Shatila Camp

The evening is hot and dusty.

We arrive at the Camp.
Outside two pre-school barefoot children with curly hairs are continuously jumping on the pile of
burning plastic.
It is busy.
The boys are showing o on their motorbikes.

There is no sky in the Camp.

There is no light in the Camp.
It is noisy. There are so many people around.
It is narrow.
Dust is everywhere.
Elderly woman bowes down to pass through the narrow tunnel.
The neon lights are ickering.

I nd it hard to walk.
It is di cult to breathe.
I collapse. I need to sit down. We are only few minutes inside the Camp.
I am not able to walk any further.
I have seen enough. I have witnessed enough. I need time to process. I need time to re ect.
I am not able to take photographs. It doesn’t feel right.
I feel that I am intruding in to people’s homes.

People are carrying heavy burdens on their shoulders.

Its busy in the barbers. People wait anxiously. Some laugh.
Its getting dark.
I remember granny telling me about her experience in the Concentration Camp in the Second
World War. She was only 12.

On the way out.

Lovely young family are selling goods.
I buy small bag of charcoal. We smile.
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The neon lights stop ickering.

We leave.
From her window above young girl looks at us.
I see the white UN cover with blue signs.
Men are smoking. People are chatting. Drinking co ee.

I remember meeting a young Palestinian man in one of the Irish Camps for people seeking refuge.
He tells me that its di cult for Palestinians in Europe. In this World.

I arrive in Dublin only 3 days before the brutal war on Gaza starts.
Genocide.

Mar Elias Camp

Its my birthday.
We are on the way to the local market to buy two birds and a cage.

We stop in front of the Camp. There is a colourful mural of Yasser Arafat.

Three boys are greeting us.
They show me graciously the narrow and dim streets of their home.
The day is sunny.
The wires are almost covering the blue sky.

We walk towards the shop.

I don’t want to get lost. I follow the boys.

Its slightly claustrophobic.

In the overcrowded shop I buy Palestinian ag.

The hand of one of the men is covered with bandage.
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Its empty in the Camp. Its Sunday.
There is a sound of the radio. In Arabic.

We don’t know that the war on Gaza will start soon.

We don’t know that children will be massacred.
We don’t know the amount of su ering people will endure.
We don’t know that people’s homes will become ruins.
We don’t know that children will be hungry.
We don’t know that people will die.

We don’t know.

I return to Dublin without leaving Palestinian refuge camps in Beirut. Somehow I am still there.
Wondering around.

Gaza continues to be bombed.

This endless silence of the West and western media is di cult to comprehend.
It’s stomach churning.

Zico House

In Zico’s house I am failing to make sense most of the time.

At some point I peel of the sticky paper that was covering the broken glass on one of the doors.
Almost in the shape of Palestine.
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