It's Ruba from Gaza

Today is the 30th of January and one month of this year has already passed. One out of twelve. Sometimes I wonder if we are going to spend additional years counting down the days of this war. It’s not easy for me to tell the stories in this blog for two reasons: firstly reliving them is double the heartbreak, and secondly I recently made a decision to try and make the most of every moment and to try and be positive whatever the situation is. I did this for a couple of days but then the reality hit me, as if it was giving me a message that I shouldn’t go too far away from it.  I had been praying that it wouldn't rain this winter, because of all the displaced people living in tents. But when I heard that it was going to rain, I decided that I was going to try and enjoy it, and so I went for a walk that morning - something that I had been doing for a long time before the war and I miss it. After a very nice walk in which I finally felt the cold breeze on a rainy day on my face, I deci...

We have been having rough days, but before I talk about them I just want to address a comment I received about my blog. Someone in Gaza told me that it’s not a real reflection of how life is here and I want to make sure that I’m fully understood. The experiences I describe here are my own and I’m trying to find ways to preserve these memories for all the reasons I mentioned earlier. In case we have to flee, in case we get accused of abandoning our land and our country, just like what happened with our grandparents. I mean we have lived through this situation that has made me realize how hard it was for them - when they left they actually did something natural. We can’t even say that they ‘fled’ because they thought they were leaving for a couple of days and coming back, just like we thought too.  The diary entries here describe my life nowadays, and it’s changed dramatically since this war started. I am living with a host family and we supposedly have the ‘best’ situation amongst t...

Last night was difficult but it was a little better than the two nights before because I actually got some decent sleep. I woke up feeling better and more positive. Maybe I managed to be positive because I don’t get to hear the news in detail. People who have televisions know a lot more than I do. I am not seeing the terrible pictures and videos that are coming out of this war.  Today I was just desperate to have a good normal day and so that’s what I tried to do. It’s funny - the room I’m staying in was the host family’s daughters’ room when they were younger. There are all these posters up of singers and actors from the 1990s. It’s kind of surreal to be surrounded by all these singers and actors when bombs are falling. There’s a picture up of Abdul Halim Hafez who has been my favourite singer since I was four but he passed away in the early 70s. There’s also picture of Leonardo diCaprio from the movie, ‘The Titanic’. I can't help but start thinking about the similarities between ...