AYCHA'S WORLD

Conversation with Aycha leaves one baffled and happy.  Her eyes, green as the dune grass reaching out over the Mediterranean, dilate and blaze when she begins to talk about her family's history.  The only deaf child in a family of nine, she attended a school for the deaf in Jordan until her family's move to Gaza when she was six.  Since then they have lived in the Beach Refugee Camp, an area internationally known for its poor living conditions and a symbol of the economic and social plight into which Palestinians have been forced.  But at the mention of her home, Aycha lights up with pride -- this is her place, this is her family, and she is telling the world about them.

Conversation turns to her favorite games; the list is enormous, and she only stops the catalogue of jumping rope, swinging, riding roller coasters and merry-go-rounds, ad infinitum, when the question of her future plans arises.  "To teach," she states succinctly.  Her joy is plain to read.

But what brings her to a fever-level of happiness?  Underneath the sheen of her adolescent white head-scarf, her friends darting in and out, teasing her about her answers and secret omissions, her cheeks flush and her fingers fly on, telling more and more.  Her home, her mother's illness during pregnancy that left her deaf, all that fills the memory of 14 years -- this is her life, and she is telling another about it!  And she will help others learn to tell about their lives too!