34 MIDDLE EAST REPORT 279 ■ SUMMER 2016 A Lonely Songkran in the Arabah Matan Kaminer T here was something awe-inspiring about the dark red rainclouds that covered the sky of the Arabah on April 13. Precipitation is rare in this section of the Great Rift Valley, which lies below sea level and hundreds of miles from the Mediterranean. When it does come, the rain rushes down the wadis of the Israeli Negev and from the high mountains of Jordan opposite, looding the dry bed of the Wadi ‘Araba, prying loose the landmines buried decades ago when the two states were in a state of war. Rarer still is rain in April, the month in which fresh days and cold nights begin to give way to the stiling 24-hour heat of summer, and the month in which the bell peppers that have brought prosperity to the Israeli side of the Arabah begin to wilt and rot. he thirteenth, moreover, is not just any day in April: It is Songkran, the hai new year, one of four annual legally mandated days of rest for the thousands of hai migrants who make up the bulk of the agricultural work force in the territory of the Central Arabah Regional Council. In hailand, Songkran marks the beginning of the end of the dry season, and locals greet the hottest days of the year with exuberant tossing of water and talcum powder in expectation of the monsoon Matan Kaminer is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Michigan. A Thai worker packs peppers in the Arabah. LIOR MIZRAHI/GETTY IMAGES