Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2009, page 19

Gaza on the Ground

Lifesavers Made of Mud

By Mohammed Omer

RUMMAGING through the garbage on the side of a street in Rafah, 9-year-old Hind carefully selects the best boxes and pieces of cardboard on her way home from school. These cartons, she explains, will bring a huge smile to her grandfather’s face upon her return. Each scrap represents defiance in the face of adversity. As an alternative to necessities withheld, each scrap also saves life.

Two Major Challenges

For Gazans, daily life since Israel imposed its crippling siege in June 2007—and infinitely more so since its massive three-week assault on Gaza—presents two major challenges: lack of employment—and thus income—coupled with the scarcity of goods ranging from edible food to commodities such as oil, gas and wood.

Even before Israel’s Dec. 27 to Jan. 17 military offensive, Hind’s 65-year-old grandfather, Mohammed Abu Surour, relates, “We went for several weeks without any cooking gas.”

Prior to the siege, his 27-year-old son, Mahmoud, owned a flooring and roofing business that comfortably supported three generations of family members. After attempting to remain open during the first few months after Israel sealed Gaza’s borders, he was forced to close the business due to lack of supplies, including cement, which Israel prevents from entering Gaza. “I’ve been out of work for more than a year,” Mahmoud confides.

Necessity has forced the family to search for solutions to the lack of both sustenance and income. After considering several possibilities, the father-son duo finally settled upon resurrecting an ancient tradition: mud ovens. The ovens eliminated reliance upon imported oil, and were portable, practical, efficient and simple to make. Within a few weeks, a new industry using old technology was born. As garbage collection can be hit-or-miss in Gaza, the ovens provide another essential service by helping to minimize litter by recycling it for fuel.

Mixing mud culled from tunnels dug to smuggle goods into the besieged Strip with water and straw, father, son and Mahmoud’s children—Hind, Belal, Mohammed and Ayesh—build the ovens. Their design is based upon stories Mahmoud’s grandmother told about how the family survived prior to escaping to Gaza during the 1948 Nakba. After toying with sizes, Mahmoud discovered the right configuration for creating maximum heat with minimal fuel.

Because it is one of the few resources the occupying power cannot control, and is therefore abundant and affordable, mud is the perfect building material for Gaza. When completed, each oven requires several days to dry. After they have cured, Mahmoud decorates and finishes the ovens for sale.

Because it is one of the few resources the occupying power cannot control, mud is the perfect building material for Gaza.

“Every day we produce 8 to 10 ovens,” Mahmoud boasts. “We sold all of them today,” he adds, pointing to a book overflowing with advance orders.

“There is an increasing demand for the ‘modern’ mud oven,” his grandfather laughs.

The type of fuel chosen—charcoal, hickory or wood in a grill—affects the taste of the food cooked in the ovens. Cardboard, wood and paper products provide the best flavor. Plastics, users of mud ovens quickly discover, destroy any taste. So the children collect paper rubbish on their way home from school. Hind’s grandfather collects small bits of cartons from what is supposed to be garbage—enough, he said, to boil an egg and make two cups of tea.

To the Abu Surour family’s astonishment, an increasing number of people find they actually prefer the flavor of food cooked in the mud ovens. “Tea here tastes better than being cooked on cooking gas,” a neighbor states with pride.

In the kitchen, Mahmoud’s wife stirs green beans with tomato sauce and rice on the stovetop of her mud oven. It’s a meal her husband considers exceptionally delicious now that it’s cooked on his oven. “Even this bread made in the mud oven tastes better,” he laughs, holding it up and laughing. “See? It has a special taste!”

It’s a Hit

Akram Salah of Rafah, a father of six, can’t stop praising the liberating qualities and usefulness of the ovens. “It’s perfect! Nothing should stop us from cooking,” he states. “My wife and I can cook even if Israel decides not to allow in cooking gas. We still can make tea and bread.”

Salah, who sells vegetables he grows on his land, bought two ovens—one for his home and one for the field.

At $3 to $5 each, the ovens are affordable for most Gazans. Even at such a low price, however, there are some families who cannot afford them. The Abu Surour father and son happily teach these families how to make their own oven—or, as in the case of a woman in her 60s, allow neighbors to use the demo model for free. She had run out of cooking oil in the middle of preparing a meal, which she brought to the store to finish cooking. 

Watching the elderly woman prepare her meal on his oven, the grandfather smiles as he speaks. “I am happy for her,” he explains. “We should stand by each other. Even if she can’t afford an oven, she should be able to cook and feed her family.

“The ovens rescue people from the Israeli siege,” he adds, proudly pointing out that many women thank him for giving them the ability to continue cooking and feeding their families.

Prior to Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, 85 percent of Gaza’s population depended on aid from United Nations agencies to survive. Due to the constant border closures, however, this aid often failed to arrive. Unemployment hovered at around 45 percent. In its latest report, the World Bank placed the pre-siege poverty rate at 51.8 percent in Gaza and 19.1 percent in the West Bank. As a result of the siege, this rate soared to 79.4 percent. Numerous NGOs warn that, should the lockdown of Gaza continue, this number, already critical, is likely to rise.

Israel’s continuing siege has made fuel, Gaza’s most precious commodity, scarce—and rubbish, as fuel for mud ovens, a lifesaver.

Award-winning journalist Mohammed Omer reports from the Gaza Strip, where he maintains the Web site <www.rafahtoday.org>. He can be reached at < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >.

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