Subscribe Feed (RSS)We met our new Palestinian family who will be hosting us in Gaza. Ahmed and Amjad, two brothers in their early twenties, along with their friend Muhamed, came to pick us up at the hotel in Gaza City. We drove about 10 km to the Maghazi refugee camp where they live. Maghazi is one of the smallest camps in Gaza, with 24,000 registered refugees. We met the rest of the family, including their parents, an aunt, two more brothers together with their wives and children. It seemed to us quite a large adoptive family, but not so much by Palestinian standards!
The entire family took excellent care of us, though we spent most time with Ahmed and Amjad, as well as many of their friends. They made sure we arrived on time each day for our visits with the rest of the delegation, and also came along with us on several occasions, seeing their own area in a very different way. In fact, for Muhamed it had been the first time for him to see the destruction in the north due to the Israeli attack and to get to know some of the centers doing amazing work in Gaza.
We also ate very well! One night we had a dinner, illuminated during one of the regular blackouts thanks to the generator, with 15 of their friends. They were all young men in their twenties who had studied English at the university and did volunteer work with cultural centers. They had organized English language workshops as well as produced an 8-minute video in English on the Israeli attack. Of course, the food had been prepared by one of their mother’s, whom we only met once the other young men had gone.
When walking home that night, still under darkness due to the power outage, we learned that for almost all of our 15 “bodyguards” this was their very first contact with foreigners. This astounding fact drove home how very isolated the people of Gaza are.
Another evening, Muhamed arranged for a dinner in his brother-in-law’s olive grove. We ate and drank tea among the trees and under the moon. And before we left, he gave each of us a bottle of olive oil from those very trees. We stayed home one evening to eat with the entire family, which gave us an opportunity to speak more with the female relations, Ahmed and Amjad’s mother and two sisters-in-law.
During our stay, our host family and their friends all went out of their way to provide us with a special experience we will never forget. We had often heard about the incredible hospitality of the Palestinian people, despite the unbearable conditions in which they live. And though this may have been dismissed as something you can say about many peoples, we, as well as many others of the delegation, experienced it firsthand.
Category: in gaza
