How do you pick an olive?

I have realised that I have used the phrase "out picking olives" more than once and whilst most people know what this means the mechanics of how, where and who may remain a mystery. It is a romantic notion that picking olives with Palestinians is good for the soul and while it may be it is also dirty and hard work.

With ISM the day actually starts the night before when various phone calls take place with Palestinians contacts, other International peace groups and farmers to decide who has the greatest need of an international presence with ISM always getting the places most likely to experience problems. Once the villages and farmers have been assigned to ISM we then discuss the location, number and make up of who will be going to where, this is normally quite quick and we then decide what time we need to get up and set off.

We usually arrange to meet the farmer or contact around 7 oclock so this can mean leaving around 5.30 from the apartment and travelling by service or taxi to the village. Then there is walk/ride on a tractor or car to the site to be picked.

Picking olives Palestinian style involves the whole family, Dads, Mums, Sons, Daughters, Brothers, Sisters and Parents can be involved to various extents. All the kit is either carried by hand or on the family donkey and includes the breakfast and lots of water.

Once at the site everything is unpacked and big feed sacking about 30 ft by 4 ft is lain on the ground around the tree, the ground can and usually is very uneven and so the sheet has to stamped down. Once this is done then the picking begins.It is all done by hand with the ripest coming off the branches quite easily and the less ripe having to be tugged off. On the good trees where the olives fall like rain onto the sheet it can take up to 10 mins for 3 or 4 people to gather in the harvest and on others 1 person can do an entire tree in second if the crop is sparce. The trees are dusty and waxy and after an hour or so you have the look of an oliverpicker, sweating as the sun climbs in the sky, covered in dust and rich brown earth as any olive that doesnt make it onto the sheet has to be picked again, this time from the ground and put on the sheet. On the taller branches the women or bigger childrn climb the tree to reach the fruit there. I have seen an 8 month pregnant woman climb 10 feet up a tree without giving it a second thought. The reason the women and kids get this job is that the branches are smaller and the heavier men wouldnt be able manage this without breaking the tree,or at least thats what the guys say!

Once on of the sheets is getting full it is gather up and the olives are tranfered into an empty feed sack and the same procedure continues again untill all the trees are picked and then the full sacks are transported to the village usually by donkey.

I did have a lot of pictures on my camera but some idiot deleted them all this morning whilst playing with his new camera! Step forward for a bollocking, Mr J Drake!

And that is how I have been spending my days!

Ta ta