We Visit a Bedouin Tent

This adventure starts with us hiking down into the dry river valley near our house, which we've shown in numerous pictures in earlier blog posts, and up the other side. To get up on the plateau we take a trail known as the Divshon Ascent. Here's the view looking up as we hike up the trail.


Here's a picture I took of Miriam while on our way up the Divshon Ascent.


Once we're on the top of the plateau, we hike across a plain on which is scattered the usual combination of limestone and flint rubble. I've read that ancient tools made from flint are abundant up here, but I've yet to find one. After about an hour's hike on the plateau we come to a tent.


As we get closer to the tent we can see a sign inviting us in for tea, coffee, and pita bread. We decide to enter. You can see Lynn and Miriam already inside in the picture below.

Once inside the tent, we meet our hostess, Majdeline (This is how her name sounds to us but we don't know how she actually spells it). Majdeline is clearly Bedouin, which is the name for a group of nomadic Arabic tribes that are indigenous to the area. They migrated to the Negev from Saudia Arabia via the Sinai desert about 250 years ago. The integration of the Bedouin into contemporary Israeli society has not gone well for reasons that I won't go into here. Another thing we've learned about the Bedouin is that they have a tradition of warm hospitality. Majdeline clearly enjoys carrying on this tradition. Here she is pictured below with one of her daughters.

Majdeline puts out quite a spread: sweet tea, fresh pita, soft homemade goat cheese (known as labaneh cheese) garnished with herbs and olive oil, and peppers stuffed with rice. Everything is delicious.

There are just a few parties in the tent, but as you can see, Majdeline has room for many more.

Lynn does a great job of carrying on a conversation with Majdeline in fractured English, Hebrew, and Arabic. Majdeline decides to show us how to make Pita bread. First, she builds up a wood fire and cleans off the pan, which looks like an inverted wok.

Next, she flattens out a ball of dough by throwing it back and forth between her hands.

She then tosses the flattened dough onto the pan and flips it by hand.


After we've eaten nearly all the food she put out for us, she agrees to have her picture taken with Miriam and Rebekah.

Soon afterwards, we thank Majdeline profusely and head back out onto the windblown desert plateau. Here's a picture of Miriam and Rebekah taken by Lynn while on the walk home.



If you ever find yourself in the Negev desert, don't miss a chance to visit Majdeline. Please tell her we sent you.