Gaza, November 26, 2009, (Pal Telegraph) - Home is where we live, laugh, and enjoy every single moment of our lives - this is how anybody can describe it. But others might not be able to, because they don't even have a home - they live in a cemetery, where others die!
In one building in Gaza, 21 human beings live in something which is similar to a home: it consists of 3 rooms built from tin tablets - a room for Ali with his family (a wife and 4 children); another for Hesham, his wife and his 8 children; and the last belongs to the rest of the family - the mother, the mentally deranged father, Mohammed, Alia and Huda.
Ali, the only provider for the family, which has lived in al-Ma'mdani Cemetery for 25 years, says in a sad voice, "I was born here, I grew up between dead people, I attended their funerals, they never get out of my head, and now my kids are living the same scenes. Sometimes they even find some bones and martyr's carnage while they're playing!"
He added,"We were 4 boys and 4 girls, my father is unsound, and he is being treated in the psychological medicine hospital in Gaza. My mother raised us. She was going to the mosques begging others to give her some money, but most refused to."
He wonders how they are living here, but at the same time he thinks it is better than the street. Ali used to work in Gaza Municipality, but they fired him and now he has no job. Sometimes he collects junk and sells it, and they receive an amount of money every 6 months, and " life goes on," he says.
Huda, the youngest sister, said, "I didn't want anything, except to finish my education and have an honorable life, but I was hit by a car 8 years ago, which caused disability in my leg, so I couldn't do it."
She added, "destiny refused to give me one of my simplest dreams. We didn't choose to live that way, but destiny did. I didn't choose to sit here disabled, but destiny did. I lost hope; I just lost it!"
Because the home is built from tin tablets, in winter the rain drowns the house, as though there were no covering there at all. There is nothing to protect them from the rain, so the family put every cooker and dish under the punctured tin roof.
The most astonishing thing in this home is its living room: it contains seven graves. Huda says, "we are like its guards: if any piece of the graves is broken, we will be punished. The dead relatives visit it to be sure it's okay. They don't respect our privacy; they enter the place without asking or greeting."
The young girl feels despair; she hates herself because she is still alive in this miserable life, and she is looking for only one thing: her right to a respectable life!
Really, how does it feel to live with the dead? Do those people dream happy dreams, or do they experience a lot of nightmares during their sleep? Sure, the happiest dream is to live outside this cemetery in a real home; and the worst nightmare is their reality.
- Noor El Swairki and Eman Jomaa
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