As dawn emerges at the town of Beit Furik in the northern West Bank city of Nablus Palestinian elderly woman Um Ahmed starts preparation for the olive harvest bringing all necessary items before leaving the house with her children and grandchildren to their land adjacent to the Jordan Valley to harvest their olives.
Um Ahmed always smiles picking olives expressing her happiness seeing her grandchildren participate in picking up olives as she teaches and guides them to deal with the olive tree as gentle as a mother dealing with her children.
Happy season
The olive season is a joy for everyone who contributes to the harvest and the olive tree is a blessing” says Um Ahmed who stresses that olive trees are a blessing in many different ways even during the harvest. She says many of her grandchildren and children can’t come together except during the olive season. For them it is a season of joy goodness and family time.
This is also the case for many rural Palestinian families which are now picking olives. The joy felt on the faces of adults and young people could be seen everywhere and the positive impact of the olive harvest has reached all houses.
Um Ahmed believes that the olive season does not pass unnoticed. For her the olive harvest represents the memories of beautiful childhood which she is trying to retrieve through her grandchildren by motivating them to share this season with their elders.
According to researchers in the town the rituals of olive picking has not changed over the years since they depend mostly on manual labor unlike harvest for example whose methods have developed.
All members of the family usually participate in the harvest as a form of solidarity.
Style and beauty
Although the situation changed over the course of decades the olive season still maintains its own elegance and beauty in terms of the traditional rituals associated with the season.
Um Ahmad’s traditions and customs do not differ from the rest of her village women let alone the use of the same tools in the olive harvest as well as maintenance and trimming which pass from one generation to another.
Abdullah Hanani the eldest son of Um Ahmed says he has been taking part in picking up olives since he was seven years old and that he learnt from his parents and grandparents all the customs of picking olives. He recalls how his family used to wait in a queue for their turn to press their olives at the pressing facility.
He notes that the presence of older people is not meant to exhaust them but rather to consult them in everything related to the harvest and the work schedule.
