What HAVE been...

Fajer in Stockholm
My livingroom
My husband with Maryam and Amal
Maryam
Me in a shoppingcentra
Amal on her 4th birthday
Inside the (islamic) kindergarten in which I sometimes work extra
"Darling, where did you say you parked the car?"
Swedish coffea and cookies (and some authentic swedish people)
Visiting relatives

Dear readers,

I'm overwhelmed. By all sorts of things. I'm feeling the need to make a list here, people, but I think you're all lucky if I don't (didn't see anyone take home the Pulitzer-price from making lists). I'll try to hide some "first there's that..." and "then there's that..." in a text. Here we go. Let me know if you catch on.

Anyone who followed my blogging can sense I'm having some troubles right now. I guess I just don't know where to start. Or where to stop for that matter. Yes, I am OVERWHELMED. Questions. Critic. Emails. Conversations. Some with others, some with myself. Comments. Insights (they don't necessarily come in that order though). Learning. Seeing. Thinking. Wondering.

One part of it is that we (meaning my family) are all re-grouping after our stay in Gaza. As you might remember we were hoping to stay much longer than we actually did. A good old "It didn't turn out as we had hoped" suits fine here.

I guess anyone who goes out of her ordinary life and does something completely different, and then returns to her "old" life will of course bring new knowledge and wisdom back with her. That's where I'm at right now. Trying do deal with and incorporate that knowledge (and hopefully some wisdom as well) into our life. And it is a new life in many ways. In many ways we are starting all over. And in some ways it's still same old, same old.

Then I'm of course overwhelmed by being a mother of three small ones. All these thoughts that are running through my head has in reality no space. They are overpowered by doing the laundry and cooking the food. There's only so much a mother can do. For her children, herself or even Palestine for that matter. A lot of my thoughts goes to HOW to live this life, now that we are here. How to raise the children.

There are so many things I want to do! But as for now I have to have patience. And it's sometimes driving me crazy. 'Cause I'm running out of it.

I'm trying to get over what have been and focus on the future.

While I wrote this I ate one chocolate cake, went outside to tell off one kid who tried to take the fotball from my son, went outside again to lend a trolley to my friend who was one her way to a bengali weddingparty and her husband said she (my friend, who was wearing an arabic emerati- dress I gave her) looked so beautiful he might just marry her again, prayed Asr, and for those of you who didn't have a good laugh today can imagine me lifting up and actually SHAKING my screen upside down four times because it keeps having "black-outs". Dear God.

While I am preparing (already) for my next post I thought it be great if ya'll could practice on the pronunciation of "Gilla läget!". Here you go: [jilla] [le:gett]. That's the closest I can get without real phonetic letters. What?! Yeah, yeah, you'll understand soon enough.

Oh, and admit you've all missed my photos! Finally a real dose of what is going in my life photo-wise.

Until next time, go blog yourself!

What could have been

As Gaza is really living up to its description of being battered these days needless to say that my thoughts are with everyone who is suffering - and I am in many ways happy to say - over there.

Being married from a Gazan and me myself having lived there not long ago, Gaza is of course really not that far away. It's actually right here in my living room, in the news or on the internet, but mostly in my mind.

I cannot help but wonder, when I read this...

