#battir

[so-much-for-subtlety]

I’m still thinking about sustainable, self sufficient farming and just learnt about Battir which is a village in the West Bank which has terraces built 2000 years ago and a complex irrigation system that is fed by 7 natural springs and has historically sustained population of about 1,000 people (today around 5,000, but I think now only smaller portion of village is involved in agriculture).

they have a system of sluices to manually divert water, and the village is organized around 8 main clans which each takes turns each day to water crops (local saying that a week is 8 days not 7).

they grow olives (and other fruit trees like orange, lemon, loquat, fig, apricot, pomegranate), eggplants, tomatoes, cucumber, watermelon, zucchini, pumpkin, wheat, barley, various herbs, and forage crops for livestock.

[amone448]

📍 بَتّير، فِلَسْـــــطين 🖤

[plstnyan]

Battir

[amone448]

.🇵🇸🖤

[amone448]

٢٩. نيســــان . ٢٠٢٣ ✨

"قدّر كُلَّ شَيء حَولك قَبلَ أن تَتحّولَ اللَّحظات إلى ذِكْريات"🖤

[plstnyan]

[plstnyan]

Battir village near Bethlehem, Palestine

[instereospace]

I don’t stay a lot in the village. The days I don’t work, I go out. I go to the evacuated areas. I go with my friends, and we take tents and stay there. So I spend most of my time in nature and I discover places. Mostly, I like sitting in areas like where we’re sitting right now, or other mountain lands, looking at the village. I don’t know, I feel inspiration for work comes [because] I don’t see things in parts. From far away, I start reflecting on things that I didn’t see up close, so I get other ideas. On top of that, the noise – the shouting and people and cars, they ruin my ideas. And there are people sometimes who discourage you when you stay with them. So I like to stay by myself because I feel that I can generate something.  

I mean, I spend most of my time going to work and to university, then to the village, so there’ll be a lot of pressure on me. All my thoughts are blocked. But when I go to these kinds of areas, that’s it. Something happens with me and I find solutions, and I even see new work. You’re inspired by nature. I don’t need to be on site to know our situation, because we are living it. When I go to nature, I start thinking about what’s happening to us and why we are like this, and why it’s allowed here, and why it’s forbidden there. And why these areas can’t be approached, why there are borders… I have ideas when I sit with myself. – Mohammad