wheat in a mind-blowing landscape.

Among a combine and a donkey and grazing sheep I meet Ayman and Fawzi and Diab, and we shake hands again and plan to meet and discuss the “beach days” when they return from pasture.

At Khalat Makhoul every family gets its share of the car’s contents.

The holiday (Eid al Fitr) concluding the Ramadan fast month is mixed this year and everyone continues their daily toil in clean dwellings. The sheep still have their daily needs, the cheese makers need milk, the butcher needs the goat and its offspring…

A spring birthday sneaked into the general holiday.

Only Abu Khalaf and his wife continue the Ramadan for they need to get used to the fact that it’s over. And some people need to get used to eating very slowly.

Samra village – I conduct a mute negotiation, reach agreements, shake hands, time and again, and everyone agrees about something else. I was so proud that they decided to participate in our beach days after they had already given up, and the list is still on its way, but then came a list consisting only of men’s names. Including the notice that women and girls don’t want to come. I came there. The men were sitting in their hospitality site and the women in their own.

I thought, as many of us do, in their stead – well, you know, patriarchy. The men have decided. And so on and so forth. But after speaking with the women I realized they don’t want to come. It’s natural for them not to want to come. They don’t even try to explain it. Do you want to go see the sea? Go on. No, we’re happy here, this is where I was born. And so on and so forth. The words were said so simply that all I could do was take pictures and was not allowed to do so, of course. “Let the men go by themselves…”