Is Gush Katif all covered up with sand yet? Are the roads to and fro still navigable? Are the paths where I walked and my children rode bicycles still passable?
When we first moved to Gush Katif, and afterwards, when N'vei Dekalim was first built, every time the wind blew, the roads were covered by the blowing sands. The red postal truck, one of our lifelines with the rest of the world, could not make it through and the municipality had to send out tractors to clear the roads, like the snow plows others use in colder climes. Then, shrubbery was planted along the roads and they held down the sands, for the most part.
Has Mother Nature done her job yet? When storms came, the sands flew, and clearing the paths and roads always took days. It was always a constant battle of keeping the sand out. People who did not like sand could not live in Gush Katif. It was always there on the floor and, most of the time, even made its way into our beds. Our children walked around barefoot and the sand came with them.
Out of the tragedy that has befallen us, of being exiled from our homes, and our faith in any governmental institutions non-existent, I have one piece of solace. For the most part, the army destroyed our homes and there are no Arabs living in my house - the one that we struggled so hard to build.
Our house, planned by us, designed by architects that we hired, and then built by Arab labor because we couldn't find Jews to do it, is no longer standing. The rumors that we heard for decades, that the Arabs who built our houses built them well because they wanted to live there and already had picked which houses were theirs, did not pan out, thank G-d. And now, I wonder if my ruined house is still visible, or have the sand dunes returned and covered it so that it will look like the ruins of Earth from a futuristic science fiction movie.
Gush Katif's golden sands - those sands about which songs and articles have been written - are they still blowing? Are they still golden? When I returned to N'vei Dekalim without my husband (only one family member allowed to go back), I bottled some of the sand from behind my house. Sands that we had walked on thousands of times to get to our car. I gave the sand to my daughter. Now we cannot find the bottle. But bottled sand cannot be felt under bare feet, warm from the winter sun. And when you look at it, for some reason, it looks like nothing special, just sand - some lighter, some darker.
Our mourning is not over. Our lives are continuing, but who knows where the future will lead? If only the government would or could move as fast as Mother Nature probably has. How easy it is to destroy and hide, and how much harder and longer it is to build.
When we first moved to Gush Katif, and afterwards, when N'vei Dekalim was first built, every time the wind blew, the roads were covered by the blowing sands. The red postal truck, one of our lifelines with the rest of the world, could not make it through and the municipality had to send out tractors to clear the roads, like the snow plows others use in colder climes. Then, shrubbery was planted along the roads and they held down the sands, for the most part.
Has Mother Nature done her job yet? When storms came, the sands flew, and clearing the paths and roads always took days. It was always a constant battle of keeping the sand out. People who did not like sand could not live in Gush Katif. It was always there on the floor and, most of the time, even made its way into our beds. Our children walked around barefoot and the sand came with them.
Out of the tragedy that has befallen us, of being exiled from our homes, and our faith in any governmental institutions non-existent, I have one piece of solace. For the most part, the army destroyed our homes and there are no Arabs living in my house - the one that we struggled so hard to build.
Our house, planned by us, designed by architects that we hired, and then built by Arab labor because we couldn't find Jews to do it, is no longer standing. The rumors that we heard for decades, that the Arabs who built our houses built them well because they wanted to live there and already had picked which houses were theirs, did not pan out, thank G-d. And now, I wonder if my ruined house is still visible, or have the sand dunes returned and covered it so that it will look like the ruins of Earth from a futuristic science fiction movie.
Gush Katif's golden sands - those sands about which songs and articles have been written - are they still blowing? Are they still golden? When I returned to N'vei Dekalim without my husband (only one family member allowed to go back), I bottled some of the sand from behind my house. Sands that we had walked on thousands of times to get to our car. I gave the sand to my daughter. Now we cannot find the bottle. But bottled sand cannot be felt under bare feet, warm from the winter sun. And when you look at it, for some reason, it looks like nothing special, just sand - some lighter, some darker.
Our mourning is not over. Our lives are continuing, but who knows where the future will lead? If only the government would or could move as fast as Mother Nature probably has. How easy it is to destroy and hide, and how much harder and longer it is to build.