a bit of culture

Last weekend was an auspicious one: a string quartet, called the Apple Hill Players, came to school for workshops with the students and to present some concerts. The most wonderful concert took place after dinner in the Headmaster's house. There, amid the wonderful colours made all the richer by candlelight, they played the lovely Puccini quartet, a subtle little almost-tango, and finished up with some Bach. Here are some pictures of our students, practising away. Also, apropos of nothing at all, is a picture of a beautiful embroidery we saw at the shop at the Jordan River Foundation. Embroidery is very popular here.

new life in the desert

Autumn is here, and already there's been one or two showers of rain. As a result, the desert is beginning to spring into new life. Today, on a walk beyond Musa Spring, we not only saw these astonishing plants pushing their way through the hard earth and fabulously striated rocks, but were treated to tea by two brothers building a new farmhouse beside their lovely oasis garden, watered from an underground spring. We sat beside the little fire amid a great host of flies, sipping the sweet tea from the blackened kettle, while Ahmad, the little boy of one brother, brought as gifts some wonderful fossils. The distant Dead Sea darkened in the approaching rain.