Available Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights only for 1, 2, or 3 nights.
Cost per person per night: 285NIS Including accommodation and breakfast. Dinner costs 70NIS per person – upon request.
Earliest Arrival: 15.00 (3pm) on Thursday
Latest Departure: after breakfast on Sunday
Transportation: If you are coming from Jerusalem or Tel Aviv you can take a bus or train to Be’ersheva, and then get a bus or taxi to the village. Public transport details, and directions by car will be sent in your conformation email. You will also be emailed your host’s phone number for direct communication.
To be invited into the home of Khalil Alamour and his family is a privilege. Khalil is a warm and modest man, a high school teacher, and a member of the village council.
This experience is not like the ‘Bedouin Camps’ that are advertised elsewhere. There are no tourist facilities; no shops, no cafes, no restaurants, just ordinary families going about their daily business in a very challenging environment. Almost no-one speaks English except your host.
The Alamour family home is situated in the Bedouin village of Alsera, about 15 kilometres east of Be’er Sheva in the Negev Desert. Two rooms are available for up to four people per night. This is a traditional community so unmarried men and women must sleep in separate rooms. The family has a modern bathroom and serves traditional home cooked meals using their own olives, oil, and home made pita bread.
The house has solar powered electricity supplemented by a community generator that runs for four hours each evening. For those of you with laptops, there is wireless internet ingeniously obtained via microwave transmission from a nearby town. There are no telephone land lines but the village is within range of cell phone networks.
Your host is not a typical villager. Khalil has a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics and Education, has also completed courses in computer science and community leadership, and holds a Master’s Degree in Educational Administration.
He is a teacher and member of his village’s local council, and in that role has helped to initiate several local initiatives such as procuring a daycare for the village and afterschool programs for youth. Khalil has been instrumental in providing the village with piped water for which he and other villagers laid over two kilometres of pipe to the nearest main supply. He speaks Arabic, Hebrew, English, and limited Spanish.
Alsera is typical of the 45 ‘unrecognized’ Bedouin villages in the Negev. Over 65,000 people live in these villages without basic services such as electricity, water, schools or health clinics. The Israeli government continues to ‘encourage’ them to leave their traditional lands through demolishing their homes, sometimes entire villages, poisoning their crops, and expropriating their land for new Jewish farms or communities.
The Negev Bedouin are citizens of the state of Israel.
Guests should understand that they will be entering a very traditional society and should dress modestly. Both men and women need to be covered up. Shirts and dresses should be closed to the neck, shoulders and arms should be covered, and long skirts or trousers (pants) should be worn for both men and women. It helps if the women have a light scarf to throw over their heads when walking around the village.
