It has rained here every day for the last week. From our flat, which is high up, we can look across West Jerusalem and see which parts of the city are getting rain. The experience is quite Scottish, in the sense that you never know when the rain is going to catch you out. On Sunday afternoon we had a number of government offices to visit in the area called Talpiot – the rain seemed to stay off while we were in the buildings and return when we were walking!
This is our third winter here, but it is the first time we have experienced so much rain before Christmas. This is ‘normal’. It is what the locals hope for, and it goes some way towards helping with the prolonged water crisis in this region. But not far enough, of course.
We have been fortunate in Jerusalem that we only have ‘rain’. In Jaffa they have had torrential downpours. Friends who recently moved into a new flat discovered at 3am that the roof area was knee high in water – the drains in the flat-roof/ balcony could not cope with the quantities of the downpour – and the water was running in a river down their inner stair and into the living area. Thankfully none of their furniture was damaged.
Some of this, however, may have been useful for the Olive harvest – although it is mostly over. The harvest runs from mid October to late November, and it is helpful to have had some rain before harvesting. I commented on the St. Andrew’s Church Facebook page (www.facebook.com/standrewsjerusalem) on 26th October, “Today it rained here in the morning. The first rain for many months. That’s really good news for the olive pickers, because the olive picking season is now in full swing. If there has been no rain before people go out into the olive groves, the dust on the olives gets everywhere – ingrained in your hands, on your clothes, in your eyes, in your lungs. The rain was heavy and lasted about 45 minutes – then the sun came out.”
Olive Oil from the Al Shurooq School for Blind Children
I had intended to participate a little in the Jayyous Olive Harvest, and there were ways for internationals to do so – an organised picking day – but we had such a backlog of things to do on returning from Scotland that it wasn’t possible. Next year – Inshallah!
However, we did receive an unexpected and very welcome gift on our last visit to the Al Shurooq School for Blind Children in Bethlehem. The bottle of Olive Oil pictured is part of the harvest from the olive trees in the grounds of the School – some of them very old indeed. The olives were collected by the staff and school children, and then pressed locally at the traditional Beit Jala olive press. We need to store it in a cool dark place for a month or so before using it. It will be worth waiting for.
