Flowers from Rafah – a sponsor’s visit to the occupied Palestinian territory

JERUSALEM-WESTBANK-GAZA - Meg Audette, a World Vision employee and sponsor from the United States recounts her recent visit to Gaza - the first by a sponsor in five years, where she met eight-year-old Yusef, whom she has sponsored for the past two years. She not only received flowers from Rafah, but also the assurance that her support, in some small way, is having an impact on Yusef and his family. She also saw first hand the extent of need throughout Gaza and why support for thousands of families is still so crucial.

In the dark, warm cave of the taxi, I feel my heart pounding as the car bumps along through the midday quiet of the Rafah streets. It’s finally happening, I think, not quiet believing it. I’m finally going to meet him. The “him” in question is Yusef, an eight-year-old boy who lives in Shaboura Refugee Camp in Rafah Governorate in the Gaza Strip. My husband and I have sponsored Yusef through World Vision for about two years. After countless letters and prayers, I will finally meet the boy whose picture has occupied a place of pride on our refrigerator since he entered our lives.

I cannot erase the poverty or conflict that shapes their lives, but I have the ability to do that: to reach out through letters across cultures, conflict, and continents

This visit is even more special because of the difficulty in getting to southern Gaza. We don’t need a boat or four wheel drive vehicle to get here, but it may well be one of the most inaccessible places where World Vision works.

Gaza is one part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and due to the ongoing land dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians, access is tightly controlled. Only staff of registered organisations with approved business in Gaza can apply to the Israeli army for access. Permission to enter typically takes two to three months, and can only begin once a visitor has entered Israel. On a previous trip to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories related to starting up a new US government education project for World Vision, I was stunned to hear that I had received permission to travel in and out of Gaza for six months just eight days after applying. Unfortunately there was no time to meet the boy whose picture was displayed prominently on our refrigerator among the grocery lists and coupons; I prayed that I would return and meet him one day.

Bumping along the streets of Rafah, I try to remember all of our letters to Yusef, and his letters back to us. I have been so focused on making sure that today’s meeting goes ahead that I haven’t prepared myself spiritually or mentally. What will I say to Yusef and his family? What will they think of me, an American woman they have never met? I remember the terrible days of late 2008 and early 2009, when a sharp escalation in violence left 13 Israelis and an estimated 1,387 Palestinians dead. I remember the fear for friends in Gaza, and wondering if I would ever again exchange letters with Yusef. I remember sitting with my husband for hours, wondering what we could possibly write to a seven-year-old boy who lived in the middle of one of the world’s most intractable conflicts and knowing that the letter would most likely arrive months later and that the wrong words could be a painful reminder of loss.

I have no more time to prepare or reflect: the taxi turns onto a narrow track and soon draws to a halt between a large greenhouse and a modest home. As I emerge from the taxi, I am swept up by Yusef’s father Mofid and his sisters and welcomed with wide grins and kind words. My earlier worries quickly recede. I am ushered inside the house and introduced to Yusef’s mother and his sisters, urged to sit in the living room while plates of fruit and nuts are brought out for the guests. The living room is plainly furnished with rough concrete walls, but spotlessly clean.

And then, after so much hoping and waiting, there is a boy at my elbow, offering me a bottle of juice and shyly taking my hand. I see the deep dimples in his cheeks as he says hello, the large eyes and sturdy frame that I knew I would recognise from his pictures. “Hello Yusef,” I say softly in Arabic. And as he nods with a smile and looks down at his feet, I think that maybe just as it was more important for me to be here than what I would do when I arrive, perhaps for Yusef, just having some time together is enough.

I explain to Yusef and his family that I work with World Vision, and explain how I’ve come to be with them today. “Thank you,” his father tells me. “We know it is difficult to come to Gaza now. Thank you for coming to meet us.” I look around bemused at the platters of fruit, nuts, and juice that they have placed before me, and can’t believe that they are thanking me rather than the other way around.

While Yusef and his sisters play with the toys that I’ve brought for them, his father and mother proudly tell me about how well he does in school, especially Arabic, his favourite class. His sister Ghada, who is seven, wants to be an English teacher when she grows up, and proudly practices the phrases she knows with me. Yusef’s mother, Iman, feeds tidbits to the baby, Heba, and shows me the education prize that Yusef won last semester. They are like so many families that I have had the pleasure to meet all over the world, not very different than my own in many ways.

And yet as I show them pictures of my husband and I taken on a recent vacation, I cannot help but think that the few hundred miles that we travelled on that trip and took for granted is farther than they might ever be allowed to travel. Yusef’s father Mofid worked in Israel, in the town of El Satarya, on a flower farm, until the Israel-Gaza border was closed to day labourers in 2001. He made enough money to look after his family, but now cannot find work in the depressed Gaza economy. He tells me this matter-of-factly, without self-pity, as he steadies the two-year-old Heba as she wobbles between the couch and the table, and I wonder, not for the first time, whether I would be able to handle the tough hand that life has dealt this family with as much grace.

I wonder, not for the first time, whether I would be able to handle the tough hand that life has dealt this family with as much grace

All-too-soon, the time has come for us to leave. Yet Yusef’s family has one more surprise in store for me: Mofid brings me the largest bunch of carnations I have ever seen. Pinks, reds, orange, yellow—all perfect, and for the first time I realise that carnations have a scent. When I thank him, he shrugs his shoulders and tells me that he still works from time to time in the greenhouse of a friend, but that the market in Gaza for cut flowers is small.

Yusef helps me carry them to the waiting taxi, and his sisters jump around waving as we drive away. As they recede in the rear view window of the taxi, I feel a deep appreciation for the opportunity that I have to do something small for this one family—to be able to look them in the eye and tell them, as I always do in my letters, that we always think of them. I cannot erase the poverty or conflict that shapes their lives, but I have the ability to do that: to reach out through letters across cultures, conflict, and continents to tell them that they are special people and I feel very blessed to have them all in my life.

Further information:

As a sponsored child, Yusef and his family received assistance following the war in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009. This included much-needed blankets, a food parcel, and a hygiene kit for Yusef and his family. In September 2009, at the beginning of the school year, Yusef and other sponsored children in South Gaza received the gift of a new school bag, which he received through the South Gaza ADP sponsorship. Recently, Yusef also had the opportunity to participate in the annual party held for sponsored children in South Gaza. After the party, Yusef and many other sponsored children received gift packs, which included hygiene products and other items, such as shampoo, a hairbrush, disinfectant, and toothbrush and paste. The sponsorship team is currently in the process of planning a new project, which will distribute household water tanks to the families of sponsored children that are most in need. Yusef's family will be among them.