To America and Back
Page 41
The truck was travelling on the flat road leading to Bet Guvrin – Lakhish area. In the Bible times, Sennacherib- Assyria’s king, has led his army there, to the south of Jerusalem. He wanted to capture the Holy City from the southern side. But something happened (according to the Bible- God had sent a pestillence upon his army) and he retreated. He set up a Memorial Statue in Ninveh, his capital, in which he showed the battle of the town Lakhish, which surrendered to him…
Now Nahumik was there, gazing at the country around him. At the far back in south and west, there were just fields growing mainly grass; there were also few sqaures of green and yellow wheat or barley, that a human hand had sowed. But on the east – the white beige-blue mountains of Judea were making the horizon. They were very similar to Humik childhood’s grey mountains of Samaria, that he never visited; hundreds of years they had been held by the Palestinians, who remained there…
On the truck were seated only eight guys, and Humik understood from their discussion – that about half of the youths who had taken part in the original meeting, a few months before – had already changed their plan: All the girls preferred old ‘Seeds’, having settled before by elder guys. Three guys of the original group had volunteered to the Armoured Tanks Squads… However, new five guys will now be joining the Nehusha settlers; they would come to service there as ‘lonely soldiers’ – without being before in a certain group. They had preferred to be registered as singles, and were decisive- as all the others, to establish a new agricultural Seed village, ready for hard work…
The road came over a crest, and flattened out, as they were approaching their ‘Seed Settlement.’ The ground was now less green, and the truck engine’s noise had become louder, while climbing a hill, full of big and small stones, protruding from the hard ground nearby and far away.
They saw a sloped hill, on which there was some small building, characteristic for a setup of pumping machinery. Also two tents and two wooden huts were discerned. As the truck was moving slowly toward that place, the soldiers, still in army uniforms, saw that two civilians were waiting for them, waving their hands.
“I‘m the rep of the Pioneering Youth Settlers department – in the Defense ministry,” said one of them, after the comers had jumped down from the truck. The other said:
“And I’m your agricultural guide. I’m an agronomist.”
Each of the group members was holding his kitbag, as the Ministry Guide had shown them their dwelling places. Humik was rushing to a hut, together with a guy, named Jacque. They had been together before on the truck, and became friendly there.
“What will we raise here?” asked Jacque, while they have arrived to their room, “it’s a total desert.”
“I think that the expert Agronomist has already mentioned – cocumbers and tomatos,” said Humik.
“We have to raise here girls,” the guy was laughing. He was a youth from Morroco, having three brothers. He volunteered to settle there, because his family was living not far; he thought he would be able to steal from that point and see them – more than others would be able to see their families.
“How well you have done,” remarked Humik, “I swear I would have changed families with you. My family is in America”
“Sorry I have no sister to offer you,” smiled Jacque Malka.
They were soon called to a first meeting with the agricultural guide and the Ministry representative. It had taken place in the deserted pumping machinery structure, in which two benches were set up, near the rusted old pumping machine.
“O’key, guys,” said the agronomist-guide, “we will be in touch for the whole coming year. After that you’ll be mobilized to the Nahal Parachutists’ units of the Army.”
“As you know,” said the Ministry delegate, “these units are one of the best that the army has. Now the parachutists’ get a commando course. .. One of these units has already participated in a ‘revenge and deter’ operation beyond the border, and very successfully.”
“The earth here is difficult to be cultivated,” said the agronomist, “So, in your first period here – you’ll remove small stones from an area, that is planned for raising olive trees. Ten such trees I have already planted here myself.”
In the first days Humik was irrigating the young olives, that had just been planted. Soon a new pump was brought for that matter. The water was drawn from an internal spring within the hills, that were full of carstic holes and caves.
In the first two nights the guys were sleeping on mattresses, laid on the hut’s cement made floor. The mattresses were filled with some tough grass. Sometime it was peeping out from the cloth, and stinging the guys’ buttocks or knees. But they knew, that only living stinging creatures, like bees or scorpions or spideers, had to be worried about. Luckily they won’t deal with those...
On the third day – a truck was bringing iron beds to all the twenty people, who had already been gathrered there. The beds were made with iron springs, that not always were in a good shape and well functioning; but that was a common phenomenon in those days. The nights were still cold, though spring season had ended, (only into the plain locations of the country a warm weather was coming). So, the guys were covering themselves with old blankts, that were cleaned in an army automative laundry near Tel aviv. Against insects they were using small Naftalin white balls, put into the blankets folds.
They guys had been already well organized, but Jacque Malka continued to complain: “Girls are missing here. I know that in other Seed Settlements they are full. We are in a rotten hole: It’s an impossible place to live. We are jailed, and can’t go out .”
“Jacque, you calm down,” said Humik, “we are only at the beginning. Girls will come later, we’ll persuade some. But I wonder about you: I thought that guys who were born to Jewish families from Morocco or Tunis – were very religious; that only a marriage would solve their sex problems.”
“No,” said Mlaka, “I am from Casablance. I was educated in a commercial school there. We had full of girls-pupils studying with us. Yes, we were Jews and Jewesses, visiting the synagogue on Sabath. But at school we were sitting beside the girls, while studying commerce and bookeeping and so on.”
“So, you regret that all had passed, and long for the old days,” smiled Humik.
“Of course,” said Jacque, “In the intermissions of our learnings, we were taking the girls on our knees, and – digdigdig..”
“I understand,” laughed Humik. He said that really, they should find out what to do with the girls problem. So, he and Jacque wrote a note, asking all the Seed’s guys to arrive together to dinner in the big hut’s Mess (dining room)- at eight p.m. ‘subject: discussion about a serious problem.’
“Two girls should come to our Mess here,” told them Jacque.
“They’ll boil us soups and prepare us coffee and tea. We will give them full respect. It’s very disappointing here – to be on Mess Duty. I have never boiled anything as a teenager. I hate it. So, somebody must bring us girls. We should search girls-voluteers all over the country. ”
Sombody laughed off the coffee boiler from his hands.
There was also a more serious matter: Nights of Guard Duty had begun there. The guards had to stand at the gate of the ’Seed’, that would be locked at night. Then they would patrol around the huts and tents and pump machinery. The whole area had been 200 X 100 meters, but everyone had known that they were really guarding their own bodies, as the property there had been worthless. However, the declared purpose of that settlement was to deter Arab infiltrators, who would pass this place, that leads from Hebron and Bethlehem mountains into the plain of Lakhish. “The army itself would – once a week- supply two jeeps for night patrol over there, so don’t disregard your importance here,” said the rep of the Defence Minisdtry in the first day’s speech …
In the evenings they would be singing sometimes, and Humik liked it. He remebered old songs, like: ‘Oh, foot, raise yourself’, and was singing it solo, as no one except himself had ever listened to suc
h a song. Then there was the beloved song: ‘My flag is lined with a blue thread: Be my brother, give a hand.’ Also the song: ‘The village is asleep, the mountains are gazing at it from above …’
CHAPTER 41