Second day of the war, my family got warned to evacuate their home and they did it, as the whole neighbourhood did.
Now, the home and the little farm are destroyed, as is the whole neighbourhood which is now a ghastly, uninhabitable place. My family now is at my sisters home in another area. There are more than 30 persons in that home.
NOW my sisters area is under threat as it’s located in North Gaza which got a rain of leaflets from Israeli army ordering people to evacuate ‘everyplace’ or risk death…people must head to South Gaza.
There’s no traffic to transport people from North to South, since Israel cut off all fuel to Gaza, bombed the roads and are still bombing everywhere.
My mother is too old to walk for hours, my father is very sick, my sisters have small children.
It’s impossible for approximately 1.1 million people living in northern Gaza to evacuate the area within the next 24 hours.
NOW my mother made her decision telling me ‘I’m not leaving, they can kill me. I lost our home and farm and they are still burning now. I have nothing left there, moreover me and your father are not able to flee again’.
Du ger mig fortfarande liv välsigna mitt öde, kära himmel. Mannen med robotbenet ger mig fortfarande liv välsigna mig för jag kommer kanske att leva mer än hans smärta.
Jag hör hans metalliska ben kliver i mitt huvud han går med kryckor närmar sig mig medan jag sitter i köket han verkar vara arg på mig åh ja, jag tömde hans kylskåp Ledsen robotbenman jag packade till och med dina orienteringskläder jag packade ditt gamla liv för jag tror att du nu har ett bättre liv.
Jag överlevde en lång film där allt var mörkt så jag kunde bara höra ljud och allt jag hörde var dina vingar.
This is just a phone call that happens every morning. It’s the first thing I do to start my day.
This time it wasn’t a promising phone call with my family. My mother said that my sister’s house, where all the family including 10 children are staying, is without windows and doors. Everything collapsed when the other house on the other side of the street was bombed last night.
My family escaped quickly to another neighborhood and spent the night at someone’s apartment who embraced them. Then in the morning, they went back to their house and tried to clean up the broken window glass which was scattered all over.
I asked my mother where they stay in the house since even the walls got broken. She said that there’s a room that still has walls!
This morning didn’t feel fine. I barely heard what my mother was talking about; her voice was weak and sad. It’s like last night’s bomb targeted her strength that I always believed in. She said, ‘I’m talking to you while watching the neighbors evacuating their homes… we will not leave, where to leave? Do you know where we should go?’ There I felt totally helpless and tried to push down my tears away from my throat. What could I answer my mother? She seemed to be very lost and tired of the unpredictable situation.
As I understood, people there started evacuating without knowing where they were going. They were escaping the horrific loud explosions, but bombs kept falling everywhere. So it’s pointless to leave for somewhere else.
It could be my last phone call to my mother. I’m not pessimistic; it’s just the truth of what she described to me of a dead neighborhood right now.
The civilians of Gaza are in deep pain and in a terrifying panic. They are humans; they are not heroes with superpowers to stand against unfair war. They are not miracle shields, and they are not numbers in this genocide.
Every time I want to travel abroad, I make a list of restaurants, cafes, bars and places to go to. I put a lot of focus on my restaurants list, I like to choose the local and hidden small restaurants, because I travel basically to eat. Through food, I get to know different aspects about the country or the particular city I’m staying at. This time I went to this local restaurant where there were only Portuguese people, they were quite loud and excited about the football match that was going on, they chanted and banged the tables from time to time. The guys next to our table apologised and continued chanting. We said it’s ok and we actually banged our table with them. They laughed and raised their beer glasses. I ordered the famous Portuguese grilled codfish and my boyfriend ordered a Portuguese stew. The portions were huge and I got shocked by the mount of food we got, we barely ate. The waiter came and seemed worry, I said ‘the food is very good, but it’s for ten persons’. He relieved and took away the plates and came back with the dessert menu, I choose bolo de bolacha. It was a big cake with layers of buttercream, I ate some bites for the tasting’s sake. The mood was chaotic, yet joyful. There were seven waiters in the small restaurant. If it had been in Sweden it would only have had one waiter. Spilled beer drowned the tables and bread flew across the floor! The guys continued chanting and some people didn’t get a place inside the restaurant, the waitress gave them beer glasses and kept serving them while they were standing in the street cheering the people inside the restaurant.
يا كارهين الثلج، أنتم لم تعيشوا في الحي الذي اسمه أوفي لتعرفوا ما هو الثلج الرائع.. لم تجربوا المشي على القطن الناعم، ليس عندكم شرفة في الطابق الأخير في بناية من الخمسينات، تطل على شارع و حديقة يمر منها يوميا نفس الكلب و الثلاث قطط الوديعات.
أحب مراقبة الحياة من وراء شباكي، حوافه مليئة بالثلج، أرى آثار طيور القرقف، أشعر بالطمأنينة، لأن القرقف تلويحة الربيع القادم. شاب يرتدي سترة صفراء لامعة يزيح الثلج عن درجات السلم المؤدي إلى قبو غرف غسيل الثياب، يكمل و يزيح الثلج عن عتبات البنايات المقابلة للحديقة..
