Olive Harvest Season in Palestine

It's olive harvest season in Palestine. 

So far, I have been invited to participate in three different harvests. One with the rest of my YAGM cohort on land owned by my host family, one with students from several schools in the Bethlehem area as a part of my volunteer work with the Environmental Education Center, and one with some friends I have made since moving here. It has been a unique and joyous experience.

In Palestine, olive harvesting is all done by hand. Tarps are laid around the base of the tree to collect olives as they drop to the ground. Those who are harvesting will stand on the ground and pick olives from the lower branches, climb ladders to pick from the high outer branches, or climb the tree itself to pick from the inner boughs. Others will sit on the tarps and collect the olives in buckets as they fall, separating out leaves and twigs as they go. My favorite thing to do is climb up the tree to reach the inner branches; it is a fun challenge to see how far I can safely climb and how many olives I can pick from spots that seem almost impossible to reach when you look from the ground. 

Many of the trees here are hundreds of years old, with some of the oldest even dating back to Roman times. They are a fixture of the land and the culture. As I harvested, I thought about how many hands have done this same work over the years, how many hands have reached for the farthest olives in the highest boughs, and how many of those hands returned year after year, season after season. I am grateful that my hands have joined that chain, even for just this one season.

This thought is bittersweet. For many Palestinian families, it is uncertain how much longer they will be able to harvest from these trees. The chain is in danger of being broken. The most recent harvest I participated in, with a group of friends, was a stone's throw from a barbed-wire fence separating Palestine from one of the many illegal Israeli settlements that are encroaching on Palestinian land. 

"These trees are ours, and those ones belong to our neighbors," my friend said, pointing a little way up the hill. There was nothing to indicate that different families owned different trees. "We've just always known which ones are ours and which are theirs." 

He pointed out some of the trees on the other side of the fence. "Our neighbors used to harvest from those trees," he said. "They can't access their land anymore."

This is the unfortunate reality of life under occupation. In the last two months, I have learned more and more about how this reality affects the communities I have been welcomed into, and I will undoubtedly continue to learn more as the year goes on. I will continue to share my experiences on this blog and in my newsletter, and I hope you will continue to be open to hearing my story and the stories of those who have welcomed me into community here.

Till next time,

Harper