Hope Spring Eternal

Humanitarian Aid Starting to Get Through

Such a great surprise to get the news that humanitarian aid is getting through - the price of flour alone is way down. Mahmoud told me he was in the process of finding plywood and setting up a small grocery store. This requires inventory of course, and though he didn't ask, I sent him enough to start him off. This is what I've been hoping for for months and we would have done in March if goddamn Netanyahu hadn't cut off aid. Mahmoud very much wants to be self-sufficient and of course I also need him to be, somewhat urgently-- I can only expect so much, for so long, from my dear friends and also from myself. I am way overextended. (Contributions in the next week or so will go straight to my credit card to pay back the cash advance I just sent him.)

I am hoping/praying that somehow this will be the beginning of a real reprieve, psychologically and financially. At least until one of the two most likely scenarios -- expulsion to the Sinai, then on to Egypt or Jordan, or, well, I don't really want to give voice to B possibility, but it is quite real. In Gaza, hell rained down from the skies is an ever-present threat at every moment.

Helping out this family has been a lesson in living in the present, and creating hope only in 12-hour increments really.

But chocolate, nuts! Such bounty! And a 25 kilogram bag of flour at $250 is already a reality at the market. He will resell most of that at a tidy profit. (I remember a month and a half ago when we spent $400 for a 5 kilogram bag, because it was that or the family having nothing at all to eat.)

I love that he was already building a market stall -- that he had faith that me or my friends would help fill it with goods to sell. He wants nothing more than to never need a penny again, and that would delight me, of course, but I''d settle just for a month or two, before another disaster of displacement strikes, which is almost certain to.

[And I pray, pray, pray, some of the food makes it to the hostages. Fuckin' H*m*s. What hell did they bring onto the people of Gaza.]

MCO 2025