I went to the zoo recently, a zoo unlike any other, and quite possibly one of the loveliest I'd ever seen. At first glance, it appears much as other zoos do, with large, fenced-off areas and the requisite animals, meandering pathways offering shade and a moment to watch animals swim, climb and sleep. While I didn't see any lions and tigers and bears, I did see ostriches, goats, deer, assorted birds, monkeys and a camel named Sha'ul. Some of the more exotic animals, such as elephants and porcupines, were represented in colorful murals that adorned the walls and structures throughout the zoo.
More important than the animal population was the human population and what it represented, who was there and who was not. We strolled into the zoo, and the first thing that was quickly noticeable was the absence of adults and the abundance of children.
I was escorting a foreign radio journalist for whom I was acting as tour guide. Someone suggested we visit the zoo and, thinking that it offered a different angle to her reporting, we agreed. She had her microphone ready to record the sounds that would add color to her documentary, while I played the role of "tourist", snapping pictures right and left.
This was a child's world into which we had accidentally stumbled and the children were everywhere. They were running, talking, sitting, jumping, and simply smiling and being happy on a sunny day. They were completely comfortable and competent with the animals. One boy walked past with a cockatiel on his shoulder, while in pairs of two, other children carried large plastic bins with hay and poured them over the fence for sheep, goats, deer and Sha'ul the camel.
The night before, as on most nights for as long as these young children can likely remember, a mortar shell exploded nearby and gunfire was heard, but there was no tension evident on their faces or in their actions. More than 6,000 mortars and rockets have been shot at their homes in the last five years and yet these children happily focused on the needs of the animals. This amazing zoo is located in N'vei Dekalim, in the Gush Katif section of the Gaza Strip. It is an oasis of sanity in an insane world, a place of light and sunshine and peace.
Just outside N'vei Dekalim, across the road from the zoo, live Palestinians. They dwell in squalor and dirt, a sharp and disturbing contrast to the colors and glory of the zoo and the children who are experiencing an incredibly well-planned educational program teaching them about animals and responsibility. The homes of the Palestinians are not neatly arranged in rows, rubbish is piled all over and drab, colorless clothes swing in the gentle, hot breeze.
Barely a tree is in sight on the Palestinian side, little or no vegetation other than inside rows of greenhouses in the distance. Palestinian children play in the streets, even at a time when they should be in school. And across the street, just a few dozen meters away, Israeli children play inside a security fence hidden behind tall bushes and trees.
To further my task as tour guide, even in a place I had never been, I approached three men standing beside one of the animal cages, the only adults I was to see while in the zoo. Yes, the man in charge was willing to answer questions about his zoo, but preferred to speak in Hebrew. I was given the task of translating. As I was about to return to the journalist and tell her I had secured her next interview, one child fell. Within seconds, the men turned and went quickly to the boy to make sure he was uninjured. As a mother of three active boys, I could tell the "injury" was likely only a scraped palm or knee, requiring nothing more than a hug and a wash. The men spoke gently to the boy, made sure he was fine and returned to complete our discussion.
What is the purpose of the zoo? We asked David Amichai, the zookeeper who agreed to be interviewed. It's an educational experience, he explained. I smiled at the obviousness of his answer, and wondered if it was possible for listeners of a radio broadcast to possibly imagine how educational this was, what a wonderful world David and the children of N'vei Dekalim had created out of what was once empty, useless land that the neighboring Arabs called "cursed".
It was cursed, they explained to the first Jews who arrived in the 1970s, because for centuries they had tried and failed to grow anything on these sand dunes. What greenhouses they have now across the road are largely due to the technology and assistance of the Israeli farmers who came, learned how to grow crops in sand, and conquered the desert. But that is now. Before the Jews came, there was nothing. Since the time of Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish and Muslim world, said the mayor of Khan Younis to the first Jews who arrived, the land would not yield, and so it was considered cursed.
The mayor welcomed the Jews with bread and salt, a traditional Muslim ritual, because he believed that the Jews would make the land grow. I doubt even he could have imagined how prophetic would be his belief. During our brief stay, we visited organic celery and pepper farms and heard about many of the other crops that grow there. Even more, we saw the green gardens around the homes and throughout the zoo.
The second question we asked the zookeeper was trickier: "In light of the scheduled Disengagement, have you made arrangements for the animals?" Every resident had already been asked and answered similar questions about plans for their own future. Each gave the same answer, that the government had not offered them any real alternatives and no one knew where Ariel Sharon's expulsion plans would take their families. One man did not know where his son, a decorated soldier who fell in the Lebanon war, would be reburied. A mother did not know where her young children would go to school. No one had thought of packing up homes built and furnished with years of attention and love. Packing up a zoo with hundreds of animals isn't the same, David explained.
If it comes to it, other zoos in Israel have already made it clear they would welcome the animals from Gush Katif and give them a home, David told us, "if, God forbid, we have to leave." How interesting that the animals of Gush Katif have at least that security, while the residents do not.
"What will you do? How do you feel about leaving the zoo?" he was asked. His answer was heartbreaking. "I built this zoo", he explained. "I have maintained it, and now, maybe I'll have to take it apart."
We thanked him for his time and, as we continued our tour of the zoo in quiet contemplation, I thought over the interviews that I'd heard during our brief visit. The mother, the farmer, the terrorist victim, the war veteran, the new immigrant, the bereaved father, the soldier, the children. From previous discussions, I knew that this journalist had been deeply affected by the poverty she was shown by the Palestinians as she prepared the groundwork for the documentaries she will produce. We spoke often of the squalor in which the Palestinians live, the hopelessness she perceives. Our comparative wealth was an obscenity next to their poverty - that was the underlying message I received.
