IN STEREO

I mean, people are suffering all the time. Everyone suffers. I tell you what, I mean it honestly and sincerely: everything is hard. For example, I told you before that I work from 7am to 7pm, 12 hours. I work in maintenance at a factory. The wage that you get from the Palestinian Authority doesn’t fill the need. Not bills, not expenses, not costs. That’s why you’re obliged to work extra hours to get at least a decent life. Or almost decent, let’s not say decent. When we get back [home] or we have free time, we work around the house, we work on the land. Normal life. We try as much as possible. And of course, this is the situation of everyone else, not only us.

I mean, those who are at the top of the Palestinian Authority, they take high salaries, and the ones who work in Israel. [But] the rest, their lives are normal or less than normal. Their lives are the same thing [as ours], I mean. Whoever works on the land ploughs it, plants it, weeds it. That’s the care of it. I mean, there isn’t land that you live off, for example. Especially [since] we’re at the top of the mountain, you can’t live off it. Your love for the land makes you work on it. I mean people, for example, on their days off, maybe they sleep until 9am, 10am. You find me on my day off working on it at 5am. [Um Fadi: Active, active!] – Abu Fadi