Gaza Update #4: Outside, Inside [Photo] Posted by Lora Gordon [Photo]
I just wanted to comment on a few things that have really struck me
here. It's always really funny to compare the conversation we have on
the outside about Gaza to the conversations people in Gaza have about
Gaza.
- The motorycles. I don't remember ever seeing a motorcycle the first
time I came here in 2003. Now they are everywhere. There are
apparently 720,000 registered and thousands more assumed to be
unregistered. That's one motorcycle for every two people in Gaza. I'll
be riding in a taxi or hanging out with old friends and inevitably
people of my parents generation will start complaining about the
motorcycles, how dangerous they are, how many accidents they've
caused. I haven't had time to properly research it but a friend told
me the motorcycle craze started when Hamas blew a hole in the wall in
2006 -- you probably remember the pictures of people pouring into
Egypt and loading up on goods for 11 days. I guess motorcycles were
one of the things people brought back. Since then they've been coming
through the tunnels.
- Microwaves and toaster ovens are also new here. They're still
luxuries, but now more common and available to the middle class. Many
friends have them newly and it seems like people are having the same
debate about their dangers as we did in the US when they came out.
- A friend shared the most interesting analysis of the tunnels that I
didn't totally agree with but wanted to share. Her family's house was
destroyed in 2004, along with most of her neighborhood. Since then,
most of the former house owners have rented out their uninhabited land
for the use of smuggling tunnels. She said her family was one of the
few refused, even though they were offered $30,000 for the first five
years, plus 25% of the profits from goods coming in. She said she
opposes the tunnels on principle because they jack up the prices and
the goods that come in through the tunnels are only affordable to
comfortable families. Prices have more or less doubled for almost
everything since 2005. She said it would better not to have chocolate
in Gaza at all, than to have chocolate that parents can't afford to
buy for their children, and that if the tunnels were gone it would
show the true face of the siege on Gaza. I personally thought her
analysis was a little hardline, but find it really interesting how
there are two different conversations going on about the tunnels
depending on which side of the border you are. Outside, people debate
whether Hamas is smuggling arms in, and whether this justifies the
full-scale bombing of Gaza, and seem pretty oblivious to the much more
significant economic implications of the tunnels and how they affect
daily life here, which is much more debated here in Gaza. No one in
conversations about the tunnels here ever talks about weapons, which
are an insignificant part of the business. People here talk about
prices, class, and motorcycles, and debate the quality of the
different origins of imports. Syria and Hebron seem to be the highest
quality, with Egypt and Gaza unpredictable, and China affordable but
bad quality.
- How smart people are. Strange kind of poverty where people speak two
or three languages and have travelled and worked internationally, have
various diplomas, yet are unemployed, homeless, and locked in.
- The one foolproof way to get out of eating something is to say
you're on a diet. If you say you have a health problem, someone will
have something to feed you to fix it. If you say you don't like a
certain type of food, people assure you it's because you haven't
tasted their version of it. But if you're on a diet, no questions
asked. People here have a lot of respect for diets.
- I was told by folks in the ex-pat nonprofit worker community that
boycotting Israeli products is possible in the West Bank and in other
countries but not in Gaza, since most of the fruit, meat, and yogurt
is Israeli. The same friend who gave me the class analysis of the
tunnels also said this was incorrect and that she boycotts Israel. She
said you have to know where to go to find the right products, and
sometimes go out of your way to get them, but that it can be done. She
then helped me find yogurt from Hebron, which I had been looking for
since arriving here. Her attitude struck me as similar to people who
commit to buying organic food despite the inconvenience.
- The graceful and practical way people have of dealing with tragedy
that I find harder and harder to say new things about but constantly
find fascinating. People are so graceful about their lives that it's
easy to forget the horrors, which then strike you at the most random
moments. This morning I had one of those moments. I woke up in my
friend Sally's bedroom and opened my eyes to see a couple holes in the
wall stuffed with pieces of blanket and clothes. She's seventeen and
her bedroom is smattered with bullet holes because the family lives on
the border with Egypt and has nowhere else to go. The holes I was
looking at were on the outer wall and were patched in that way to keep
out the cold.
- Similarly, I was walking with my friend Nahed to Sally's house and
we passed a couple of houses with particularly striking Swiss cheese
walls and clothes hanging out to dry. I asked her, a little horrified,
if people actually live there, and she said in a very matter-of-fact
way that they did. She told me not to be upset; it wasn't like their
house was particularly dangerous; all those bullet holes had been made
in the Al-Aqsa Intifada years ago, and the only reason they were still
there is that building supplies are nearly impossible to get ahold of
or afford because of the siege. Two small children then walked outside
and stood picturesquely at the door and I took a picture.
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