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July 15, 1972 Dear Aunt Grace, Presently I'm lying on the grass by the built in pool at the Kibbety. This place is truly a garden of Eden in the middle of nowhere. There is an abundance of green grass, beautiful flowers and palm trees but outside of the Kibbety nothing for miles but sand and rocks. Last Saturday I went to the beach at Ashkelom on the Mediterranean. It only took two hours for me to get a lobster-red sunburn! I've finally healed enough to go back outside. The Mediterranean is beautiful but not much fun to swim in - the waves were quite high and the salt water is not exactly my favorite beverage. Thursday they held the Bedouin market in Ber-Sheva. I had counted on buying a smock with some of the embroidery on it that's supposed to be so beautiful. i was so disappointed!! Most of it is machine-made and very poorly at that - they wanted a fortune for it, even after trying to talk them down! It was interesting though. The Bedouins were selling piles and piles of marijuana and hashish right out in the open - evidently they are exempt from Israeli law. You could smell the stuff in the air so they were undoubtedly smoking it too. There were camels, goats, sheep, chicken and cows being sold, piles of vegetables of all kinds, and quite an assortment of souvenireers and other miscellaneous junk. Alot of the younger girls got a little upset when the Bedouins offered to "help" them try on smocks - their fingers just got just a little too long, and the girls didn't quite know what to do. We are still picking pears during the day, and, I might add, in our sleep too!! Someone "heard" that we were going to switch to peaches next week and the place nearly went crazy with excitement. The days are going by so slowly. I have heard from no one in the states. There is so much to tell you about when I get back - I can never remember who I told what, but I could sit for just days and talk about this place. Love, Kathi