Call Me Templeton-the-Rat

Call Me Templeton-the-Rat
By Sara Layah Shomron

When did I become a rat? Yes, a rat hiding in a sewer pipe. I am finding that I don't want to wander far from the nearby sewer pipe bomb shelter and that regardless of day or night, I now putter around inside, waiting to hear the warning siren to make a run for it. And when I hear it, I call out "go! - everybody to the sewer!"

This past Friday we heard and felt booms landing in Ashkelon (10 min away). The siren blare gives us 30 seconds to get into the sewer pipe bomb shelter. I've suggested to my neighbors that we have a bomb shelter contest for whoever gets in first. Of course they pointed out that it's already rigged on account my caravilla is the closest. One neighbor told me that a laptop will work in it - good to know. At night several family members "sleep" fully clothed including shoes - ready to make a run for it.

One of my younger daughters is particularly upset that we refuse to take the dogs into the shelter. Though we've explained and explained -she loves them and worries about them so (as do we). The dogs aren't showing any signs of trauma.

And I have cabin fever. I don't walk far from my sewer pipe bomb shelter. There aren't any bomb shelters set up at the small local shopping area, the health clinic, or Neve Dekalim beit knesset (synagogue). One thinks twice before venturing out. Nobody ever said the life of a rodent is an easy one.

My family has received a number of generous hospitality invitations offering us a reprieve from the bombing. "There's no place like home," my family insists refusing to leave the caravilla. Most of my neighbors are spending Shabbat (Sabbath) elsewhere.

The army ground force command announced that Shabbat (Sabbath) prayers are to be held in concrete buildings. No gatherings larger than 100 or 300 people - depending on kill-ometer distance from Gaza. Here at the temporary Nitzan caravilla site that only leaves the sewage pipes. When did we morph into rats?

Today my husband and I walked up to the permanent housing site of Neve Dekalim- Nitzan. How wonderful it felt to be outdoors in the warm, fresh air; near orange groves and the nature reserve. Our house is in the building process having its outside walls, bomb shelter, and poured roof completed.



We made haste to our newly built bomb shelter when the siren sounded, twice.

How good it felt to be in our own house bomb shelter




and not in the caravilla sewer pipe bomb shelter.




Several people were wounded and two girls suffered psychological trauma in Ashdod , may they have a speedy and complete recovery. Buildings and a park damaged by rockets in Ashkelon.


Motzei Shabbat, about an hour after the Sabbath departed, the siren blared. My family was in the sewer pipe bomb shelter in record time. We heard and felt nine booms. We pray that there aren't injuries.


Shavua Tov – have a good and safe week!