Gaza
"I’ve closed my social media. From Gaza it’s all bad news: someone’s dying, someone’s been bombed, someone’s been displaced from their home. Then everywhere else in the world, you see things working so smoothly. Everyone is living their lives. Literally the smallest thing that they do: it makes me jealous. The smallest thing, like eating ice cream. This is my favorite food. And I’ve gone two years without any ice cream. I don’t want to feel envious of anyone, so I’m trying not to see it. I’m still trying to treat myself in whatever small ways I can: like doing my hair, or maybe having henna dye on my hands. After work I will try to sit with my sisters, so we can connect, and say about our dreams. One of my dreams is for us all to live on an empty farm, a quiet place outside all the world. Two of our cousins have already passed away in a bombing. Four of my nieces and nephews were injured. I can’t lose anyone else. I can’t, I won’t be able to take it. My family is everything to me. Right now our home is partially destroyed, but we are still living in it. Because we don’t have anywhere else to go. Every day when I come home from work, my two-year old niece is waiting for me at the front door. Her name is Hanan; it means kindness. And when she hugs me it’s like a battery has charged in my heart. Literally all of her life has been in this war. Whenever she hears the sound of a plane, she covers her ears and says: ‘Boom! Boom! Boom!’ She never goes anywhere. She never meets new people. We are her entire world. We do everything we can to protect her, to give her a childhood. Her birthday was two weeks ago. We had dancing all night. There was bombing all around us, but we just turned up the volume and tried to disconnect from all the noise. Sugar is impossible to get in Gaza now; but we gathered all the sugar we could. Everyone contributed. And with this sugar we made a cake, and cinnamon rolls, and sweet tea with mint. Hanan eats nothing but canned food; no snacks, no treats. So when she saw that cake, she started to scream. All the children started to scream; you can’t imagine their joy. It was maybe my best moment ever, in all of the war."
"My name is Weam. It’s a beautiful name for me, because my mother gave it to me. She died of cancer when I was eight years old-- so I love my name, because my mom loved it. It’s also perfect for me because it means ‘peace, love, and harmony.’ And everyone who meets me says that I’m positive energy shining everywhere. I’m a team leader for twenty-three pharmacists. ‘The pharma army,’ we call it. Ask anyone: we are the happiest team in the hospital. After we start our morning meeting, I’ll put on a bit of music for everyone. If they want to dance, they can dance. If they want to sing, they can sing. We are working 24 hours, seven days a week without stopping. They are under so much stress, all the time. There are always mass casualty incidents. And everyone in Gaza is living their own nightmare: with the bombings, the displacements, the hunger. So I’m just trying to make it easier for them. When I help others, it feels like I’m doing something right, that I’m still useful in this life. In Islam, if you speak a good word to someone else, it is also a good thing for you. So if someone smiles, and says: ‘Good job, you did it, you survived another day.’ This is a big deal for us. So I try to keep a smile from ear to ear. But on the inside, no. I am not happy at all. I haven’t slept for more than three hours since the war began. We are all screwed up in this world. Even if you are still alive in this moment, maybe in five minutes you will die. The smallest spark of light can be destroyed in the blink of an eye. How can anyone be happy when they are surrounded by so much death? But there is something that my mother said to me, right before she died. It’s the only memory that I have of her. She told me: ‘Weam, please keep that smile on your face. Because everyone loves your smile.’ So that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying. You will find that even when I’m crying, I am smiling."
Weam Atallah currently holds three different positions at Doctors Without Borders: pharmaceutical supervisor, ray of sunshine, and angel on earth.
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