For nine-year-old Lama, childhood has become about surviving air strikes, struggling to avoid starvation and mourning the life she used to have. Speaking to Palestinian writer Plestia Alaqad from Gaza, she describes what daily life looks like nearly two years into the war.
My name is Lama, but everyone knows me as Lolo. I’m nine years old, and I live in Gaza. Every morning, I wake up and help fill up tanks of water. We don’t have water all the time, so we save as much as we can.
After that, my dad goes out to search for food and wood, just for something to eat and a way to cook it. That’s what our days look like now.
Before the war, my days were different. They were normal.
I used to wake up, get dressed for school and walk into my classroom where my teacher would greet me with a smile. I loved learning, especially maths, it’s my favourite subject. I enjoyed recess time the most, playing and laughing with my best friend, Ellien.
After school, I would come home to warm food that my mom made. Then I’d do my homework and play with my siblings. That was my routine. That was my childhood.
But now, nothing is the same. There’s no school. There’s no safety. There’s no routine. I’m supposed to be in grade five, but there’s no classroom left.
Even in grades one and two, I had to study online because of Covid. I feel like I haven’t really had a proper school year for a very long time. I miss my teacher Noor so much. She was kind and made learning fun. I wonder if she’s safe. I hope she’s OK.
And I miss Ellien, and how we used to share our snacks and laugh during breaks.
It’s not just school, I miss everything. I miss eating pizza. I miss candy and croissants. I miss going outside without being scared. I miss being a child.
Now, every day feels like we’re just trying to stay alive. We eat whatever we can find. We cook only if we can find wood. Sometimes we sleep hungry. Sometimes we can’t sleep at all because of the bombs. My little sister, Mariam, cries at night. I think she is afraid.
I am counting the days for the war to finish. Now it's almost two years and it hasn’t finished yet.
I want to tell the world that the children of Gaza are just like children everywhere else. We love to play, to learn, to laugh. We dream about birthdays, holidays and going to the sea. We want to go to school. We want to grow up. We don’t want war. We want to live.
