While looking for speakers, I was always interested to find evidence of extreme psychological effects of displacement. Palestinians generally avoid talking about psychological weaknesses, possibly because weakness is considered shameful, or to protect a family's reputation. True, Zahira had come close to the frontier between 'normality' and 'breakdown', she had wept tears when recording her harrowing story. But this is a legitimate women's reaction to suffering: women's tears have a special place in Arab and Muslim narratives of power and justice. 'Breakdown', with its implication that upbringing has failed, that there are burdens too heavy to be born, that the cosmos is unregulated, this is a word that few care to speak.

This is why I was grateful when Maie Sarraf offered to testify to her own experience of breakdown. I record with her on my very last morning in Gaza, in her parents' home. Maie is visiting from England where she now lives and works as a lawyer. She chooses to speak in English. Her story reveals the disruptive effect of double displacement upon one woman's life.

Maie Sarraf begins her story:
"My name is Maie Faraj Sarraf. I was born in Gaza. I lived all my childhood until I was 17 years old in Gaza. In 1967 when I was about seven years old, the Israeli occupation occurred. It was a big and sudden change and disappointment for me..."