Monday, November 06, 2006

Cleaning Gan Tekumah

Last Friday, we had another get-together with the combined groups of Kumah, Yavneh Olami, and Magshimey Herut, which I met on the Nahariya Shabbaton a week before.
We met at the Zion Gate and proceeded to Gan Hatekumah, an archaeological garden in the old city.
The garden was excevated through several layers including Byzantine, Greek, and even some second temple period ruins. And there's one more layer; a layer of 20th and early 21-st century garbage.



Second Temple Period columns surrounded by trash.

We set up on a recently excavated ping-pong table.

The group got to work, scampering over the rocks and filling bag after bag with trash.

Note to self: do not wear open-toed shoes to trash pickup.


After two hours of trash collecting, we broke for pizza.

Yshai delivered a lecture on the different archaeological exhibits we had just cleaned.


All in all, it was a productive day. I would have gone through to shoot some "after" photographs, but I was talking to Sasha, my Shabbat host in Elon More. Someone overheard me and mentioned that Ezra (one of the Kumah group) was driving out there, so I was able to hitch a ride up. Stay tuned for photos of the drive to Elon Moreh...

1 comment:

Ephraim said...

Open toed shoes with socks on them are a California tradition!

The ping pong talbes were there for recreation. ACtually, the archaeological park also had basketball courts. Jerusalem is a living city, and even in the old city, people need a place to stretch their legs. Unfortunately, the whole place is an archaeological ruin, so the only open space happens to be the archaeological gardens.

I'm not so much on a mission to see the whole country in record time, as I am just enjoying myself. I've been stuck in Walnut Creek for four years. I'm invited all over the country for Shabbat, so why not travel whenever possible?