They Called Me a Lioness by Ahed Tamimi & Dena Takruri

Author:Ahed Tamimi & Dena Takruri [Tamimi, Ahed & Takruri, Dena]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2022-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

PRISON

IT TOOK ONLY ONE night of prison for me to realize that a full night of uninterrupted sleep is one of the many necessities you’re denied behind bars. Every thirty minutes or so, a guard would point a flashlight into our cell to count us while we were sleeping. Then, at 5:30 a.m., I was startled out of my sleep when the lights abruptly turned on and a male guard yelled, “Girls, it’s time for the head count!”

The four other girls in my cell got up groggily and threw on the first headscarves they could find in time to be covered and decent when the guard walked in. They gestured for me to get up and stand alongside them.

“Hadiya?” the guard called out.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Malak?”

“Yes.”

“Ahed?”

“Yes,” I said.

He continued his roll call until all of us were accounted for. And then he moved on to the next cell. The girls told me it was safe to go back to sleep, but that we’d have to be up again before 8:30 a.m. That was when everyone in our cell block had to exit their cells so the guards could conduct a thorough inspection. They searched the entire cell and then banged on the walls and windows to make sure we hadn’t tried to dig our way out or removed any metal bars.

During this time, all the prisoners had to flock outside to the small courtyard, the only outdoor space allotted to us in the prison. But to call it “outdoors” was a bit of a mischaracterization. It was just another cage. When I stepped into the courtyard that first morning, I looked up, hoping to see the sky. Instead, all I saw was more fencing and barbed wire. Many of the women and girls sat on the ground of the courtyard as our cells were being inspected. Still barely awake, some rested their heads on others’ shoulders and dozed off until it was time to go back to the cells.

Once everyone had returned to their cells, some of the girls tried to catch a bit more sleep, while those who had cleaning duty that day got to work. I learned that the girls divided the cleaning tasks up among themselves and had created a schedule. On this day, it was Iman and Hadiya’s turn to clean. I watched Iman use the one broom shared by the whole cell block to sweep the floor of our cell. Next, Hadiya poured water from a cup onto the floor and used a large squeegee to spread it over the entire surface. Iman helped her, using a dustpan to scoop up the water now flooding the floor and dumping it all into the cell’s small metal sink, which itself was sinking—it wasn’t securely screwed to the wall and was weighed down by all the dishes in it. This was the only sink in the cell, and we had to use it to wash our hands, do our dishes, and drink water. Hadiya washed the dishes in the sink, while Iman dried them and stored them in a small cabinet.

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