How can students study …?

It is exams period in Gaza for schools, colleges, and universities. Being a student, myself, helped me feel the suffering of students firsthand. I have exams in a week and I do not know how to study with the return of long electricity cuts and this time it is everywhere. I can’t go to my parents or friends’ houses. All our gas lamps are off because natural gas was not allowed to Gaza in 2 weeks and even candles are rare. My father went to different shops till he found some yesterday. “Candles seem to be unimportant or unprofitable to be smuggled through tunnels ‘, he said.

Students, like me, at different ages are wondering how to reach schools and colleges for exams with very limited transportation movement. Those cars that actually move on the streets are working on cooking oil! Yes you did not misread and not only cooking oil, but fried cooking oil, which is said to be cancerous and harmful to the environment. The stench in the streets is very intolerable.

So a student should study at candles light, walk to schools and universities, with a family that has no gas to cook , and still would have the right mood and willingness to pass exams, let alone get good marks.

Yeats had said “everything is falling apart “and I feel it. This overwhelming feeling of misery is crawling under our skin and is inhaled into our system, yeliding grave looking individuals who are willing to pick a fight with you faster that you can say oops–a-daisy!

My mind is scattered between studying for my last two Masters courses, the gas cylinder on the stove that is about to finish, and the gas cylinder on the car that is about to finish , and the complete fear of the darkness at the end of the tunnel.

I miss my Cactus..!

I have a thing with cactus. I love this plant beyond description. When I was 20 years old, I wrote this short story in Arabic about a perceptive young girl who goes to a job interview and starts asking the corporate manger questions instead of him asking her. She noticed a small pot of cactus on his desk and told him that it symbolizes for him an unfinished love story. Anyway, this story won a prize in the University of Jordan and was broadcasted on a radio program. So here is what happened 7 years later. I took this job and I entered my new office to find the same imaginary cactus plant on my desk. I thought it was so strange and it did delight me to the fullest. It might have been this nostalgic feeling to old happy days in the university or it might be because we as Palestinians are like cactus in so many ways.
Cactus is hard, can survive without water for long periods of time, and has all these thorns on the outside with a complete mushy juicy nature on the inside. Likewise, Palestinians are survivors who can live long without enough resources. They look so tough while absolutely absurd and tender as all human beings are. Harder still, they stand out in resilience, totally stranded by a long sorrowful legacy of exile!

I look at Gaza people and get astonished of how they endure what they endure. I watered my cactus more that I should have, and the poor thing died. The luxury of an air-conditioned office did not suit so much the accustomed to hardship plant. I miss it.

Yesterday was a hard day. I went to attend one of our psychosocial intervention focus groups and the workshop facilitator was explaining to the women about legal intervention and how they can be supported to file legal suits. And then this woman, looked at me directly, being the person with the badge!, and said “well , if my husband does not have any money to support us and left us long ago running from his responsibilities. How can I sue him and if I can, to what court, with Gaza and West bank split, should I file the suit “ Just as simple , she summed the entangled reality of political division , unemployment , and poverty which are the main three pillars of people’ suffering . And then, after speaking with fierce anger to the point that you feel she is going to punch you in the face, she bursted into an emotional cry . It must be cactus again.

Do you know Hanzala , the young boy in Naji Al Ali caricature(in the pic above) ? He has hair like cactus thorns as if professing that our children will live in drought. Barefooted as he is and poor, he turns his back on us and on all, looking at something, thinking of something deeply, faceless in accusation. Will he ever look us in the eyes? Will he ever grow old? Will he stop undressing us with his silence?Or will he just shrug his shoulders in indifference and walk away from contemplating the Palestinian cause. Entrapment that it is in a static infertile complex surrounding.

