A Gazan Is Like A Cactus

I love this plant beyong description.

I look at Gaza people and get astonished of how they endure what they endure. I watered my cactus more that I should have, and the poor thing died.

By Citizen Correspondent Heba Z , Gaza

Date Posted: 05/02/08

Reader Rating:

I have a thing with cactus. I love this plant beyond description. When I was 20 years old, I wrote this short story in Arabic about a perceptive young girl who goes to a job interview and starts asking the corporate manger questions instead of him asking her. She noticed a small pot of cactus on his desk and told him that it symbolizes for him an unfinished love story. Anyway, this story won a prize in the University of Jordan and was broadcasted on a radio program. So here is what happened seven years later.

I took this job and I entered my new office to find the same imaginary cactus plant on my desk. I thought it was so strange and it did delight me to the fullest. It might have been this nostalgic feeling to old happy days in the university or it might be because we as Palestinians are like cactus in so many ways.

Cactus is hard, can survive without water for long periods of time, and has all these thorns on the outside with a complete mushy juicy nature on the inside. Likewise, Palestinians are survivors who can live long without enough resources. They look so tough while absolutely absurd and tender as all human beings are.

Harder still, they stand out in resilience, totally stranded by a long sorrowful legacy of exile! I look at Gaza people and get astonished of how they endure what they endure. I watered my cactus more that I should have, and the poor thing died. The luxury of an air-conditioned office did not suit so much the accustomed to hardship plant. I miss it.

Yesterday was a hard day. I went to attend one of our psychosocial intervention focus groups and the workshop facilitator was explaining to the women about legal intervention and how they can be supported to file legal suits.