Bedouin folk medicine
The Bedouin have an ancient and fascinating history of life hacks. Here is one: crushed scorpion paste for your baby to keep the sting at bay. Recipe inside.
Bedouin
One Of The World’s Oldest Mosques Excavated In The Negev
The rocky brown soil of the Negev desert suggests an empty environment, but recent excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority have brought to light an ancient mosque from the 7th-8th centuries CE there. It’s one of the earliest known mosques in the world, a surprising find in the area. Dr. Jon Seligman and Shahar Zur, […]
Smile out loud watching 20 Saudi Muslim men “kiss” for the first time (Video!)
Check out this parody of the “first kiss” video – a YouTube hit in Saudi Arabia, now viraling across the Middle East collecting a laundry list of heated commentary. Lighten up people! Check out the video below.
5,000-Year-Old Leopard Trap Discovered in Israel’s Negev Desert
It’s easy for us to think of modern humans as the sole destroyers of all things living, but ancient humans also competed with other predators, using traps. This includes nomadic people from what is now Israel’s Negev Desert. A 5,000 year-old leopard trap, made from piles of stone, was just identified in Israel.
Europe Laps up Dubai’s Camel Milk Beauty Bars
Two years ago, the western world didn’t know much about camel milk, even though Bedouins across the Middle East have long understood its role in preserving good health. Now it’s the next best thing since Morocco’s Argan oil.
Jordan’s Wadi Rum in Pictures, a Green Prophet Journey
Jordan’s magical red dessert is short on plastic bags, throwaway bottles, and paper litter. Begs the question, does raw nature shame us into better environmental behavior? If so, a stay in Wadi Rum nature reserve should be a national obligation.
Solar Mamas Shows Sustainable Engineering for Bedouin Women (Film Review)
They can’t read or write but a couple of brave Bedouin women from Jordan travelled far and wide to help their villages become solar powered.
Sidreh Weaves Bedouin Tradition Into Their Future
A few short decades ago, the ladies of Lakiya had a very different life. Their traditional Bedouin clans lived in encampments throughout the Israeli Negev Desert, herding animals. When their families were relocated to government-built towns, the women became aware of how their illiteracy, and their society’s rule against mingling with men who are not […]
Bedouin Home Stays and Tourism in Israel
Bedouin hospitality is considered the best in the world. And that hospitality is found among Israeli Bedouins who have roamed the Holy Land and Levant region for centuries. Now a unique tour company Bedouin Experience –– run by an Israeli Jew and her Bedouin partner –– offers a unique window into Bedouin culture and what […]
This Desert Daughter Makes Healing Cosmetics with Ancient Bedouin Secrets
I had the pleasure of meeting this enterprising Bedouin woman, Miriam Aborkeek while on a Bedouin home stay and personal tour with Yeela Raanan of Bedouin Experience in Israel. Here’s Aborkeek’s story about her natural cosmetics company Desert Daughter: Once, Bedouin women roamed with the seasons, foraging for plants and helping graze animals where the rains […]
Looking inside a Bedouin tent
Jordanians can pick each other out by sight and last-name analysis, as accurate as DNA testing. Six million “Jordanians” are a quilt sewn from disparate ethnicities and cultures, co-existing in peace while retaining the essence of their origins. This tiny nation divides itself up into groups and sub-groups and tribes and families. Jordan hosts one of […]
Egypt Suffers When Israelis Spend Passover Elsewhere
Hundreds of Israelis used to spend Passover in Sinai but this year that’s very unlikely to happen and Egypt suffers as a result. Every year the government warns Israelis to avoid Sinai during Passover. Friends and relatives worry that they will become the next Ghalid Shalit, which is silly given there are now zero Israeli captives, […]
What Camels and Scorpions Teach “Dayma” Tourists in Egypt
A host of eco-tourism initiatives in Egypt are moving away from the packaged tour to nature-based experiences Nature has been developing solutions to its own challenges for the last 3.8 billion years, so two women in Egypt have set up an eco-tourism venture that tunes into that infinite wisdom. Biologists Sara el-Sayed and Betty Khoury […]
Israel’s Bedouin Get Solar from Arava (+ Obama)
