18 June 2024
The tent
Testimony from a lady from Gaza
Tell the world about the heat in the tent.
That heat which melts everything: the colour of our skin, our feelings, the colour of our clothes, the deodorant, the lipstick and face powder that I have kept for 9 months without using. I kept it only to keep reminding myself that I am a woman, a female. We turn back and forth, we move in the tent from one corner to another as if we were pieces of snacks in hot oil, the sweat covering our faces, arms, neck, all our bodies, destroying the strands of our hair that we previously kept accustomed to oil baths and health routines, destroying the pores of our skin, that were accustomed to nothing but care and pampering.
In the tent everything is very hot, the mattress, the cups, the plates, the handkerchief, the only chair in the tent, the water that is supposed to relieve the severity of the heat, so hot that one can see it evaporating from the sole iron cup we have.
In the heat of the tent, your body turns into an attraction for ants, mosquitos, flies and other things.
In the heat of the tent, you are surrounded by lizards, mice, scorpions, and insects of all kinds that you have never seen or known about before.
In the heat of the tent, no one can maintain his natural personality; the calm person is no longer calm, nor the dreamer a dreamer, nor the obedient person obedient, and it is rare to find a person who maintains the level of his understanding of others as it was before.
In the heat of the tent, you will suffer from headaches, low or high blood pressure, all kinds of pimples, kidney problems, bone pain, body wilting, general laziness that you can’t overcome, and helpless crying whenever you feel suffocated in your torrent of sweat.
Dear reader, when you read what we write about life in the tent, you should sit comfortably, look deeply at our words, and open your mind, so you might be able to imagine what we go through… although you won’t be able to.