📚: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks #book (Aug.1920-Oct. 1951) Her #Helacells cont. to benefit humanity & to🔬🧪- globally.

This is Matmata, in Southern Tunisia. And it’s not just "houses in holes"—it’s an entire invisible city. Each hole serves as the courtyard of a home. The Berbers have been building this way for hundreds of years: 1. They dig a pit 7–10 meters deep. This becomes the courtyard. 2. From the walls of this pit, they dig horizontally to create rooms—bedrooms, a kitchen, and storage areas. These rooms are connected by tunnels. From above, nothing is visible except for a hole in the desert. Why do they do it? It’s not just to escape the heat—though it works perfectly for that. Inside, the temperature stays between 20–25°C, while outside it can reach over 50°C in the summer and drop near zero in the winter. There’s no need for air conditioning. The primary reason, however, was protection. In the desert, you’re an easy target. This design renders the entire village invisible to invaders; if you don’t know where to look, you could walk right past it without ever noticing. And perhaps most interestingly, this is the home of Luke Skywalker. In 1976, George Lucas filmed *Star Wars* in one of these very dwellings in Matmata. The Hotel Sidi Driss remains preserved to this day, just as it appeared on Tatooine—you can even sleep in Luke’s room. Today, fewer than 100 families still live there. Most of the younger generation has moved to the new town built above ground, but the older residents remain below. They say it’s the best place to sleep in the entire Sahara.