UPDATE:
After calling incessantly and getting busy signals or “try your call later” messages, FINALLY Asmaa picks up the phone! If my heart could only speak, it would tell you that I nearly killed it until I heard her VOICE.
Alhamdillah, I’m so relieved to hear YOUR voice, I almost shout into the phone.
“ME too,” she replies. I imagine her smile, I hope she is smiling I think to myself. “I missed you and I wait for you to call,” I can almost hear a smile, if that is possible.
I called at least thirty times, I tell her. I was worried sick. Did you get electricity, how’s the phone’s battery? I want to ask so many questions but first I have to make sure the battery is good.
“Yes, the electricity came after a long period of time without it and I immediately plugged the phone in,” her tone is strong. I think about all our conversations and how on other days it is not so good. Today is a good day, for her at least, I think to myself.
“You probably couldn’t get through because the bombing was heavy tonight, no calls were getting through, nothing could get through all the terror of tonight, ” she’s clearly agitated by the night’s assault.
I can hear a drone in the background, sometimes it gets really loud and at times it is further away.
I ask her how she slept and that I know they were hit hard tonight.
“They sent us messages on our phones to leave, THEY said “What is COMING is WORSE than what has come BEFORE.” She confirms the report I saw on AJE. “But we are still here, alhamdillah” she says. She sounds like her mother, for a brief moment.
Was the bombing and shelling bad in your area? What a question, instead of asking how is the weather, I have to ask a child of fourteen if their “rain” was of the killing type. [sigh]
“It was TERRIBLE, I didn’t sleep, the sounds were loud and they lit up the night with those flares. It was difficult for any of us to sleep. The bombing was also closer, everyday it gets closer and closer,” she says. I’m so glad to hear her voice I decide to keep her on the phone as long as I can, I won’t hang up unless we have to.
Talk to me, tell me something, anything, I was almost pleading for her to talk. I want to absorb every sound she makes into my skin, she is more divine than the sun.
“I went to a supermarket with my brother,before they started the heavy bombing. during the day, it is safer than at night. In the night is when they become monstrous,” she is finally talking without my prompting her. ” We went to buy some food. There is a small store that opens once in a while, where we are now,” she is excited to let me know that she left their shelter/home for a moment.
“It is nearby, but everything has gotten so expensive. A bunch of parsley before THIS cost us only 1 shekel NOW it costs THIRTY!” she heightens her voice and stresses the THIRTY.
Wow, I think to myself. Imagine the cost of meat then, or toiletries, or other things? My heart hurts to think of those who cannot afford much, and THESE days parsley is a luxury. What did you buy? I ask.
“Just some foul, and hummus and some mortadella, at least we were able to get out and get a few items. It’s better than being trapped in the house and having things run out,” she says. The food was probably prepared, I think to myself. The one room they sleep in doesn’t have a kitchen, or a stove or a refrigerator to store items.
How long is this murderous massacre going to last and when will they be able to lead semi-normal lives, my mind flinches in anger. And I know that there will be some type of trauma that will affect them in one way or another. [sigh]
“Have you gone to any more protests,” she asks.
Yes, I’ve gone to some and there are MANY more coming. I tell her about my plans to meet in NY with friends who are planning strategies to help Palestinians in Gaza. I also tell her about the protest in the UK which brought out tens of thousands of people.
“Allah i’khallekum ya rab,” she says with a giggle. She asks God to keep them safe. I am pleased SHE is pleased. I want to hug her at that moment, but I can’t. I close my eyes and imagine it.
I’m coming to Gaza, as soon as I can get in, I tell her.
“REALLY?!” she almost yells in the phone. Yes I am, and I have friends who want to come with me.
“WELCOME!” she yells in Arabic, to all of YOU. Her voice is excited and full of happiness and I want to embed it in the part of my brain that will never forget it. “And WELCOME to anyone who comes with you!” I hear her giggling. Gone are the tears from the day of the Eid. She mourned its death and is now dreaming and planning with me.
We go on and on and she continues with stories about the messages the IOF sends and how they kill people and don’t give them enough time to get out. And she brings me up to speed on the children who were killed in the playground, as well as those killed in the hospital. It is painful to have all this death as the core of our conversation, but I let her flow like a swollen river seeking to relieve itself.
“I want to come and visit you in America too,” she giggles. [sigh] Yes, America the beautiful, that funds the destruction of lives all over the world. I keep my thoughts to myself, I don’t want to interrupt her dreams.
Ahla wisahla, I tell her. We dream our little dreams and I tell her I wish I could see her. I say it out loud, I wish I could see YOU.
“When we go back to the Shujaiya, I will look to see if we can find my computer, if it is still in one piece and I will Skype you right away,” she says excitedly.
Then it slips from my mouth and shatters the moment. I am an ass. I shouldn’t have said it. But there is NO electricity there, I say.
“Mmmmm, you are right, there is NOTHING there,” her voice drops, but just a little. I ask her if she spoke to her older sister who is now in Jordan, doing fieldwork for her MA she is completing in the U.S.
“Yes, we spoke to her,” she says. “She wants to come visit us, if the borders EVER open again, tell her NOT to, tell her there is NOTHING left in Gaza.” Her voice has shifted and it’s all my fault, I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth about the electricity.
I want to hear more of her thoughts or just sit silently on the phone and listen to her breathing, or the bustling of the younger ones in the background but I know she is tired and will sleep this morning because the night brings terror. It reminds me of the various torture methods I read about. Sleep deprivation, by keeping BRIGHT lights on, only Israel has mastered terrorizing and torture en masse.
I get angry again, but happy that Asmaa is on the line with me and I don’t want to hang up, but I should hang up soon. We don’t know when the electricity will come back, nor do we know what the day or next night holds. What I do know, is that they made it through yet another vicious attack and 21 days of horror. I also can’t let go of the reality that many weren’t so lucky. Their faces haunt me.
Go habibti, I tell her, go sleep for a bit. I ask her if her mother is near by.
“She is sleeping,” she says. I tell her to try to get some rest and I will talk to her later.
“Tayib,” she says. I love you I say to her. She replies in ENGLISH, “I LOVE YOU TOO,” topping her sweet words with a giggle. I love her laugh. I love her. And I realize that I am very lucky to hear her voice and that others aren’t so lucky. I feel pain and I am a mixed bag of emotions.
I don’t want to, but I say, yallah bye habibti. She says bye and I wait for her to hang up as I always do and this time she takes her time, because the phone is FULLY charged for NOW.
Gaza: Phone Diaries 