My week in Sderot

This posting was contributed by Dina Tobol, a Gvanim employee in Sderot. She is the manager of the after-school program at the "Hadar" school for severely retarded children. Gvanim (www.gvanim.org.il) will be providing periodic dispatches to this blog.

"I hope there will be no more weeks like the one we had. My whole body is still stiff from last Wednesday. I let some of the staff members go home early and we stayed in the bunker, a few employees, myself and a child whose car pool had been late.

It was at around 6:30 pm that we heard a huge bomb sound. We thought it had fallen right on top of us. When we came out the whole garden was filled with smoke and shattered glass. We were horrified. No one had come to get us, not the police, not the fire department, not even an ambulance. We felt so neglected. (Dina points out a damaged window in the photo at left)

Nitai (Gvanim Association's CEO) and Lea (coordinator of the rehabilitation dept.) were the first ones to show up.

Thank god we were in the bunker, otherwise we wouldn't have made it.

The whole school staff is traumatized I don't know how they keep on showing up for work every day. Before we can even begin our healing process, they hit us again and again and again. We can't break down though, the kids need us. When all of this will be over, then we'll break down alright.

The boy who was with us when the rocket fell in our school got home safely, this time". 

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