From The Guardian
by Seham Tantest in Gaza and Tess McClure. Sept. 23
As the war in Gaza approaches its fourth year, this week, the Guardian follows five ordinary Palestinians as they go about their lives. Each will tell the story of their day, revealing the terrible toll of the ongoing conflict.
The flat-bed truck is open to the hot summer air, its metal frame covered on two sides by draped tarpaulins, the rear by a pegged-up bedsheet. On the tin floor lies a squab mattress and pillow with a yellow frilled cover.
Mansoura Ibrahim Mohammed Abdel Dayem balances a thin cushion at the truck bed’s metal edge to protect her knees as she crawls in and out. She lowers her foot to the plastic chair below, then drops to the ground, staggering slightly as she gets her balance. Mansoura is 76 years old. The truck is her home now. All around her, her family live in tents, the fabric ripped and fraying.
This is a day in the life of a grandmother living in Gaza.
Daybreak
Last night, I stayed awake until 2am. I barely sleep during the night because of the mosquitoes and the heat. I fall asleep for a short while, I wake up early in the morning, pray to God, and wait to hear the call to dawn prayer. When I wake up, I call for my grandson to bring over the white plastic chair that I need to climb in and out of the truck.
This is where I live now: in the back of a pickup truck. This truck, we brought it with us when we were fleeing for our lives from Beit Lahia [a city in northern Gaza]. Its owners had abandoned it, so we took it with us, displaced from place to place – until we ended up here. When we finally arrived, there was no space for me anywhere else – the tents that we have are small, torn and overcrowded, they fall down on the children – so I was forced to live in the truck. I sleep in it to escape the sand, dirt and insects. That is the story of the truck.
After I wake up, I fold up the mattress and prop it with the pillows against the wall, then use a cloth to sweep the dirt and sand from the tarpaulin floor. I sit with my grandson, and we try to make the tiny gas stove work, to boil water for coffee. It’s an old stove – inherited from my own grandfather – and it’s hard to get it to light, as there isn’t enough gas, but eventually we get a flame. I boil water in a small pot and brew coffee for my sons and I – a few spoonfuls for each person. The coffee is filled with the taste of paraffin.