Arava Power Company pioneers first ever solar contract for Israel’s Bedouin minority The first-ever license for a solar project has been awarded this week to Israel’s bedouin community by Israel’s Public Utility Authority. Yosef Abramowitz of Arava Power Company promoted and led the solar project, to make a solar energy dream come true for Bedouin living […]
Proposal for Riyadh’s Celebration Hall in Saudi Distorts Bedouin Values
Studio Schiattarella and Tecturae’s winning proposal for the Celebration Hall of Riyadh distorts true Bedouin values. It is common in Middle Eastern design to evoke images of a more sustainable past in order to justify a less sustainable present, and nowhere is this more true than in Saudi Arabia. The winning proposal for the Celebration […]
6 Hot Solar Projects from the Middle East and North Africa
We have listed 6 big and small solar-powered projects in the MENA region that have inspired us in the hopes that it will do the same for you. Big or small, solar-powered projects in the Middle East and North Africa are transforming our region. Not only do they hold promise of slowly improving air quality […]
Sustainable Bedouin Farm, Wadi Attir, To Break Ground in the Negev
After years of planning, a Bedouin eco-farm in the Negev will finally get under way next week. For years the Sustainability Laboratories (a New York-based organization) and the mayor of Hura in the Negev, Dr. Muhammad El-Nabari, have been planning an eco-farm for the Bedouin community. The farm, Project Wadi Attir, would aim to create […]
New DNA Test Spots Ewes That Get More Lambs for Their Bang
Israeli researchers have developed a DNA test that will allow the desert-dwelling Bedouin tribes to detect which of their sheep have a gene that makes them more likely to produce multiple offspring. With the cost of animal feed rising as well, a new technology that helps Bedouin tribes increase the size of their flock without […]
Bedouin Solar Power Activate!
Arava Power in Israel is fighting so Bedouin get a fair share of feed-in tariffs in Israel. Backed by Siemens Arava stands to benefit too. “Sixty percent of the country happens to be desert, and 30 percent of the [desert] inhabitants happen to be Bedouin,” says Yosef Abramowitz, president of Arava Power Company in Israel. […]
What Bolivia And The Bedouin Have In Common
When Indigenous people rule, nature has rights. Bolivia will soon pass a law called “The Law of Mother Earth.” Under this law, the government decrees that nature has eleven rights similar to those enjoyed by human beings. The Law of Mother Earth is fully supported by the President, Evo Morales, whose party enjoys a majority […]
Jordan Dana Biosphere Reserve Kicks Out Kerosene
Jordan takes another definitive step towards a renewable future with a little help from its Czech friends There will be no more stinky kerosene for the first solar-illuminated Bedouin tent in Jordan. Gas and kerosene lanterns have been replaced with a far more sustainable resource at the Rumana campsite in the Dana Biosphere Reserve. Donated […]
Bedouin Home-Spun Woolen Rugs On Show In Milan
Bedouin women from Israel are getting a name for themselves at the furniture fair in Milan, where their home-spun woolen rugs are on proud display as a prized example of high-end sustainable design. The Eindhoven designers BCXSY teamed up with SIDREH, the non-profit organization behind Lakiya Negev weaving to create these one-of-a-kind products.
Barefoot College Bedouin Women Bring Solar Power to Jordan
Green Prophet reporter Arwa speaks to Rafi’a Abdul Hamid, a woman from the deserts of Jordan who has been trained as a solar engineer to help bring clean electricity to her poor village For many living in the harsh and desolate deserts of south Jordan, life without electricity is the norm. Either the infrastructure which […]
What Happens When Hyenas Pee On Bedouins
Because of an enduring myth, Bedouins in Jordan kill hyenas; the Badia Center for Ecological Education is trying to educate locals and relieve pressure on wildlife. The desert area north of Amman, Jordan (the site of the King Hussein Park) which engulfs roughly 75% of the entire country, is under strain. In addition to being […]
Jordan Hopes For The Gulf And Levant’s First “Mixed” UNESCO Heritage Site
As both a cultural and natural marvel, if Wadi Rum’s candidacy as a UNESCO World Heritage Site is approved, sustainability will be easier to achieve. Concerned organizations have taken huge leaps towards preserving Jordan’s culture and wild heritage. The Royal Society for the Protection of Nature have set aside an additional nine protected areas in […]