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| KFC being dragged through the tunnel http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/kfc-fast-food-meals-smuggled-1891820 |
What
an easy, everyday thing to do. People all over the world enjoy the Colonel’s
secret recipe. I even have a picture of my husband in front of a KFC franchise
in China. KFC is all over the world, but not in Gaza.
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| KFC in China |
Palestine
was granted “non-member observer status” in the UN in November 2012 as nation
194. That’s a lot of nations, and 120 of
those 194 nations have at least one Kentucky Fried Chicken
franchise. Gaza doesn’t have one, but
El-Arish, just over the border in Egypt does.
So what’s the problem? As the old saying goes, “you can’t there from
here.” The blockade imposed on Gaza severely limits the number of people and
the goods that cross into Gaza.
Sometimes
a prisoner looks through the bars of his cell and has a desperate longing for a
taste of something the rest of the world takes for granted. Sometimes something
as simple as fast food can make a connection with the outside world. Eating a
piece of the colonel’s chicken is just one small way of making that
connection—a small way of thumbing a nose at the blockade, a small way of
exercising a tiny forbidden freedom.
The
New York Times article of May 15, 2013, says that the fast-food delivery is
anything but fast in Gaza.
“It
took more than four hours for the KFC meals to arrive here on a recent
afternoon from the franchise where they were cooked in El Arish, Egypt, a
journey that involved two taxis, an international border, a smuggling tunnel
and a young entrepreneur coordinating it all.” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/world/middleeast/tunneling-kfc-to-gazans-craving-the-world-outside.html?_r=0
The
video below documents a portion of the incredible journey a bucket of chicken
must make to reach a table in Gaza.
Bon appetit, Gaza.
