Daraa-Sana
Amid a festive atmosphere, full of chants and folk songs urging work, the olive harvest season begins in Daraa Governorate at the beginning of November of each year, as farmers eagerly await it, as this crop provides them with a source of livelihood.
The olive harvest comes after continuous work for a whole year, where the family gathers in the fields and talks about the parties, stories and novels, and everyone remembers the anecdotes that happened during the last picking season, according to Nidal Sharaf, a researcher in the field of heritage and history of the southern region.
Sharaf told SANA reporter that picking olives is a special ritual inherited by children from their fathers and grandfathers, where the family gathers under the shade of the olive trees and exchanges stories, novels, songs and chants that encourage work in a way that is very close to the wheat harvest rituals.
Sharaf explained that the month of November of each year is the month of olive harvest in Daraa, where the people wait for rain to wash trees and fruits from dust, because they believe that the oil content is high in olives after the entry of the month of November and the fall of rain.
He pointed out that what distinguishes the olive harvest rituals in Daraa is that the people exchange gifts of olives and oil in reference to damage and brotherhood and a request for blessings on the season, indicating that the end of the daily work is the gathering of all family members under the shade of olive trees to drink hot drinks and food that is decorated with olive fruits and oil With hourani bread.
Sharaf indicated that the days of picking olives or the days of oil, as the people of Hauran call them, are short, as the day is short, not exceeding 8 working hours. olives;
Sharaf explained that the olive tree is rooted in Hauran and its history is long, especially in the Byzantine and Roman periods, as evidenced by the stone mills that pervad Hauran. The discoveries also showed a stone olive press weighing more than a thousand kilograms in Tel Al-Ash’ari. In addition, a number of historians mentioned the olive tree and the uses of oil in the field of olive oil. Lighting churches during the past periods.
It is expected that Daraa Governorate will produce about 21 thousand tons of olive fruits and about 2500 tons of oil this season.
Qasim Miqdad
