ZIAD IN GAZA

In my culture we have a superstition that says if you get an itch on the bottom of your feet then you will travel soon; an itch on your right hand and you will shake hands with someone important; left hand, you will get money; your nose, you will hear bad news.

After another sleepless night, I look at my sister, who was telling me minutes ago how much she misses a good night’s sleep, and I tell her: “I have an itch on the bottom of my feet and on my left hand, do you think I will travel soon and get money?”

She says: “I think your body is telling you that you need to take a shower.”

We laugh. Hygiene remains a big challenge, especially bathing. Having a bath has become, in the last three months, a luxury few people have. Most of the time we depend on medical alcohol and wet wipes to clean our bodies. Both are very difficult to find and, when you do, they are expensive.

A couple of days ago, my sister’s friend invited her to take a bath at her house. They heated some water for her and put it in a bucket – something we never thought any of us would do in our lives. My sister came back happy. But she told me: “I forgot how to take a shower. Has it been this long?”

Speaking of hygiene, the list of challenges goes on and on. Laundry, for example. We have been manually cleaning clothes when there is available water. Due to the number of people in the place we are in, there is laundry everywhere: in the normal places like balconies, and in abnormal ones like chairs in the middle of the hallway, or on laundry threads (threads that are hung from one side to the other one) in the bedrooms.

I wonder when it will be the turn of our hearts to be cleaned