Driving around in Gaza, you see, feel, and experience too much. It’s overwhelming, all too hectic and chaotic, but then everything, for a moment, subsides.
This means you saw something, that thing makes you forget everything overwhelming, momentarily. Finding it can be difficult at times, but it is all about perspective.
As I drove, I saw a skatepark, sadly it was empty. A local rollerblader tells me they skate here daily before sunset. That day I left, planning to come back to see the spectacle of kids skateboarding in Gaza of all places, I couldn’t believe.
The next day I came back, eager to see it all, but of course there is a gatekeeper, there’s always a gatekeeper, much like the entire Strip, and of course he is not allowing anyone in. Ten minutes of back and forth and he’s convinced. I’m in, finally, the kids are in too. One at a time they run in, eager to skate and rollerblade, eager to show off, eager to do their thing like birds getting out of their cage.
And I photographed, so here are the photos for one of the places that for a brief moment, made me forget the painstaking reality of 2 million people in 365 kilo-meter squared. It is all about perspective.
(All Photos: Mahmoud Nasser, The Palestine Chronicle)
– Mahmoud Nasser is a Gaza-based photographer. After spending 13 years outside his country, he decided to come back to photograph Gaza’s loss of life, suffering, and the consequences of war, but also the human stories and the love for life. He can be contacted at mahmoud-bn@hotmail.com.
