I had a nice engaging conversation with a work colleague about Robert Frost’s famous poem The Road Not Taken and about contemplating choices in Gaza all the time. Staying and living in Gaza had become “the road not taken.” Everybody would like just to leave Gaza to a different place. The harder choice to make is to stay while having a chance to leave.

Being both young and having very good careers, we agreed that the easiest thing would be to leave for another country, work, bring up our kids in a stable environment, and enjoy life, for we are young only once. However, the escapisms philosophy enforced itself on the conversation.

I wrote before about developing coping mechanisms at the subconscious level - trying to engage oneself in many things, such as reading, watching movies, playing with the kids so as not to think of Gaza problems. However, we concluded, me and my colleague, that this is just not working anymore and that escaping to a different surrounding and melting into a new “normal” situation might be the answer.

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We parked the car yesterday. Of course we did. It is a thing regularly done by people who drive cars but in Gaza, it gained a whole new meaning. When you say “I parked the car”, it means you ran out of fuel and can no longer use your car.

Fuel quantities, which were supplied to Gaza on a daily basis, are now supplied with half quantities once a week. So what’s supplied weekly is half of what was supplied daily! This means that whenever fuel is in, which is the top asked question now, people rush to fuel stations, half of whom are generally lucky to get some filled in their tanks. Those who cannot get some filled manually brought in plastic containers, and those who can neither fill directly from the station nor get a gallon filled manually, like us, park their cars.

You need a good emergency plan to manage daily chores - people to call to help you secure fuel, houses with electricity generators to go to in case you had an important paper to write or an exam to study for, a parent who is dedicated enough to buy you yogurt if available in a supermarket, a husband or a wife who will do the laundry or clean the house when electricity is there, though tired or drowsy, a friend who buys your kid a pair of boots or trousers in a small shop in the south or north of the Strip, and a whole deal of patience to still put a smile on your face!

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