Today we had our last site visit in Israel before heading off to Jordan for the rest of the trip. We had the chance to visit a Kibbutz site and learn about how this community lives their life.
The site we visited was the Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu's Bio Bee. We met our guide, Sara, who gave us a quick background and then opened the floor for questioning. The group was fascinated to learn about how this community doesn't get a salary, but rather the same allowance regardless of what job they do. They also have all of their meals, housing, and needs provided to them. Although this sounds like communism to us, they identified themselves as socialists. Sara took us around their farms where they are all organically grown. We even got to taste some food right off the vines! We then learned about how this Kibbutz is the site that developed the environmentally friendly pest control method. It was a great experience for us to see that even though these people live a different style of life from what we are used to, they still contribute greatly to society. They were also kind enough to invite us to eat in their community dining facility were we enjoyed a great lunch.
We then headed to the Jordan border! It took about an hour to get through everything and transfer buses, but we eventually made it and met our new guide, Nadia.
It only took 10 minutes to get to our first site in Jordan, which was the Friends of the Earth Middle East Eco Park. This was also where we were staying for the night, so we unpacked the bus and headed to our cabins. We then joined Nadia and went on a hike through the Eco Park.
We then enjoyed a delicious meal provided by the Eco Park staff. We spent the rest of the night outside playing games as a group before calling it a night.