في الصباح، لم أستطع مغادرة سريري، بالرغم من تذمر قطي بولين و ركضه فوقي في محاولة استفزازي، كنت مثل المشلولة، تمارين البيلاتس في الليلة الماضية كانت متعبة، لكنني شعرت بالسعادة و الفخر بمجرد التضحية بالدفء و الكسل و الخروج في عاصفة الثلج.. بعد ساعة من خطط النهوض و توعداتي بقتل قطي، غادرت السرير و توجهت مباشرة نحو شباكي، كانت الجرافة القزمة تزيح الثلج عن الشارع و الرصيف، شعرت بأنني عجوز متقاعدة و أحتاج إلى دفتر صغير أسجل فيه تحركات الجيران. كان بولين يمشي حول قدمي و ذيله يضرب ساقي بلطف كأنها محاولة للتسامح بعدما جعل مني مرمى للركض و العقاب.. لحسن حظي أنني أحب الثلج أكثر من المومينز.
In summer I got a message from one of my Swedish friends who moved to America a long time ago. He wrote to me´: “Do you want to have coffee at Nytorget?”. I simply answered “yes, tomorrow at 10”, and just like that we met again as if he lives in Stockholm.
Last month I got an unexpected message from another friend who lives in Italy. She wrote to me: “I’m coming to celebrate your birthday in Stockholm”. We haven’t talked in four years, it was vague, I thought she was joking and I gave her my birthday date to make sure that she comes on the right day.A few days before my birthday, my boyfriend asked me: “why do you want to celebrate your birthday that late?” I got confused and asked him “what are you talking about?”. He said: “you want to celebrate with your friend”, and then I realized that I gave Nidaa the wrong day. It might be understandable to forget it, but not when you live in Sweden and your birthday is a part of your Swedish personal number.
However, I went to the central station to pick Nidaa. I bought a tulip bouquet and waited her for an hour, because she got lost at the airport and she couldn’t find the railway.We ran to each other laughing a lot, and since then we never stopped talking and laughing as if we knew each other ages ago.
First time we met was fifteen years ago, and since then we met only twice! Then we started talking only when I moved to Sweden and she moved to Italy. It was very strange to meet her again, this time we spent a week together at my home in Stockholm. We cooked together and did things like two perfectly normal girls, not like an artist and a writer. I took her to my favorite streets, cafés and restaurants. We were like two characters from a novel, she taught me some Italian swear words and suggested that we should meet next time in Lappland. We also listened to Italian and Swedish music while eating dates!
Our language was mixed with Arabic, English, Swedish and Italian. We laughed ironically at it and switched towards the old Palestinian accents from back in Gaza.On last day, I took her to my old neighborhood and showed her my old home, I told her “I feel that I was born here in a previous life”. She said “I believe in the previous life”.
At the metro station, we walked down the stairs while the musician was playing sad music, or it sounded sad because Nidaa was leaving back to Italy. As I said, everything was like from a novel. I hugged her quickly before the metro gates closed, she was crying a lot.
Later she sent me a message telling me that it was the best week she had since she left Gaza. It made me tear up and I felt wonderful.
أريد أن أصبح غنية في وقت قصير فلا مزيد من الانتظار لأساعد الناس في الهروب من بلادهم المنكوبة بالحروب و الدكتاتورية و البطريركية.
لا بد و أن هناك نساء ينتظرن مساعدة ما سوف أدخر قروض الدراسة و أرسلها إليهن كي يشترين على الأقل فوطا دون الحاجة إلى سؤال أزواجهن لدفع ثمنهن. يا له من حزن أن تكون خصوصية المرأة عارية و محشوة في محفظة الرجل.
سوف أدخر أيضا مصاريف تذكرة المواصلات sl أخطط جديا أن أبدأ بركوب الدراجة و أرسل نقودا إلى شباب يأكلهم القلق و الخوف من المستقبل هل ستكفي النقود لشراء فلتر ماء؟ ربما؟ عندئذ يمكنهم بيع مياه نقية و ادخار بضع النقود للفرار من الحي الفقير ثم من المدينة ثم من البلد كله…
كم أنا غارقة في الأحلام المتعبة مثل بطة بين أمواج عالية أقضي ساعات طويلة في البحث عن عمل لا لأشتري بيتا أو أسافر إلى رحلة صيفية كما يفعل الناس في مدينتي الوديعة بل لأساعد أشخاصا لا أعرفهم و لكنهم لا بد و أنهم ينتظرون شخصا لا يعرفونه سوف يساعدهم يوما ما…
Today I went to practice swimming at a private pool, it was so terrible. Whenever I dunked my head under the water, I got panic as if I was going to drown and die.
Following a cognitive behavioral therapy might help; If I look back at my ‘water history’, I will find only forbidden stories of women swimming in the sea. As a part of the society where I grew up in the Arabic culture, women weren’t (and still) allowed to swim. Yes, there are many red lines on the Arabic women freedom list.
I was a child when I used to go with my family to the sea and I was allowed to hold my father foot while he was swimming, I don’t remember that I was afraid of water. Later, I followed my brothers to the sea and it was different, they pushed me into the waves and dunked my head under the water. That can be the reason behind of my water fear.
I lost the safety when I was a child and I could never work on getting it back since I grew up and joined the women with the forbidden list of things.
A friend of mine used to tell me ‘relax and become one with the water’, but I reached a point that I can think of my cat and dunk my head under the water, but it didn’t work. I thought: well, I survived three wars. If I think of how many bombs could kill me, I will feel brave and dare to face the water.
I know, sometimes, I’m strange.. after two hours in the water, I realized that wars are much easier than becoming a friend of the water.
Kawther AbuHani 