About an hour from home is a short stretch of the Israel-Jordan border. Readily accessible from the main road it leads to a small memorial park called the Island of Peace. In better days you could walk along the banks of the two rivers that meet there. In winter you could join the crowds watching the swirling water as the seasonal rains swelled the rivers.
Now there are only zebra finches flitting about in small flocks as well as doves and the occasional kingfisher perching on the power lines or a facon cruising for rodents.The bee-eater nesting holes are empty now - they have migrated.
The border fence itself is set deep in reinforced concrete but at a few points this foundation is exposed. So imagine my joy and surprise as I saw a set of tracks going dead straight across the sand-strip to one of these "gaps". Looking closer I saw claw imprints characteristic of a mongoose. "Rikki Tikki Tavi" I said to myself, remembering the mongoose in Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book.
One mongoose going for a drink at dawn...
One woman on a bike searching for some small sign that life is not completely defined by borders, war and politics...
Well, I guess we both got what we needed.