What’s all the fuss about? I mean, so what if you have bullets flying around, so what if you can’t go anywhere, you’re living in a war zone… And the tanks in your backyard??…big deal!

What’s all the fuss about?

I mean, so what if you have bullets flying around, so what if you can’t go anywhere, you’re living in a war zone…
And the tanks in your backyard??…big deal!

Well, let me tell you, here in Bethlehem, it became quite bizarre, the way the situation had a mind-warping effect on people, every common conversation was shifted towards “bullet-culture”, any conversation not containing the words “M-16, bullet, tank etc.. was gone, there was also rising interest in death, the afterlife and other death-related topics! Oh…and I shouldn’t forget the weapons and arms knowledge contests, where you’d hear people zealously arguing about all sorts of weapons (of course, most people knew very little but that didn’t stop them!).

Others crossed over to my side of the border, and started getting all deep, and philosophical, pondering the significance off all of this in the grand scheme of things (it was probably stress-related), but you needn’t worry…they soon got back to normal.

In my life, everything went into deep freeze (as for everyone else), a walk to the nearby grocery was an odyssey (at least talking my parents into it was!) and, with all those people getting killed in their homes, well looking out of the window was given the status of a mortal sin (literally speaking).

My younger brothers were so scared!  We all cuddled together in the living room (annoying ya!)  I wasn’t scared, but so many familiar faces became more familiar on posters of martyrs!  That you could smell death, I started having these weird thoughts and wondering, “where would a bullet hurt most?” and “if I get a bullet in the head, do I feel anything?”  You get the picture, don’t you?

But the absolute worst thing in this whole mess was moms, and that’s not an acronym for a weapon that’s moms as in MOTHERS! Honestly, mothers were so afraid for their children that their mother instinct took over.  At first it was fun, the way I could piss-off my mom by simply looking through the window, or pronouncing the word “death” or any of its derivatives, or even by wearing my army-camouflage jacket… that was fun (so much fun that all these actions were hence outlawed) and if I dare say I wanted to visit a friend… well, the war would just move indoors!

Although my discourse makes it sound interesting, it’s not, people died, and nowhere was safe, so I hope no one goes through this kind of situation…. well at least not with your mother around!  (Love ya mom!!)

Ala’a Oweineh is student at Birzeit University