"Along with the mass kidnappings, an armed force of terrorists attacked the school.We had word early on Tuesday (March 14th) that there might be a problem due to the Israeli capture of the six Palestinian militants from the jail in Jericho, so it was decided that school would be turned out early. We had the kids out for the buses, but two of the buses were late so about half of the kids were still sitting on the edge of the soccer field waiting. I heard shots being fired just as one of the Israeli drones went overhead, so I thought that someone was just shooting at the drone, but then I saw the security at the top of the hill running toward the shots. Then the shots started going overhead and we started to herd the children back to the building. As I ran to the building, I saw someone with his arm around one of the teachers; I mistook him for one of the security forces people until I was about 15 yards from him. He was holding the teacher hostage while the real security was advancing on him. I took the kids that were with me and got behind something for cover.About that time, one of the other teachers started yelling for the kids and I to pull back behind the generator shed about 60 yards or so behind us, so with gunfire still going off, another teacher and I pulled the kids back behind the building. Almost immediately, one of the security guys and one of the Palestinian teachers ran out to us screaming for us (the two western teachers) to come with them to safety. I told them to take Stephen since I would not be automatically picked out as westerner and I was the only one left with the kids. But they came right back after they got him in the building and were ordering me to come with them. When I refused, the older high school boys started yelling at me to get to safety and that they would take care of the younger children. So the security guys and I made the sprint for the building through middle of the fight. Unknown to us, about 10 of the militants had gotten into the building, so we spent the first few minutes hiding in the building, a few teachers with students in rooms spread all over the school, waiting for the security forces to retake the building.When the militants started to leave, they grabbed two of the other teachers (two Australians that they thought were Americans). When two of the Palestinian staff tried to prevent them from leaving with the teachers, the militants shot them. It took about 20 minutes for the security forces to retake the building. During that time, the American Consulate in Jerusalem was on the phone to me every few minutes getting updates. They immediately liaised with the Palestinian Authority to get the four Americans out as soon as possible, but by the time they were ready to go, ALL of the western teachers were ready to be taken out (with all of the foreign embassies getting their people out).We were taken out the back way to avoid the militants who were trying to cut off the route to the Erez Crossing. Even when we got there, things did not calm down. The UN contingent was just behind us and were stopped before they got to the crossing and had to be freed by the security forces. We crossed over to wait on the release of the two kidnapped teachers. As soon as they were through the crossing, the Israelis immediately started to pound the hell out of Gaza."

and this...

"Its 1am. Gaza city is under heavy aerial and sea bombardment, unlike anything the city has seen in recent years. As I write this, F-16 warplanes-not Apaches or tanks-are bombarding Gaza City, where I live, just a few roads away from my house. The entire house is shaking and the windows have cracked. The explosions are so powerful my ears are ringing...they are like sonic booms, but they are real, and they are terrorizing and causing panic. There are several casualities reported by local radio, but other than that we know little else....I'm going to take cover now."

... what could have been? Had I stayed, where would I have been in all of this? You might think that it was an easy choice for me to leave Gaza. Is anything ever easy? In some ways, yes, it was an easy choice. Let's see, safe and clean Stockholm vs bombarded and battered Gaza...

However, leaving Gaza had a price. Breaking my husband's dream of 20 years. Returning to the Ard-ur-Ribat, his precious homeland, his birthplace. It's just like that, what you can't have you want more. Now, the battle for Gaza continues here, in our livingroom. With all the forces FOR living in Gaza (from my husband and his family) I might just very well have stayed. And the thing that is scary with living in a conflict like the one in Gaza is not the fear of dying, it's the fear of what the conflict is gonna do to you while alive.

I only tasted six months. It's almost ridiculous comparing with the people who are born and raised in this conflict. Still these six months has made such an impact on my life that I am not yet able to grasp it completely. I have not yet been able to come to terms with it. I am afraid I'm bothering my poor friends with completly uninteresting details of what happened that time when a took a taxi to Al Jundi or that time when I met that person or that time when... and so on. Or when I found myself sitting 40 minutes in the school-nurse's office, who was supposed to check Ibrahim's vision, speaking about the shellings and my bus-ride through Rafah a hot June day and my encounter with gunmen and the teacher who hit my son... Well, I had to stop myself. Dear God.

As I've stated in earlier posts many palestinians (including my very own) outside Palestine want nothing more than to return, and I respect that. Your country is your country for better or worse. However I belive you make some choices in life that comes with consequenses. For example marrying a stubborn swedish woman.

Our focus right now is living here, in Stockholm, but my husband's dream of Gaza is still PINK, as I like to call it. He see all the bad things happening, yet in the same time he don't. And how can I compete with that?