Snapshots


Snapshot No. I

I wake up instantly realizing that the car has no fuel today. By fuel, I mean natural gas because since a week no diesel or natural gas were supplied to the Gaza Strip and of course Benzene was not allowed in months. So I figured out that I should call my taxi company to make sure they have a car before I bother to dress the girls. The man in charge told me over the phone that we have 2/3 of the taxis stopped but because you are an old customer, we can mange to send you a car today. So I got to breath and a normal working day began. I can walk, you know, I live at a walking distance from my work place but how can I get two kids 4 1/2 and 3 yrs to walk with the bags and all to the day care ?Let me think about that for a while. I thought I should check on my husband. So I called him and unfortunately he did not find a single car to take him to work. So he walked for 30 minutes! Good exercise, I know.

Snapshot No II

A dear friend called my last night, angry and frustrated that her wedding is going to be postponed because of the transportation crisis. I let her cry for a while and then discussed the details. She lives in Khanyounis in the Southern area of the Gaza Strip and bought most of the furniture from Gaza City , which is about an hour drive from Khanyounis. She could not find a single car to transport her furniture to her new apartment. So she couldn’t get the house ready on time. Added, most of the people invited can not make it to the wedding celebration in Gaza. They can not walk that long!! And riding animals, I guess will wrinkle their beautiful clothes. So, after making reservations and arrangements, she had to postpone it till fuel is in!

Snapshot No. III

A work colleague’s son wounded himself and needed stitches. He lives with his brothers in a multi-story building. So he knocks on doors in the middle of the night asking each of his brothers if he has any fuel at all in the car to get his son to the hospital. Luckily, their neighbor did and the problem was very easily solved!!

I do not think Gazans are waiting now for another conference or another Arab summit in that regard .

Random Thoughts

I was thinking for a while of writing a novel in Arabic about Gaza; a novel through which I can depict the interaction between Gazans and their environment and the changes they underwent in the last decade. And since every novel needs a historical background, I first thought I would like to write about the post-Oslo agreement period, the coming of the PNA and the big hopes Palestinians and Gazans had for the new government. Did the aspired changes take place and did we really get the development wheel rolling in Palestine? That is to be discussed and pondered upon. Then, I thought, my memory would be more vivid if I write about the second Intifada and the changes that swept over all life aspects, destroying most of the things that were constructed previously and getting the Palestinian resistance and fight for freedom back in the scene. Then, I thought I have to write about now so as I can remember accurately the ideological changes and the new definitions of patriotism and disagreement!

Since, I am decided to let two main characters fall in love as in most of my favorite novels, I feel that if they do fall in love now, what mirror will their story hold to Palestinians? It is not Love in the Time of Cholera; it is love in the time of moral collapse and internal conflict with scattered political agendas and uncertain unpromising turn of events. A friend psychiatrist told me that writing is not about portraying ourselves as perfect to the OTHER. Writing is supposed to shed light on our problems, weaknesses, to help us reconstruct and modify whatever went wrong. So May be the naked truth will be of use and the phoenix can rise from the ashes. It will take more than hoped, I believe. And to respond to my genius friend Lana, I wish Penelope will keep netting till Odysseus comes and I wish my protagonists will live in my mind strong, stubborn, and larger than life to a point of being safely born into paper.

It is creepy quiet !


It’s been very quiet lately in Gaza. And though it may sound funny, it is very strange. We are not accustomed to quietness and this seemingly peaceful atmosphere makes us wonder ….. , no bullets, no bombing, so what’s next ?

The political talks between Hamas and Fateh in Yemen are not yet successful. Although, they signed an agreement, they both interpret it differently!! Hams wants to negotiate the proposed changes and Fateh wants to start implementing them, the first of which is for Hamas to withdraw from all official departments and stations in Gaza submitting it all to the authority of the PNA forces. Since, they did not agree on unity yet, Gaza problems are and will continue to be very serious. It is not that Gazans have big hopes for positive changes over night. However, If Hams and Fateh do agree on national unity, things might take a better turn.

They say Rafah crossing will open. I wish it will. It’s been 5 years since I last traveled outside Gaza. I was pregnant with my first daughter when I went to Jordan for the last time. And my daughter is four and a half years old now. My youngest, who is 3, keeps saying “I want t go to Egypt “. I don’t know from where she picked that up. When I ask her “What’s Egypt? “, she says “ Egypt is 7elwa “pretty” . By time, I figured out that Egypt symbolized for her a beautiful state of being!! So Egypt is where all the toys are, the zoo is, Mary goes round, running in a park and so on !!

