Gaza/Nawa Network - Palestine:
"I feel so sad when I see my daughter walk without shoes on a hot sand tent. She hasn't worn shoes for 7 months", Saber Dawwas said to “Nawa”.
Saber was working as a carpenter before he fled to the south of the Gaza Strip, after the Israeli occupation forces invaded his residential area in the north.
He searched a lot in the markets in the middle of the Strip for shoes, and when he found one, its price was exorbitant: ($30)
The man went to the home with a broken heart and lay down on his mattress inside his tent, which he set up in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza strip. Then he closed her eyes and fell asleep. In addition, he states: "When I open my eyes, I glimpsed a small piece of wood, then an idea comes to my mind immediately. I will make for my daughter slippers from it".
And he said:" The humans in the past wore wooden shoes, especially in the public bathhouses in the levant".
The man cut the wood into two equal pieces in the same shoe size as his daughter. Then he smoothed the edges on a rough building stone until it took the shape of the foot. Then he cut two pieces from the tattered blanket and nailed it along the edges until it became slipper.
Dawwas spoke about his daughter's happiness at that moment, and said: "She screamed and jumped for joy. Her dream was to wear shoes after all this time”.
She put on slippers and went walking among the tents. Then suddenly Dawwas found many parents in front of his tent, asking him to make wooden slippers for their children, because their shoes were torn after they moved from one place to another due to repeated attacks by the Israeli occupation.
He continues to talk in more detail: “When I make slippers, I try to make them beautiful. I choose red or pink fabric for girls, and sometimes when I find patterns drawn on old fabrics, I cut them and paste them on them, “like the shape of strawberries or princesses”.
The carpenter Dawwas believes the idea is life, and if a human cannot adapt to life circumstances, especially when he lives in a place like the Gaza Strip he will not be able to survive.
He said:" And for that, we should think for anything find it, and make what we lack even with the minimal resources”.
