The Electronic Intifada 5 January 2024
A baker prepares bread for a line of customers outside in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, 16 October 2023.
APA imagesThe city where I live is not fighting a war. It is being subjected to massacres and atrocities.
These massacres have become a part of our daily lives.
Today, I am writing about just one day, though it feels like a year, so great is the pain.
My day starts at seven in the morning. It is a struggle from the moment I wake up.
We must search for water, to drink and to clean ourselves. It is a search that has become more exhausting with each day.
No matter what words I use to describe the fatigue that comes with the search for water, they are not enough.
We fill buckets, we fill bottles, we carry them home. We repeat this every day.
Our second task is to bake bread. We divide the work among ourselves.
One of us prepares the dough, the next cuts it into loaves. We prepare the bread to be put over the fire.
We have no fuel, so we must cook outdoors over the fire. The smoke burns our skin and lungs, it makes our eyes water and our throats sore.
This would be challenging enough, but we must also bake under Israeli shelling. It seems like the sound of Israeli bombs never stops.
Fear is a constant companion. We work with our heads down, hoping to avoid being struck by shrapnel.
The sounds of shelling come from all directions, and we never know where the next bomb will drop.
We work feverishly to finish our task as quickly as possible so we can return home and feed the children. The children are hungry and are waiting for whatever food we can find.
We often rely on canned food to get full, because it is all we have.
Donuts
On that day, after we ate our bread, my 5-year-old sister turned to my mother and said, “I want to eat a donut. Please make me one, even just one.”
My mother looked at us in silence. A donut seemed impossible due to the food scarcity.
After a few seconds, she said, “We’ll make some donuts for the children.”
We all felt joy upon hearing this. We hadn’t had any sweets, cookies or chocolate in a month and a half.
We were in high spirits as we gathered the supplies and started baking. It felt like we were anticipating our wish being granted by a genie.
The baking labor felt lighter, and we moved quickly.
The air was filled with the smell of fresh dough and sugar.
We were almost finished baking the donuts when an Israeli shelling shook the house on its foundations.
Dust filled the air and the children screamed. We all gathered together.
Then, the fear really sank in once we realized that the men were out of the house on a grocery run.
We put on our clothes to go and look for them. We were in a panic, fear frozen on our faces.
We roamed the streets looking for them.
When we found them, we all felt relieved. We returned home, trying to compose ourselves.
The children still wanted donuts. We tried to bury our fears and sadness to bring them joy.
We finished the donuts, and their happiness nourished our souls.
This is how life is in Gaza now. The smallest things, the basic necessities of life, now seem like insurmountable wishes.
This is just a glimpse at the amount of pain in Gaza today, the suffering that people are enduring every day.
Wejdan Wajdy Abu Shammala lives in Gaza.