The other night, I decided with my Husband to take the kids to a park, named Barcelona park, which is generously sponsored by the Spanish government, I assume. So we went there for the first time to find this really big park that has lots of swings and slides Unfortunately, all were broken except for one slide , in front of which kids gathered including my daughters trying to get a turn . It seems, since established, the park received no maintenance whatsoever, whilst used by a large number of kids daily. I enjoyed watching the children just running or riding bicycles with such joy and realized that we have so much potential to change our environment to a happy positive violence–free one if it was not for our doomed political situation that keeps depriving people of enjoying the so little they have.

You do what you have to do!

You know after parking the car for 21 days, we finally followed the flock in converting its system to natural gas!! Yes, natural gas. They have this system in Gaza now that enables cars to change from Benzene to natural gas. Only Diesel is allowed as a type of fuel, which is generally used for taxis, buses and public transportation, and this leaves private cars, like ours, stopped. Benzene was not permitted into Gaza with enough quantities since more than a month now. The quantities that get in, are hardly sufficient for ambulances!

After, I don’t know how many arguments with my husband, who just misses using the car, I said “you know what, do as you please “. So like the majority of Gaza private cars, our relatively new car is moving on natural gas and has a gas cylinder inside!!! Is it safe? May be not. Is it environment friendly? I have no clue. Is it throat soring and chest paining? Absolutely …I will repeat a sentence that I wrote before.”Living in Gaza is that art of dealing with alternatives and Gazans are mastering this art to the point that coping mechanisms become pathetic “. Am I afraid that somebody should hit the car from behind whilst driving with the kids …of course I am.

I would just like to make it clear here that discussing such a problem in front of any Gazan citizen, as a problem, will make him/her laugh because it is the least of anybody’s worries -and also because safety had become a luxury. We are at Maslow’s first stage of the hierarchy of needs (food and shelter), remember? So my friends you are all blessed that you can just drive to gas stations....it is dignifying believe me!!!

On International Women’s Day..

I thought I should write something on the 8th of March occasion, which is the International Women’s Day. Every year, since I was in college and being a feminist, I try to pay some tribute to women through a couple of lines celebrating their strength and honoring their courage and commitment.

This year, however, images of women whom I met throughout the year in all areas of the Gaza Strip, from Beit hanoun in the North to Rafah in the South, haunted me. I almost heard their sad desperate voices in my ear. As exaggerated as this may sound, it’s true. I can’t forget the woman in Rafah who said ” my kids’ school is a caravan that is very hot in summer and leaks rain in winter –Still I want my daughters to get educated to end up better than their mother” . I still remember the field worker who told me that in Jabalia in the North and in a very rainy day, she wished to leave the target family house quickly to be able to open her umbrella because inside the house she got soaked from rain coming through the ceiling! I also remember the woman in Nusseirat camp who said “ I am a divorced woman but I tell everybody that my husband is sick at home ..you know ..it is better this way . And yes the $150 I make now made all the difference because I can buy my kids school bags and uniforms now “.

Of course, I also met women who are sick and can't leave Gaza for treatment, Masters students who can’t leave to continue their education, and the happiness I saw in a heart disease patient’s eyes, who found out that her medicine was permitted to enter the Strip which means that she is not going to suffer anymore, left me struck with how pain and suffering can be personified all around. It is a grim truth that almost eats up one’s soul; I am helpless!

Today I remember the 120 families who lost beloved in the last Israeli operation in Gaza and I have to here wonder how many mothers, daughters, sisters these families did include. All of these women who mourned their losses turned overnight to a number, crying at night or not, wearing black or not, it doesn’t change anything of being forgotten and marginalized.

I don’t know of a single project or programme or intervention mechanism that can solve these women’s problems. I don’t think all the funding efforts can change their reality. You know why….? Because their problems are political situation bound. Gaza women, I bow for you!