When I reserved the community room I can't remember. I do remember I was pushing myself to take action about Palestine and the promise I'd give talks about what I'd seen, heard and done in Gaza. I'd made that promise to myself and the people of Palestine. So many people in Gaza told us that groups come, say they are going to do something when they get home and they never hear from them again. Our group certainly isn't doing that, but that's another story.Back to Saxby's and the reportback (which is activist lingo for presentation) For many reasons, my pictures of Gaza are few and far between and not especially good. Big problem! Thankfully others shared their pictures with me and I was able to pick the best of the best. This was, however, a major project. I had to get
the photos into my computer, place them in a file,maybe make some additional files for topics, loose a file, find it and loose another one. Maddening! Then, I'd have a presentation ready for public consumption.
My computer skills are beyond poor. One thing I have on my side is determination though it's mixed with ignorance. I had pictures from six different people, with more than one file for each of the six; sometimes as many as three or four. I was set on organizing them.....I organized myself to the breaking point. But I had started putting things together for the "slide show"
Enter Meg, my grandson's girlfriend, she's going to clean up the mess. She copied and pasted, moved photos around and came up with a file that had all "million" photos in one file on my desktop. When I showed her the process I use to get pictures in this blog, she couldn't believe it.
Just kept shaking her head; then told me how creative I must be to "invent" my own way to post the pictures. It worked but took three times longer than necessary.The next day the master file slipped off the desk top, never to be found again, not even in the trash.
Enter Jasmine, my granddaughter, who couldn't understand how her Gram had made such a mess of the pictures. My system of putting them in files made sense only to me and sometimes made no sense to me either. She patiently showed me how to move pictures around, place them where I wanted them and how to write captions and include information. She made new files for the pictures and deleted files I didn't need. The tutorial was over. I worked for hours and hours; pulling the images I wanted; had about reached the half way mark, when the entire group of pictures, my slide show in the making, disappeared. Not in the trash, not anywhere. Jasmine and her husband offered to help look for it later in the day. I kept searching and it finally re-appeared.Where it had been I'll never know.
Once I had collected all the images I thought I wanted, they needed to be put in order for the "show." A matter of following my outline for speaking.
It's not an easy process....deciding which photo best describes a situation or idea you want to convey. I began with the Palestinian flag waving atop a destroyed factory. Which seemed to say a lot about the situation. Then I went to the Rafa Border Crossing and our entry into Gaza.
Gaza is a beautiful place, in little snatches. It must have been gorgeous at one time. There is still a romantic, quaint feel to it, in snatches. The sea is magnificent! Children sitting on the back of a donkey cart. Great images! And then?I decided to begin the presentation with "the beautiful Gaza" and go right into the "destroyed Gaza" without any transition or explanation until about the fourth picture of destruction. I hoped this shock effect would get the viewer's attention. And it did!
There was a collective sucking in of air and then silence. The pictures speak for themselves! Not all is destroyed in Gaza, but you can see someone(Israel) was trying to wipe them off the map!While the pictures show the destruction, and show it well, there is much missing. It's a sense of death. Of seeing something, knowing it's all that's left, its what is left behind, it was something before, something that didn't disappear, what you see is all that is left and what you're seeing is horribly distorted and wrong. What could cause this horrible transformation? The rubble and destruction is too complete, too organized to be the result of a storm. Nature isn't that methodical.
The realization that this destruction, this death, this sad, sad scene is man made.....was thought out, that a careful plan was drawn up for destroying a place and a people....It causes your stomach to knot, you grow cold and clammy; then hot and sweat begins to slide down your face or is it tears? This destruction was done by people, a country, a well armed country. Israel! How in the world could this happen? Didn't anyone notice? Try to intervene?How can this landmine say
"made in the USA"?
How can we right this wrong?
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