Read Online Meet Me in Gaza by Louisa B. Waugh - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Louisa B. Waugh
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and boys – to escape from 15 metres underground, like foxes fleeing from hounds. Not all of them make it. Several have already suffocated this year. 21
Twelve days after Hamas has blown up the border, the Egyptian authorities begin rebuilding it. They give Gazans still inside Egypt a few days’ grace to return before the border is completely re-sealed, but don’t allow anyone else to leave Gaza except Egyptians who crossed into the Strip to see family and friends. By now around half the population of Gaza has crossed back and forth over the broken border into Egypt and Gazans have spent millions of US dollars in northern Egypt (one estimate is $250 million in al-Arish alone), giving a massive boost to the local economy. I half-expect, half-hope, that thousands of Gazans will refuse to be corralled back inside the Strip and instead just sit it out at the border, demanding that Egypt keep the Rafah crossing open and maybe even shaming the ‘international community’ into confronting the Israeli siege.
But like songbirds allowed out of their cage for a brief stretch of their clipped wings, or jailbirds recalled from parole, the Gazans obediently cross back over before the wall is rebuilt around them. For a couple of days, I still see the odd wagon with an Egyptian flag and passengers in white headdresses who don’t quite look Gazan. But the party is almost over.
What with one thing and another, I haven’t seen Saida for a little while. The next time we meet, back at her home, we eat with the family, then retreat to the bedroom she shares with her sister, Maha, to talk among ourselves. Saida has some news: the human rights centre where she has been volunteering has offered her a full-time job, researching human rights in Gaza. In her serious, steady voice, she tells me that she’s very happy about this.
‘But already they are giving me a lot of work,
habibti.
I know I am going to be very busy.
Khalas
! (Enough!) – it’s better to be busy in Gaza and not think about our situation too much.’
I raise a toast to her new job. We clink our coffee cups.
‘Did you cross the border this week?’ I ask her afterwards, curious as to whether she would have done so or not.
‘And go where?’
‘To Egypt.’
‘No. Did you?’
‘Yes, just for one night. With Tariq. We climbed over the fence, with thousands of other people, and we ended up going to al-Arish with a Bedouin …’
I want to share the whole escapade with her, but falter under her penetrating gaze and fall silent. When I’ve finished speaking, Saida is silent for a moment. Then she says: ‘That is your choice. But I will not cross the border like this, climbing over a broken wall like a prisoner escaping from jail. No,
habibti.
When the Egyptians really open that border, then I will walk across it with my family and we will visit Egypt like normal people visit other countries. But not like this.’
I see the steel flash of her eyes and know that she means every word.
Gaza from the air
When the Egyptians re-seal the southern border, life returns to, if not normal, then what it was before this brief interlude of freedom. One of the most striking things about life in Gaza for me is the daily semblance of normal street life. Gazans get on with their day-to-day lives because what is the alternative? As Mediterranean people, most of them are early risers. After breakfast, the lucky ones go to work (unemployment is running at 40 per cent right now, one of the highest rates in the world), women cook and clean for their families, and children go to school – frequently in shifts because there are chronic shortages of classrooms and no available materials to build new schools. The Muslim working week is Sunday to Thursday; Friday is for prayers and Saturday is traditional family time.
During the week I’m usually at work by 8.30 in the morning, and back home again around half past three in the afternoon, for a late lunch. By then I’m usually
Twelve days after Hamas has blown up the border, the Egyptian authorities begin rebuilding it. They give Gazans still inside Egypt a few days’ grace to return before the border is completely re-sealed, but don’t allow anyone else to leave Gaza except Egyptians who crossed into the Strip to see family and friends. By now around half the population of Gaza has crossed back and forth over the broken border into Egypt and Gazans have spent millions of US dollars in northern Egypt (one estimate is $250 million in al-Arish alone), giving a massive boost to the local economy. I half-expect, half-hope, that thousands of Gazans will refuse to be corralled back inside the Strip and instead just sit it out at the border, demanding that Egypt keep the Rafah crossing open and maybe even shaming the ‘international community’ into confronting the Israeli siege.
But like songbirds allowed out of their cage for a brief stretch of their clipped wings, or jailbirds recalled from parole, the Gazans obediently cross back over before the wall is rebuilt around them. For a couple of days, I still see the odd wagon with an Egyptian flag and passengers in white headdresses who don’t quite look Gazan. But the party is almost over.
What with one thing and another, I haven’t seen Saida for a little while. The next time we meet, back at her home, we eat with the family, then retreat to the bedroom she shares with her sister, Maha, to talk among ourselves. Saida has some news: the human rights centre where she has been volunteering has offered her a full-time job, researching human rights in Gaza. In her serious, steady voice, she tells me that she’s very happy about this.
‘But already they are giving me a lot of work,
habibti.
I know I am going to be very busy.
Khalas
! (Enough!) – it’s better to be busy in Gaza and not think about our situation too much.’
I raise a toast to her new job. We clink our coffee cups.
‘Did you cross the border this week?’ I ask her afterwards, curious as to whether she would have done so or not.
‘And go where?’
‘To Egypt.’
‘No. Did you?’
‘Yes, just for one night. With Tariq. We climbed over the fence, with thousands of other people, and we ended up going to al-Arish with a Bedouin …’
I want to share the whole escapade with her, but falter under her penetrating gaze and fall silent. When I’ve finished speaking, Saida is silent for a moment. Then she says: ‘That is your choice. But I will not cross the border like this, climbing over a broken wall like a prisoner escaping from jail. No,
habibti.
When the Egyptians really open that border, then I will walk across it with my family and we will visit Egypt like normal people visit other countries. But not like this.’
I see the steel flash of her eyes and know that she means every word.
Gaza from the air
When the Egyptians re-seal the southern border, life returns to, if not normal, then what it was before this brief interlude of freedom. One of the most striking things about life in Gaza for me is the daily semblance of normal street life. Gazans get on with their day-to-day lives because what is the alternative? As Mediterranean people, most of them are early risers. After breakfast, the lucky ones go to work (unemployment is running at 40 per cent right now, one of the highest rates in the world), women cook and clean for their families, and children go to school – frequently in shifts because there are chronic shortages of classrooms and no available materials to build new schools. The Muslim working week is Sunday to Thursday; Friday is for prayers and Saturday is traditional family time.
During the week I’m usually at work by 8.30 in the morning, and back home again around half past three in the afternoon, for a late lunch. By then I’m usually
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