A Walking Tour of Chava V'Adam Ecologit.

In Hebrew, Chava refers both to Eve and to the farm. However it is more customary to state Adam V’ Chava in conversation, which places the male before the female. Thus, the farm is already revolutionary.

The farm is a small piece of land, located near the city of Modi’in. City of the future. Farm of the past. The farm rests on all principles of permaculture, which involves using all parts of the whole, sustainability, local resources and minimizing waste products. All the buildings were constructed by farm workers and volunteers slowly over the years.

The front gate is covered in passion fruit vines, which I vigorously shake every time I go by. Near the gate is a small store, constructed out of mud, which sells some produce and other local products. It is reminiscent of when the farm had a CSA but the farm does not contribute to the store. A few feet from the store is a large clay baked platform which houses the only oven on the farm. The oven rests on the principles of thermo-dynamics, as of yet I have not managed to build a lasting fire in it. It is huge and slightly unpredictable but it has so far it has baked challah bread for Shabbat dinner, pumpkin bread and apple cake.

On the lower part of the farm are also two workshops; weaving and clay making. When we have more free time, we will be allowed to play in them more. They are mainly used as children’s workshops. Although we did have a dream-catcher workshop in there earlier this week.

Across from the workshop buildings is large tree where we eat all our lunches on working days. We share our lunches with the younger Israeli volunteers, who we call the Sheen Sheneem and other farm workers. Since we are still in intensive class mode, the Eco Israelis come to lunch clean and slightly lethargic after our four hour class. The others tend to come covered in mud from working on the new distillery. Our classes have just ended; soon we will be just as dirty when lunch time comes around.

The Sheen Sheneem have their own separate lodgings, in a large mud house. The office, with internet access is attached to the building, so we are often in their space. Oh I almost forgot about the recycling center, which houses all types of remnants and where Anna found some sweet harem pants yesterday. It is usually too hot to go inside during the daytime for me and too dark at night. So far I have only scored some teva sandals, which I have been lugging all over Israel.

Also downstairs is the herbal room where we will later learn how to make tinctures, creams, mosquito repellant, (!) etc. Next to the herbal room, is the community pagoda, which is also covered in passie flora and we have had all our classes with our Permaculture Instructor, Yigal.

From here, we walk along an olive tree lined path up to our domes. Along the way, we may encounter three angry geese, which are penned in near the lemon trees (and one orange tree) or bump into the three hungry donkeys. We then walk up a small incline to reach domeville. Domeville includes eight domes, structurally sound buildings required by Masa to house Eco Israeli participants. There are a slew of tents for other volunteers with wooden floors and only a flap for an opening. We have our compost toilets, kamuvan, two vinyl enclosed showers, a kitchen where we prepare breakfast and dinner. There is an outdoor shower, which is a unique experience. It is protected by a large mud bench and a couple large trees. All the Eco’s love the outdoor shower and some have never used the indoor showers (which are outside). The only problem is that is plagued by wasps during the day.

There is our zula where we spend a large majority of our non-working time. It was only recently built by the last program batch. Our domes tend to be to be too hot during our midday break, so most of my naps happen here. There is also the big dome, which is a large tent with couches, bookshelf and table and we have only begun to use and the nights get colder and it is getting darker around 5:30 p.m.