Mother Courage (not Bertolt Brecht)
By the wall of the school, the shelter, many sellers lay out their small amount of merchandise on a small, old, wooden table, or a cardboard box, or even on a plastic sheet on the ground. Small quantities of cans of meat, cans of tuna, cans of beans, cigarettes, sugar, rice. Some have quantities worth $200 and others, all their merchandise is worth no more than $30. Trying to make enough profit to feed themselves for a day or two.
Among them a lady, a middle-aged woman with a veil completely covering most of her hair, is busy cooking bread in an oven made of mud. A line of people standing to buy a piece of bread or two or whatever. Calling to her 7 or 8 year old son from time to time to feed the fire under the oven with some bits of wood – a normal scene in Gaza, mainly around the shelter-schools.
I took my place in the line to buy some bread, when a journalist approached the lady asking her for an interview. Without looking at him she said, “You can see that I’m busy.” The journalist was patient and polite. He asked if he could film her as a part of the market and life in the shelters. She shrugged with a sense of not caring if he did or he didn’t. The reporter made a gesture to the cameraman to start filming.
The journalist:
Have you been doing this for a long time?
The woman:
Cooking bread? One month.
Journalist:
You built the mud oven?
The woman:
No, I bought it from someone who built it but could not work on it. He was too old for this work.
Journalist:
Are you from here? I mean Nuseirat Camp?
The woman:
(whilst working, putting a piece of dough in the oven, turning it over from time to time using a wooden stick):
No. Not from here.
(talking to a customer)
I haven’t change for a hundred shekels. Find some change and come back.
Jounalist:
Where did you come from?
The woman:
From many places since the 12th of October.
Journalist:
Like where?
The woman:
From Beit Hanoun. When they started bombing, my eldest son and father-in-law were killed. The bombing was targeting a neighbours’s home. They were all killed.
She stopped talking and continued her work. The journalist did not rush her. She raised her head again, looked at the journalist for a second, then turned back to the oven and continued talking.
The woman:
We moved to my family home in Shati Camp, ‘Beach Camp’, I was at the market with this little son, when we heard a huge explosion from an air strike. I went home with some vegetables. They bombed a nearby home and my parents and my husband were killed. They were all under the rubble. I recognised my husband from his feet that appeared out of the rubble. He was missing a toe, he lost it in a work accident in Israel two years ago. He used to work in construction. When the accident happened his boss did not do anything for him, he sent him home and never allowed him to work again. Of course, no compensation. In Israel they don’t register Palestinian workers as a legal workforce, so no one can claim any compensation. They just use us as cheap labour, that’s all. My poor husband did not rest until he died.
(to her little son):
Enough wood, we’re almost finished.
(to a customer):
This will cost you 4 Shekels.
She looked at the journalist. He was still there holding the mic towards her, the cameraman was focused on her.
The woman:
So, we moved to Zahra City, to my sister who is married and lives there. They followed us with the bombing. My daughter and my mother in-law were killed. We came here; myself and this little boy, my sister’s son and my injured sister. We are at this school. (She pointed at the school behind her).
Journalist:
How do you manage? Does UNRWA distribute food at the school?
The woman:
Yes. They come every few days, give each family some cans of food, some biscuits, some soap, food barely enough for one day. Anyway we are still alive,
Journalist:
What about water? Hygiene? Toilet?
The woman:
This is another story. I wake up at 4 in the morning to join the queue for the toilet. At this time there will be a line of 7-15 people. If I’m late, I’ll find a line of 50 or 60. I take my injured sister, her daughter, and my little son. We do our business there and go back to sleep again. They distribute mineral water bottles. I don’t use them. I sell them to get some money. Here we are surviving.
Journalist:
What do other women do?
The woman:
Other women? Yes, there was a pregnant woman, we helped her to give birth inside the classroom. She was lucky, her delivery went smoothly, she did not need a hospital. We care for each other in our classroom. Not like in other classes, all day you hear screaming, shouting, cursing, disputes. We are lucky. They look after my sister and her 2 year old daughter when I’m out.
Journalist:
How do you get the wood for your oven?
The woman:
It was easy in the beginning, I collected bits of wood from the streets, from the nearby olive orchards. Then I started to buy it from wood sellers. It was 1.2 shekels/kilo to begin with and then the price rose, like all prices, now it is 3 shekels/kilo. Everyone is using fire now as there is no cooking gas or fuel. Scarcity in everything.
The woman started to clear up, put out the fire, collect the bits of wood which were not burnt yet, and covered the oven with a piece of material. She carried her son and went towards the school. The camera man followed her with his camera lens until she disappeared inside the school.