Saturday 16 December 9am “Cheese! Congratulations.” Two words written by my friend on a small piece of paper inside a tiny nylon bag that contains two packs of cheese, each is 250g. Recently, my displaced friends and I have started helping each other to find necessary products. The challenge these days is that there is no specific place to find anything. You find underwear at a library; food in an electronics shop; and glue at a spice shop. As a result, my friends and I share our needs and all of us search for all of them. We leave any “treasure” we find at a pharmacy that is relatively close to all of us. When someone finds something for another person, he or she sends them an SMS. However, the communications were cut again, and no one could contact any other person. So, I decided to go to the pharmacy, in case someone had found something I was looking for. And I was right: my friend found the cheese. A couple of days ago, another friend was looking for Cerelac (it is the brand name, but it is a wheat and milk cereal for children). So, every time I passed by a pharmacy I checked for him, and I kept my eyes open. It was raining heavily, the sewage water reached our ankles and we couldn’t avoid it. After half an hour of walking under the rain I was able to buy an umbrella, but it was too late. I bought another one for my sister. However, the one I was using broke immediately due to the very strong wind. So, I used the other. After hours of walking and searching for several things, I passed by a pharmacy. I was holding the umbrella, soaking wet, and breathing heavily. I stood outside and asked: “Do you have Cerelac or any other alternative?” One pharmacist looked at the other and they asked me in. They told me that they have small amount that they sell only to their customers after it was cut from the market. He said: “The desperation in your eyes, you soaking wet and the umbrella played in your favour.” They thought that I was a father looking for one for his child, and I did not correct them. They gave me one pack for its regular price, not a doubled or tripled one. Something extremely rare these days. The list of items that we keep trying to find for each other is long; it includes medicine, flour, yeast, pet food, cats’ litter, clothes, coffee, etc. My friend who found cheese is looking for rice. I hope to find her some soon. One thing I am unable to wrap my head around is how our lives turned around from having jobs and full lives, to simply caring about mere survival and finding the basics. I wonder what else we will be looking for in the future. 10.30am I take the new cat to the vet. Yes, there is a new cat. I found him days ago. He is so tiny he fits into my palm. It was raining heavily. The only reason I realised there was a cat in the middle of the street next to the trash was his shaking. He was lying on his face and breathing fast. I went closer and sat on the pavement. I was like: “Please, stand up and show me that you are a strong healthy cat.” But he wasn’t. I held him in my hand and looked for something to put him inside but couldn’t. I found a homewares store (it sells mugs, cups, plates, etc). I went inside and bought a plastic food box. I also bought a knife to make a hole in the top for the cat to breathe. He has been with us for four days. He wakes up every two hours, eats, poops and goes back to sleep. This cat is the first one I’ve seen who eats like the cats on cartoon TV shows. He makes a num num num sound, which is super adorable. I took him to the vet because he got uncontrollable diarrhoea. My sister tried some remedies she knows have worked before, like boiled rice water or boiled potato, but nothing worked. The doctor gave me medicine to give him twice a day. By the way, he weighs 345g (12oz). The children of our host family asks my sister what name she will give him, but she said this time he will have no name, just the cat. They even suggested to call him Jack, after the other injured cat we got in who died. We both refused. I tell her that I have a name for him but I did not share it with her or anyone else. I am even shocked that I chose that name for him. Out of all the names, I chose that name! Speaking of cats, Manara, the injured cat we took in who left to mate, came back. She comes every day in the morning, enters our room, drinks a lot, then eats wet and dry food. She rests, and sometimes sleeps, then she stands by the door to leave. Apparently, we have become her little motel. 1pm I see a child crying in the middle of the street. His mother was doing her best to calm him down, but she looked worn out. I sympathise with her and all parents. I remembered a phone call I had with a friend of mine recently. She and her family are now staying in a home with almost 50 other people. The men sleep downstairs and the women upstairs. When she heard that my sister and I are staying in a separate room, she jokes and says: “Wow! A private room is like a five-star suite.” Like all Gazans, they are exhausted by the challenge of securing water. She tells me: “Last night, my seven-year-old son was sleeping downstairs with the men. My husband told me that he woke up in the middle of the night to use the toilet. He came back and woke his father up, he was crying and he started screaming, not caring about the other people trying to sleep. He told his father that there is no water, no tissues and the toilet is not clean.” I listen and then I tell her that her son did what all of us wanted to do at some point. He woke up in the middle of the night and cried because he couldn’t fulfil one of his basic needs, which is using a clean bathroom. My friend has lost her house, too. She did not cry, but all she said was: “The future ahead of us is very scary.” 9pm Lying on the couch, thinking about how there are no signs this nightmare will end any time soon, my sister asks me again about the name I chose for the cat. “It is just a name, I don’t know why on earth I chose it, but I did.” “What is it?” “Hope.”