1945

“My mother milked the sheep and sold the milk in ‘Akka. Just a few days after she had given birth, she started working again.

Our house was always full of people. We had enormous wedding celebrations. The bride wore a white, glittering dress. The bride and groom rode forward on a white horse and we followed them, singing songs. In the song for the groom, we sang that the barber would shave his beard with a golden razor.

My mother fell ill and died. Then my father married my mother’s sister.”

1948

“One day, when my aunt as usual was baking bread and then spreading the finished loaves out in the room, the army attacked our village and some soldiers entered our house.

‘Either you leave here or we will kill you,’ the soldiers said.

We immediately left our house and fled barefoot. The bread was left behind in the house.

Many people were fleeing. My father brought our sheep with him. We passed through Druze villages and asked for food and water. There was no time to stop so that the sheep could graze. Half of the sheep died of hunger along the way.

My father cut up the meat and shared some of it with the other refugees.

We arrived in Srobbine, in southern Lebanon. There my older sister died. The flight had terrified her. She felt pain in her chest and her heart stopped beating. She was 18 years old. We were forced to bury her in a cemetery for non-believers.

In the end we reached the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut.”

Afterthought

“My daughter died less than a year ago. After that I got several infections on my body—on my arm, my hand, and my eye. After several treatments, only this infection on my cheek remains. I have been like this for seven months now; my cheek burns.

Here in the Shatila camp I wake up broken. I get tired even after sleeping. Back in Palestine everything felt holy, even the sand. If you touch the ground you are comforted. The smell of the cucumber in my home village used to break my heart. Palestine is my lover.”