The only thing that's certain

My mother saw a group of men collecting some wood off the beach the other day. She assumed they were custodial workers and thanked them for their work, asking why the Municipality didn’t send people out to clean up the beach more often.

It was then that she realized they were actually not trash collectors but Palestinians searching for driftwood to light a small campfire with. Not only that, but as she would learn, it was the Palestinian Minister of the Environment, Yousuf Abu Safiya (who has a permanent post that predates this January’s elections) and two of his co-workers. It appears they are also stuck in Egypt, and staying a few flats down from us. They came over later at night as we discussed everything from politics to the adverse affects of the water’s nitrate content on children in Khan Yunis.



Apparently he tried calling Mahmud Abbas’s Office today to ask whether they knew when the border might open. Their answer: “well, we heard maybe today. But if not today, for sure tomorrow, or the day after…or Friday….”

As a cousin in Gaza joked “there’s only one thing for certain, and that’s that nobody knows when it will open!!”