While the walk home from school used to take no more than ten minutes, it now takes twin sisters Rania and Amal Abu-Amrah nearly an hour to get home by bus. Since it’s difficult to reach their far-off home, I waited for them to finish their evening shift at the secondary school and took the bus with them.
Amal carried a worn denim bag, while Rania carried none. Rania said that the people in the heavy government vehicles that came to demolish their homes gathered all of their belongings and put them in a large bin — resembling a garbage container — and then dropped it in an empty lot filled with piles of furniture and clothes. This is how her school bag and books got lost.