Now it is time to eat. We brought with us many things from home to share in the activity. We brought tomato, cucumber, olive oil, olives, zaater, labna made from yogurt, home made bread. The smell filled the whole school and all teachers came to eat with us. Some female teachers helped in baking bread with zaater.

 

These are the activities we did during the day. We draw and colors different pictures about olive trees and the processes of picking it from trees. We also draw a very big picture that has many trees and women sitting under the trees sorting the olives and pciking them. And we draw kids playing and helping their parents. We also cut a shape for the while dove of piece with an olive branch in its peak. We all worked and enjoyed the day. Our class is the most beautiful in the class because we work together and take care of our classroom

Here we are decorating our classroom with olive branches and pictures that tell us the whole process of picking olives from trees till they are changed into oli. we had this day-activity because it is the season of picking olives.

Last week we have olive oil activities.  We had the whole day working and eating and playing while the other classes are learning. We shared the deaf-mute students with us too. In this day, we had two stations. One for baking oil and bread in another room and preparing the food and one for drawing, building a field of olive and decorating.

We brought olive trees and some stones and branches from olive trees because our trees are small. We put them in the corner and designed a ladder.

This is my class picnic in Arad. In the pictures my teacher and the girls from my class. We surprised our teacher by brining different things like olive oil and zaatar, bread that my mom baked and tea. It is delicious together. We also brought sweets, pop corn that we made at home. We enjoyed the picnic and had lots of fun. This is aday in my life that I will never forget.

In my book, we have a piece about describing "My room". Our teacher asked us to design our rooms and what we wish to have or how it will look like. Since we have to share the room at our houses with another 4 or 5 brothers because we are big families, we dream to have our own one day. So, the teacher asked us to use junk material that we found around at home or at school and we have to use them in our design. So, we gathered cartoon boxes, cigarette boxes, small branches from trees, old cloth from home and many others to work with. We also brought toys like cars to park next to the room. In the picture, me and my friend designed this room. Isn't it beautiful? These are my friends' room

These are some of the carpet and rugs that women do by hand and they spend long time doing them. They have to be colorful and have a very beautiful design. Wome compite with each other about the pieces they make.



Bedouin women are very creative in designing different shapes to decorate their houses. In the past when they have tents, the women worked together to knit and sew a long piece of handcraft to hang around the tent. Nowadays and because Bedouin are residing and living in permanent houses, they kept the same tradition. Women will gather and work together and each time they finish something they give it to one of them till they finish working. They design a very long piece that sometimes reaches 15 meters or more to put it all over the guest room hanging from the ceiling like what you see in the picture to the right. They use many colorful threads that they bring from the Bedouin Thursday market in Beer Sheva. Women are proud of their creative works that are very expensive and hard to find. 

   Also, women design different handcrafts to be hanged over the doors and the windows. The sticks in the pictures are also used to dance with in weddings.    

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This is Ashgan and Sabrin. It is Sabrin'es birthday on 20.10.2010. It is a very unique number. She is now 15 years old. iN the Bedouin culture, we don't celebrate birthdays as a habit because it is not in our traditions. In Islam we have only two feasts: Alfetr comes after Ramadan and Aladha during the Haj. So, if we have a small party, it will be just for family. Ashgan is Sabrin's friend and neighbor and they come to school together and sit next to each other in class.  

In the past Bedouin women wore dresses that they made themselves. They are good in embroidery and handcrafts. All women wore black dresses with many colorful flowers, birds and many different shapes from the desert. Women bring the embroidery thread from the market from Beer Sheva to sew her decorated clothes. For example, married women embroidered their long dresses with red shapes while young ones wore other different colors. And widow wore blue sewing to show the sadness over their husbands' death.

Today, young girls wore modern clothes and cover their heads with scarves.  In wedding, they dress traditional clothes with bright and beautiful colors.

I would like to tell you more about my village Kseifa. It is located in the south of Israel in the Negev. It was established in 1982 when the Israeli government decided to build permanent villages for the Bedouin. The village is not far away from Arad city as you see in the map and only 30 minutes from Beer Sheva city.

 The village has many elementary schools and 2 high schools: Alfaroq High School and My school AMAL Abu Rabe'a Comprehensive School. My school was the first school in the Negev and the students came from all over the Negev to finish their education. My school is 39 years old. Most of the students in my school come from the unrecognized villages from around Kseifa village.

The village has 2 clinics but it has no public library or playgrounds or any public places where kids can play or spend time after school. Most of the people are unemployed and it is one of the highest percentages of poverty in Israel.  

My name is Jihad. I am in the 8^th grade and I want to write about my grandma's sheep.

Sheep in the desert are beautiful and big. They are popular among the Bedouin because they provide them with milk, cheese and meat. Bedouin also sell the sheep to earn some money to buy many things for their families.  Because it is Al-adha feast the sheep are very expensive.

Grandma's sheep are white and has soft wool. My family loves the cheep because they give us milk and meat. Grandma gives food and water to the sheep. Everyday my grandma takes the sheep to the fields. I sometimes go with her at the weekend. It is fun to be with the sheep. I keep playing with the little ones and run after them. This is a picture of my grandma's little sheep eating their food.  

 
My name is Ashgan. I live in Kseifa and I study at Kseifa Abu Rabe'a school. My hobby is reading because my brother loves reading. I read books and this is positive. I am talented in reading. It is fun and very helpful. My family lives in a village. My dad loves eating meat and my mom loves hotdogs. My family always sit to watch TV and drink milk and eat potato ships. I have three brothers. The smaller one is called Ahmed. He is 11 months and he loves drinking milk and eating banana. My bigger brother is Omar. He is 7 years old. he loves eating meat and drinking juice. My middle brother is Ibrahim and he is 6 years old. He also loves eating meat and drinking juice. I have a wonderful family and  love them because they always support me. This year I went for the student council elections but I didn't win. :(