Welcome to the neighbourhood, Hiba!

We're in Egypt now, after a very long trans-Atlantic flight (Yousuf was as well-behaved as an angel) where we'll wait for the border to open and then take off to Gaza, God willing.

But I'd like to introduce you all to a new Gaza blog (drumroll please...): My friend and neighbour (and reader!) in Gaza City, Hiba Zayan, has finally acted on my advice to put her thoughts as Gazan simply trying to survive, and taking it all in, into words. She has started a new blog, Contemplating from Gaza, and I would like to take this opportunity to welcome her to the Palestinian (and global) blogging neighbourhood! I hope it is long and fruitful-and do not let the naysayers deter you.

Hiba's few starting entries are gripping and poetic-she has a saliently melencholic way of capturing that feeling we all have inside of us as Gazans-the one that eats away at our very existence. Here's a taste:

"How can Gazans deal with the negative stress they face on a daily basis while their problems trespassed, long ago, coping with continuous stress to coping with changes in their personalities , tolerance, and manners to the worse as a result of being exposed to negative stress. It is not about not being able to perform your duties. It is rather about a legacy of fear and anxiety transported to our children and the next generation."

"Day dreaming and story telling for me have become the woman yelling on the radio local channel for help because her house is surrounded by soldiers. It became the work colleague who could not survive a heart attack in Beit Hanoun when his house was brutally broken into. I think that the colors of this quilt of imagination 'metaphorically speaking' are getting more and more mingled by the image of two women falling in a march while others are running under a merciless sky. The thing is that I can not stop thinking or imagining for that matter but I think that is the last worry a Gazan has."