The secret, which nobody realized at the time, was that with this sand, which was 100 percent inorganic, you can control exactly what goes in it.

The first crops failed. The tomatoes grew large but fell off early. The sand could not hold them up.

We had no electricity, water or services. One of us would volunteer each week to pick up the garbage and take it away to some nearby Bedouins who would offload the trash if they couldn’t...

I have no regrets about the past.