Another day in my life...

My life in Gaza pretty much goes up and down. The good news is that I feel that our efforts during the first months are finally paying off. The other day walking my son back from school I saw some newly planted flowers by one of the apartment buildings. They made me very happy for two reasons. First of all because they ment somebody had taken the time and effort to plant them, and also because I noticed them! They woke me up from my usual depressed, homesick, kicking-around-carbage, mutterung kind of mood.

I cannot really describe in words how much this experience, although it is extremly difficult at times, has improved my life. To see things from a different perspective, to be "forced" to walk in somebody elses shoes is life changing. Clearly I'm at a turning point in my life. I am realizing many things about myself and my life and I feel that I finally see things clearly. A wise TV-personality, ms Oprah, say that you should be best at being you. Those words are deeper than they seem, at least for me. Be best at being you!

That's where I'm at right now. I often compare the life to a puzzle and as years goes by the bits fall into place. Coming to and living in Gaza has contributed with so many bits of my puzzle that it is overwelming. I'm struggling to hold on to each single bit, trying to understand them and apply them.

The bad news is that there are still difficulties at my son's school. I am preparing a separate post on that, God willing. We tackle them as they come along, but it's getting old.

It's also getting cold. You might think that I, coming from the North, would handle cold weather very well. Here however the houses are also cold, so we are freezing 24seven. On that subject a friend of mine in Sweden said to me "The winter might not be that much fun for you" to which I replied that if the summer had not been that much fun, the winter would sure not be that much fun. Misery needs to be laughed at.

Life goes on. But there is not a day that goes by without questioning our existence here. I got many comments on my previous post, all of them worth thinking about. As to what the hell I'm doing here, I would like to quote myslef (from an earlier post);

"Coming to Gaza has turned my life upside down. Some might wonder if I am naive and simply stupid for even thinking of Gaza as The place to raise a family, and until now I'm not sure if I have any satisfying answer to that. Perhaps I was naive and stupid."

It is still an ongoing process for me. Even though I of course see many benefits of our stay here, for me and my children as well, there is also a limit to how much we can take for those benefits. And where to draw the line?

But I would like to turn the attention from my choice of living here to the other mothers with children who are forced to live here under these circumstances. The children who are the same age as my son have never seen anything else than the effects of the occupation. They don't have the possibility to draw the line.