Editor’s note: Below is a text exchange from Dec. 13 between a WANN writer in Gaza and her mentor in Australia. It has been lightly edited for clarity.
Habiba: It’s raining today. We hang up our laundry on the wall to air dry because there’s no other place to put them. Most of our clothes are wet or unclean. We can’t wash properly until the water comes back every four to five days. We also can’t cook today, since the fire would go out because of the rain.
I feel helpless. I keep thinking about what I would be doing now if I was in my home, in my bed.
Jesse: What do you think you would be doing if you were at home, before the war? Imagine a normal day of life if this wasn’t going on.
Habiba: So, it’s Wednesday and it’s a rainy day in my normal life.
I’d be thinking about skipping my 8 a.m. class, and staying in bed instead.
My mum would be making she’reya, which is like sweet noodles. It keeps us warm and it’s sweet. I would be lying in my bed with my cat, Taymoor, next to me.
I don’t know what happened to him. We left him in Jabaliya. My fiancé went to our home looking for him, but he couldn’t find Taymoor. I don’t know if he is dead or alive, if he’s eating or if he’s hungry. But you can’t feel sad about a cat, can you, when so many humans are being killed?
I would be in my bed with Taymoor, thinking about my future with my fiancé Shadi.
It’s funny, because before the war, I was always longing for something else. Now, we are at war and I crave a normal day. If I was in my bed, and it was a normal day, I’d be thinking about the future with my husband.
My last argument with my fiancé was about our future kitchen, whether it should be white with gold or white with silver. We couldn’t agree, so we thought that we’d make it only white, and this was a huge problem between me and him and his mum and my mum. It was funny. But now he is in the north, and I am in the south, and I can’t call him every minute to check on him. I can only call him in the morning or late at night because the connection is strong then, because everyone else is asleep.
Now, we won’t have to choose the rest of the colors and our furniture. We won’t ever choose if the kitchen should be white with gold or white with silver. I don’t have any idea about my future, period. I don’t know if I will continue college. I’m in the fifth year now, and I still have three years to finish medical school. And now the whole university is bombed out. Most of the people here are displaced, the homes are destroyed, the hospitals are bombed, and the doctors are killed so… We don’t know what will happen after the war. It’s terrifying, not knowing.
Every time I think about the future after the war, it’s either me and my family are dead, or alive but starting a new life from zero. I don’t think Gaza will be livable after the war.
After eating she’reya in my bed, I’d be lazy, and my mum would scream at me to wash the dishes and help her tidy up the rest of the house. That’s a morning in my normal life in Gaza.
Oh, and I would call my fiancé Shadi and we’d meet up.
We loved to eat together. We ate at all the restaurants in Gaza, and now they are bombed out. It’s funny because when we think about after the war, I ask him, “What will we eat?” “What will we do?” We used to go on car rides and watch the sunset at the beach. Now we don’t have anything but the sunset and the beach left.
Shadi keeps telling me that his mother is a great chef, and she can cook whatever we want, and that keeps me going. I want to eat delicious food after the war. I want to laugh, and I want to have the great party I was planning for our engagement.
You know what’s funny? The place where we planned to have the engagement party is gone. The salon where I was going to do my hair and make-up is bombed. Even my engagement ring is gone; I left it at home, and when Shadi went back to look for it, he couldn’t find it. I think it was probably stolen.
So, there is nothing that we look forward to after the war. We just want to live. We don’t know how to live after the war.