"We are starving" [View all]

These three simple words are the headline to an article from the site +972 Magazine from the teacher and journalist Ruwaida Amer who is 30 years old and living in Gaza. She tells the story of the daily downward spiral, her family, trying to care for them and seeing those around them when she goes to take her mother to Nasser Hospital.

You can click and read the story. I'm sorry that I don't excerpt it. You can read about being too weak to walk more than a little distance. About collapsing while standing from being too weak. The crying children and the hopeless feeling of adults as they cannot help their children and sit and watch their health go down unable to maintain their own strength.

You can read what I haven't described or also click some links to other things Ruwaida included because she wanted us, the world outside of Gaza, to know about them. It is important to her that she continue to tell the story and it comes across in her writing.

Sometimes the simple things about people come to my mind and this article was one of those times. Ruwaida Amer. Trying so hard to tell us her story and yet I realized that most US citizens don't know the correct pronunciation of her name. It is "Roo Way Duh" and the last name is pronounced "Ah Mer". According to a name origins site: "The name "Ruwaida" is of Arabic origin and is commonly used for girls. It means "gentle," "kind," or "soft-spoken." It is a name that reflects qualities of tenderness, compassion, and a gentle nature." Here's another way to say the name:



The point in my talking about her name is that her continuation of life from day to day is tenuous and so by next week she may no longer be alive. But the least I could do is care enough to know about her name and respect it. We may not be able, as US citizens, to save her and her family but we can at least listen to her story, even if only for awhile, and respect her for telling it.

https://www.972mag.com/hunger-gaza-food-aid-siege-children/