12.august 2020- Somaya El Sousi
Hvordan er det å være på flukt eller i eksil når verden rammes av en pandemi? 11 forfulgte forfattere rapporterer fra sin hverdag i en digital dagbok. Bidrag nummer atten kommer fra Soamaya El Sousi fra Gaza.
It is the end of the world
A text by Somaya El Sousi
Spring begins to appear. The garden is greener, and the sun is shining for a longer time. It’s warmer, as if nature is celebrating the disappearance of humans.
On the other side of the world, my city is mired in its isolation. The people there, they don’t care about anything, they go on with their daily life without complaining. They mock the world that just realised what they have been living for years. Quarantine, house arrest, or isolation, being completely cut off from others. Now, for the first time, this isolation was in their favour, no one can enter or leave Gaza. The disease will never come to us -they say - and if it does, we will defeat it.
With this simplicity they walk down the streets, not caring about anything, there is nothing to fear. Because of the many losses, they learned not to think about it anymore. For so long they have lived distant from the world, they have their own rules of survival, which can change easily and with flexibility. So that they can move on. Getting used to death, for it is a normal daily activity - as it is hideous, gives them the ability to communicate under any circumstances.
Here lays fear and anxiety, I saw it in the eyes of many. How is it possible to live inside the houses without appointments and daily schedules, nightlife, and celebrations? Suddenly, their schedules were emptied of their duties, and they stood in front of themselves, lost in a long, unplanned, compulsory vacation. Confused by this strange vacuum, what will they do all this time?
Is the world going to end?
I go out in the morning to my little garden watching the plants celebrating the sun and getting bigger, read a little and walk a lot at the seaside and in the mountain in this beautiful, empty city. I prepare a lot of food that I love, and I add a lot of flavours and spices to make it taste as good as it used to. I miss the bus ride and following its schedule.
There are so many white spaces in my notebooks, I try to fill them with the letters of my new language, but I hate studying remotely because it is dry without details.
At the beginning of the pandemic, my mother used to send me new advice every day about how to avoid illness: prophetic sayings and Quranic verses, natural recipes and a lot of things that have nothing to do with what is happening. She just wants to make sure I'm okay and this is her only way to do so. It is only a damn flu and I do not get sick easily. This is what I always say to myself. I survived war, injustice, fear, and isolation so nothing will happen to me. I laugh and go on walking my way, tomorrow is a beautiful different day waiting for me.
Translated by Kenan Khadaj
