After nearly a month, I was given a new assignment in Timna. I got a helmet with a lamp on top and went underground. In Eilath you could buy ‘jewellery’: rings, bracelets, pendants and the like showing ‘Eilathstone’, polished copper ore veined by magnificent blues and greens. In the mine I saw entire walls of this stunning beauty.

One morning the foreman gave me a hacksaw and a sloppy explanation about where to go and remove an electricity cable. I arrived, put the saw to the cable and sang a merry little tune in Dutch about outdoor beauty.
Behind me a voice said: ‘Je komt ze ook overal tegen...’ (‘Any stone you turn…’). This turned out to be a Dutch engineer on an exchange program. After some small talk he asked me what I was doing.
‘Don’t,’ he said, ‘there is 6000 Volts on that one.’ I went back to the foreman, threw the saw in his face and left. Shaking with fright and rage.

A month in Ein Geddi and a month in Timna. Suddenly I found myself on vacation, although I had not received any payment from Timna. That meant enjoying nature. On the other (West) side of Eilath there was a beach that ran into Egypt and where marine life was abundant and richly varied. You could do a tour in a glass-bottom boat, but that cost money and was kind of square-ish.

But you could hire snorkels, masks and fins for a song. It was extremely risky to go into the water, as parallel to the beach a razor-sharp coral reef ran right under the waves. I saw an Englishman, an opportunist, who thought to use the waves to carry him over the reef. He staggered up the beach with a cut in his leg nearly to the bone. Soon we knew exactly where to pass (every shortcut is a deep cut). Under the blinding cover of the waves, a salt world opened up for me. Dazzling colours and breathtaking life made my days.

To be continued: ‘The good, the bad and the ugly’