Episode 24: "The Negev" (+)

The next day was my trip to the Negev, a desert on the south side of Israel. This would be my second foray into the dusty parts of the Holy Land, and also the last of the big hikes for the semester. The itinerary was a simple (walk, sleep, walk), the company was promising (two of my roommates, along with other friends from school), and the prospect of conquering desert lands again, even sans camels, was looking pretty fly. But the wake-up was a monster, especially given how late I’d gotten home from the Thanksgiving event. I was up and killing a bowl of cereal before dawn was even a thought in the sky, my friends. The people who organize these trips are nuts about an early take-off.

Except taking off was nothing we did punctually. By the time we were supposed to leave, a good chunk of signed-on students were still A.W.O.L. Turns out a bunch of them were still feeling Thanksgiving from the night before, including my friend Paul, who was one of the very last students to show up. As we all waited for him, my flat-mates Corina and Roni reclined across two seats each, trying to make sleeping spaces for themselves before Paul could come and potentially sit next to them. I was pretty much with them: physically exhausted, fully aware of the ungodly hour and probably not at my moral best. Tempted to lay down across two seats myself, I jabbed at Corina about how selfish she was being. Paul came on the bus and sat next to me. So much for sleep, and long live friendship.

We got there and started the rocky trip. What can I say about the Negev other than it was beautiful? I know I've been sounding like a broken record for six months now, but honestly, can you blame me?

Postcard material.




The cliff and the company.

We took several stops throughout the first day. One was to sit down, eat some breakfast in a shady area. I completely forget the guy's name, but our guide, whom we're gonna call Purple from now on, introduced himself during that first break. He was cool enough, with hippie-ish love for desert nature and confident leadership skills for a hike. Sometime during our talk he discussed his wonderment about the fact that all three monotheistic religions began in the desert. Walking out there in the desert, especially seeing the vast expanses of rock, I could get an idea of why that would be.

Purple giving us the first talk.

As the breaks and walks went on, Roni, Corina and I got into some playful banter about the house situation. Everything from the cleanliness of the house to how we got on each other's nerves. We also managed to do this while everyone else was silent for quite some time, which I guess probably amused everyone around us.

By sunset we were at our camping ground, a flat terrain with nothing around for miles. As the light faded, we made fires and prepared dinner, the cold rushing in with the nighttime.

I'm in the back. Cold with a grin on my face.

There was plenty of dinner to go around. Hot pasta, tasty bread, salad. After dinner, the group sang songs around a fire, a couple of guys manning guitars. It was cute, but I was sleepy. The cold didn't help, either. Just as I went comfortably unconscious, my cell alarm went off, which meant it was time to take my shift watching over camp with Corina and Paul.

The next morning was another miserable wake-up. The daylight was refreshing, but it was still ridiculously cold. I ate my breakfast huddled around a small fire, Corina opposite me. She made some joke about how much she was eating, and I joked to her that she was being gluttonous.

"Eric--" Her tone had changed; I had really pushed some button. I asked her what was up, and she shook her head to herself. "It's not worth it," she said.

A show of hands for how you think I reacted. Did I:

A) Brush it off and wait for her to talk to me when she was ready?
B) Heartily reassure her that I was joking and leave it at that? or
C) Sulk for the rest of the morning in dread about however I pissed her off?

You guessed right.

During our morning walk, I caught up to her and asked her what was going on. She spilled it honestly, which was cool. She had taken my gluttony joke as a serious quip against her behavior. And she had also taken me seriously when I teased her for not saving a space for Paul on the bus. She went on to name some other examples, and the sum total was this: In her opinion, I'd been making jokes about her behavior because I thought I was better than her.

Hit the brakes, right? I had no idea where this was coming from, but as she went on it became clearer. "You pride yourself on being nice, right?" Corina asked. Couldn't deny that one. It comes with the Christian territory. She went on to say that that pride came off as condescension whenever I was displeased by the rudeness or sarcasm my flat-mates tossed around. Corina believed I saw myself as somewhat perfect compared to them. She knew she had a lot to work on as a person, so she got frustrated with me when it seemed I was rubbing that in her face with behavior jokes.

The most frustrating part of all this was that I couldn't completely exonerate myself. Honestly, I had been getting fed up with the petty stuff that went on between my rooommates, including Corina. There were so many times when I felt they could have looked out more for each other's feelings, and for mine. I guess Corina had picked up on how mean I thought the four of them could be, and the fact that I considered myself above that kind of behavior. And if it was showing in ways that were mean-spirited or arrogant, then I had some work to do myself. What made it a little more urgent was the fact that this wasn't first time I'd heard someone call me judgmental. Hearing it that often gets pretty old.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I apologized for pissing her off. We walked on to see more of the Negev and eventually began to talk about other things.

Post make-up.

Of course, the rest of the hike was beautiful. I had a great time talking with my friends and seeing the scenery unravel in front of me. The place really had a lot to offer. We came to a bunch of wonderful spots, looking out onto a vast landscape view or two, sliding down a rock slide, navigating uneven corridors, climbing, descending, eating, joking. It was a solid trip.

The finish line.

And may there be many more.

Shalom,
Eric