Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood

Ibtisam describes her childhood as “shattered at the hand of history” (169). The Six-Day War precipitates the loss of her childhood innocence, forcing Ibtisam to deal with adult situations and knowledge before she is ready and to experience events that leave lasting emotional scars. War both claims childhood happiness and leaves the child that lives inside each adult longing for what they lost, keeping them in some ways a perpetual child. While young Ibtisam endures physical hardships of war, like hunger and thirst, the intangible mental and emotional impacts of growing up during wartime cause deeper emotional trauma. Ibtisam learns that repressing her unhappy childhood memories is a short-term solution and ultimately finds solace in remembering and owning her past. Though she cannot make up for lost childhood, she can reclaim her future.

The losses Ibtisam counts that are “written on [her] heart” (19, 169) are tangible things like her “shoes, a donkey friend, a city, the skin of my feet, a goat, my home…” (169) but they represent deeper emotional losses. Ibtisam loses her sense of being safe and loved. She develops a fear of abandonment and experiences uncertainty in her relationship with her parents. She loses her childhood.

Being accidentally left behind by her family at the start of the war scars Ibtisam.