Israel Ramble letters - The Trail's Angles Snow in Efrat, my paretnts town, is falling right now, Friday morning, Dear Boaz, As I am writing these lines it is snowing in Jerusalem, and the Golan Highest is all under deep snow. It is raining and storming everywhere, lake kineret is filling up faster, and so are the aquifers and that is good. look at some photos and short movies here. You will have to scroll down and bear with the Hebrew. This issue features the National Israel Trail. Have a great weekend. Shabbat Shalom Boaz Pnini The Trail's Angles There is a trail. It is called the Israel National Trail, it stretches over 940 kilometers, from Dan to Eilat, from the most North to the most South point of Israel, and people who live nearby often allow trail walkers, perfect strangers, to use their homes for a cup of coffee, sleeping overnight, pitching their tent in their yard, taking a shower, all mostly for free, they are known as The Trail's Angles. Want to walk?! Personal stories - Have some (water) discipline! Hikers on the Israel National Trail Throughout our childhood and teenage years we often went on long daily hikes. There are many ways to know the land, to connect, to feel it and be part of it and many Israelis do it by walking. There is even a Trail, The Israel National Trail, going from the north most point to the south most point of Israel, from Dan to Eilat. * One of my most vivid memories was the "water discipline" (The practice of water discipline was cancelled later because of several deaths due to dehydration), which means we had to calculate how much water we drunk so it will last for the whole day, no fresh supply was a coming, the ravines were dry most of the time. When we became thirsty from the heat, the climbing, the long walk, we won't drink immediately. We will stop in the shade of a tree to cool down first, then drink only one "shluk" (gulp) from our personal canteen. The most macho thing to do was to arrive at the end of the day hike with your canteen still mostly full, it was an endurance test. During these hikes, the ubiquitous question was always.. "How many kilometers have we done? How many we got left? Always trying to break our previous distance record. The more weight you carried on your back the more esteemed you were and that includes the girls. We carried our food and supplies on our backs. I particularly remember one girl in our class that will not let anyone take her back pack, saying; "It helps me to stay balanced", maybe it did. It was not always fun but we learnt team work, supporting each other as we went through difficult terrain. The reward was in the evening when we reached our destination, staying in a Kibbutz Guesthouse or other place we had never been to. Taking the backpacks, we have carried all day, off our backs was literarily uplifting, we felt light, buoyed, exhilarated, euphoric, like the a mountain climber reaching the top, we have done it, it was worth it. Boaz Pnini Bridges 2 Israel * It took 15 years to build Israel Trail for walking, and it is 940 kilometers long. In 2011 the first 85 kilometers of the Israel Trail for Bicycles was inaugurated. Water Water Water Water It is all about the water. Since being a child in the Kibbutz I was always going to the Kibbutz's black board (which is still there by the way) to check "the situation" (hamatzav). Israel is close to the Sahara desert, maybe a little bit too close for comfort. Some people say the conflict is more about water than about anything else, who knows? But the chronic water situation is always in our minds since Israel was born. So, what do we do about it?! Well, my mom for example is the first degree water recycler. She will reuse the shower water to flash the toilet and when I visit I will have to do that too, it is almost a ritual and it is a sentiment more than anything else. The country problems is not separate from our own responsibility, it is our Israel. She is not alone, there are companies who sell water recycling equipment. Israel is the first country in the world in water recycling for irrigation (called black water), in efficient irrigation's systems and in desalinization. One of the most fun things to do, working in the Kibbutz fields was roaming the fields opening clogged sprinkles which were sprinkling stinky somewhat purified water, coming strait from the kibbutz "sewage oxidation pool". (It is a kind of a waste-water treatment facility for small villages) It was not such a high-techy thing to do, we would simply find a loose wire somewhere on a fence, bend it until it broke loose from the fence and then use it to unclogged the sprinkler, and then running like hell away from the revived sprinkler to avoid being sprayed with this darker smelly water. These sewer pools were actually a magical place, for all the exotic birds and plants which grew there. It was a whole ecosystem by itself, a magic garden of rear birds, plants, butterflies and stench. funny it may be, we liked this stench, it was our stench.. :) On Shabbats we would take leisure walks to these pools, trying to tread carefully the path, as to not scare the birds by our footsteps, or noise. Magical moments are to be found in the most unlikely places. Boaz Pnini Bridges 2 Israel Politics after all Barbara Walters interview with Shimon Perez I know, I said no politics, but some things I cannot pass over, likeBarbara Walters interview of Israel's president Shimon Perez earlier this week. espcially you should not miss the last minute of this recording. Food for thought - The greater context Israel has no meaning outside the greater context of earth and life, I mean, imagine a chunk of land floating through space.. and earth has no meaning without the rest of the universe, I mean.. imagine earth without a sun etc.. and then watch this amazing Carl Sagan presentationfrom 22 years ago and see Israel from space. From young age I was fascinated by space, we had only one telescope in the Kibbutz.. I remember my dad coming to wake all of us children up at around 4:00am before down. to watch a comet, but that is a whole different story maybe for a future Ramble.