[Part 1 of 2]
More important than the animal population was the human population and what it represented, who was there and who was not. We strolled into the zoo, and the first thing that was quickly noticeable was the absence of adults and the abundance of children.
I was escorting a foreign radio journalist for whom I was acting as tour guide. Someone suggested we visit the zoo and, thinking that it offered a different angle to her reporting, we agreed. She had her microphone ready to record the sounds that would add color to her documentary, while I played the role of "tourist", snapping pictures right and left.
This was a child's world into which we had accidentally stumbled and the children were everywhere. They were running, talking, sitting, jumping, and simply smiling and being happy on a sunny day. They were completely comfortable and competent with the animals. One boy walked past with a cockatiel on his shoulder, while in pairs of two, other children carried large plastic bins with hay and poured them over the fence for sheep, goats, deer and Sha'ul the camel.
The night before, as on most nights for as long as these young children can likely remember, a mortar shell exploded nearby and gunfire was heard, but there was no tension evident on their faces or in their actions. More than 6,000 mortars and rockets have been shot at their homes in the last five years and yet these children happily focused on the needs of the animals. This amazing zoo is located in N'vei Dekalim, in the Gush Katif section of the Gaza Strip. It is an oasis of sanity in an insane world, a place of light and sunshine and peace.
Just outside N'vei Dekalim, across the road from the zoo, live Palestinians. They dwell in squalor and dirt, a sharp and disturbing contrast to the colors and glory of the zoo and the children who are experiencing an incredibly well-planned educational program teaching them about animals and responsibility. The homes of the Palestinians are not neatly arranged in rows, rubbish is piled all over and drab, colorless clothes swing in the gentle, hot breeze.
Barely a tree is in sight on the Palestinian side, little or no vegetation other than inside rows of greenhouses in the distance. Palestinian children play in the streets, even at a time when they should be in school. And across the street, just a few dozen meters away, Israeli children play inside a security fence hidden behind tall bushes and trees.
To further my task as tour guide, even in a place I had never been, I approached three men standing beside one of the animal cages, the only adults I was to see while in the zoo. Yes, the man in charge was willing to answer questions about his zoo, but preferred to speak in Hebrew. I was given the task of translating. As I was about to return to the journalist and tell her I had secured her next interview, one child fell. Within seconds, the men turned and went quickly to the boy to make sure he was uninjured. As a mother of three active boys, I could tell the "injury" was likely only a scraped palm or knee, requiring nothing more than a hug and a wash. The men spoke gently to the boy, made sure he was fine and returned to complete our discussion.
What is the purpose of the zoo? We asked David Amichai, the zookeeper who agreed to be interviewed. It's an educational experience, he explained. I smiled at the obviousness of his answer, and wondered if it was possible for listeners of a radio broadcast to possibly imagine how educational this was, what a wonderful world David and the children of N'vei Dekalim had created out of what was once empty, useless land that the neighboring Arabs called "cursed".
It was cursed, they explained to the first Jews who arrived in the 1970s, because for centuries they had tried and failed to grow anything on these sand dunes. What greenhouses they have now across the road are largely due to the technology and assistance of the Israeli farmers who came, learned how to grow crops in sand, and conquered the desert. But that is now. Before the Jews came, there was nothing. Since the time of Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish and Muslim world, said the mayor of Khan Younis to the first Jews who arrived, the land would not yield, and so it was considered cursed.
The mayor welcomed the Jews with bread and salt, a traditional Muslim ritual, because he believed that the Jews would make the land grow. I doubt even he could have imagined how prophetic would be his belief. During our brief stay, we visited organic celery and pepper farms and heard about many of the other crops that grow there. Even more, we saw the green gardens around the homes and throughout the zoo.
The second question we asked the zookeeper was trickier: "In light of the scheduled Disengagement, have you made arrangements for the animals?" Every resident had already been asked and answered similar questions about plans for their own future. Each gave the same answer, that the government had not offered them any real alternatives and no one knew where Ariel Sharon's expulsion plans would take their families. One man did not know where his son, a decorated soldier who fell in the Lebanon war, would be reburied. A mother did not know where her young children would go to school. No one had thought of packing up homes built and furnished with years of attention and love. Packing up a zoo with hundreds of animals isn't the same, David explained.
If it comes to it, other zoos in Israel have already made it clear they would welcome the animals from Gush Katif and give them a home, David told us, "if, God forbid, we have to leave." How interesting that the animals of Gush Katif have at least that security, while the residents do not.
"What will you do? How do you feel about leaving the zoo?" he was asked. His answer was heartbreaking. "I built this zoo", he explained. "I have maintained it, and now, maybe I'll have to take it apart."
We thanked him for his time and, as we continued our tour of the zoo in quiet contemplation, I thought over the interviews that I'd heard during our brief visit. The mother, the farmer, the terrorist victim, the war veteran, the new immigrant, the bereaved father, the soldier, the children. From previous discussions, I knew that this journalist had been deeply affected by the poverty she was shown by the Palestinians as she prepared the groundwork for the documentaries she will produce. We spoke often of the squalor in which the Palestinians live, the hopelessness she perceives. Our comparative wealth was an obscenity next to their poverty - that was the underlying message I received.
[Part 1 of 2]