Part 15
Saturday was our day off on account of the Sabbath. I was curious about the origin of the brook and decided to do some upstream reconnaissance. For insofar as there was a path, it went straight up and every now and then I took a rest with all around me the magnificent view across the Dead Sea and the rock grit milled down by centuries of interaction between heat and cold. I was surprised when I saw a wire strung before what most looked like a mountain meadow left by vegetation. A notice hung from it with only Hebrew characters. I stepped over it, walked to the other side and sat there enjoying the panorama.
When I went down again a number of heated Sabras met me, shouting out loud and cursing. When everybody had calmed down I heard what had happened. They had been watching me with binoculars from the kibbutz in powerless expectation of a column of fire. The bare mountain meadow was a minefield.
It had rained that night without stopping. On my way to the dining hall the next morning, I saw a lot of people at the Belvedere. I did not understand why because there was nothing to see. On asking I was told that the water would come soon. And in fact far away a muffled rumble sounded that soon swelled. Then, like a tidal wave, a snarling grey and savage torrent stormed in with high splashing sloshing foamfingers and fists and filled the kibbutz wadi with unbridled forces. Bigboned rockblocks hammered by and angrily spewed into a very Dead Sea. Someone tried to get across in a tractor, but was swept into the sea by some big boulders and only later could be fetched, seriously injured, from the raging waters.
A few hours later the water was gone, the wadi as good as dry and a bed again for the phenomenal Desert Phantom.
Jan Ploeg
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