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Crazy Water Park

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The Crazy Water Park or Crazy Water Aqua Fun Park is a water park in Gaza that opened in May 2010. One Australian newspaper calls it "the new sensation" among Gaza's "privileged."

According to The Independent newspaper, Mohammed Al-Araj, the economics minister in the first government formed after Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election is believed to be one of the directors. Two thousand families visited the Crazy Water Park during the first four days that it was open.

Features

The landscaped water park features 3 swimming pools, a canal 100 meters long, three water slides, ponds with pedal boats, a restaurant, a cafe, and a quiet area shaded by a tent where adults can sit on carpets and listen to music. The atmosphere is secular, with popular secular tunes playing over the loudspeakers and women in international-style clothing. A recent lifting of the government ban on women smoking in public has made it legal for women to smoke the popular nargilas at the Crazy Water Park's cafe. The park was built with materials assembled from war-torn buildings as well as materials brought through the Gaza Strip smuggling tunnels. Construction was completed in six months. Admission is 10 shekels, the equivalent of about $2.60 as of mid-2010, but using the water slide costs another 5 shekels, and going into the pool costs an extra 20 shekels.

The park cost $2 million to build. According to Ayman Barawi, the Crazy Water Park's financial manager, "This park is a form of escape. People need a chance to escape from the stress. We brought 'air' to the people." According to The Guardian, the Water park is part of an entertainment "circuit" for wealthy Gazans, which includes seaside cafes, browsing at the Gaza Mall and riding at the Faisal Equestrian Club, adjacent to the Crazy Water Park.

The Crazy Water Park has 106 employees, not counting about 80 vendors supplying services and goods such as food. Park employees earn the equivalent of between $250 and $300 a month, considered a good wage in Gaza, where over 80% of the population receives welfare payments from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and other international aid agencies.

Financial backing

According to the Jerusalem Post newspaper, the Crazy Water Park is one of a number of seaside tourist resorts constructed in a $20 million building binge. According to The Independent, some sources regard the Crazy Water Park as one of a group of Hamas business ventures operating since the late 2000s. According to the Reuters, the resort was built by a "Hamas-linked charity," According to Egyptian journalist Ashraf Abu Al-Houl writing in Al-Ahram, Crazy Water Park is one of a rapidly growing group of Gaza pleasure parks, including Zahrat Al-Madain, the Al-Bustan resort and the Bisan City tourist village, so many of which were completed between his visit to Gaza in February 2010 and his return in July of 2010 as to make Gaza "almost unrecognizable." He continues, "A sense of absolute prosperity prevails, as manifested by the grand resorts along and near Gaza's coast. Further, the sight of the merchandise and luxuries filling the Gaza shops amazed me. Merchandise is sold more cheaply than in Egypt, although most of it is from the Egyptian market, and there are added shipping costs and costs for smuggling it via the tunnels – so that it could be expected to be more expensive.... the siege was broken even before Israel's crime against the ships of the Freedom Flotilla in late May; everything already was coming into the Gaza Strip from Egypt. If this weren't the case, businessmen would not have been able to build so many resorts in under four months."

Government sanctions

In August, 2010, the water park was closed for three days as a "warning" to the management against allowing men and women to mingle at parties.

Criticism

Gaza residents have criticized the government for not backing investment in housing instead of water parks. One man, interviewed while relaxing at the Water Park, told a reporter that "If the money put into Crazy Water had been used to construct 10 buildings, 100 families could have been housed by now."

External links

References

  1. ^ "People relax at newly opened theme park," Shahanaaz Habib, May 21, 2010, The Malaysia Star.
  2. ^ " Seaside in Gaza: the dress code's almost as dangerous as the surf July 31, 2010, The Age.
  3. ^ "As the Israeli blockade eases, Gaza goes shopping", Donald Macintyre, 26 July 2010, The Independent.
  4. ^ "New Gaza Leisure Projects Focus on Fun Not Hardship" August 2, 2010, Reuters, New York Times.
  5. "Edict lifted for female smokers" Jason Koutsoukis, July 29, 2010, The Sunday Morning Herald.
  6. "Gaza's elite enjoy riding at Faisal," Harriet Sherwood, September 6, 2010, The Guardian.
  7. " "Palestinians in Gaza invest $20m. in new resorts", Khaled Abu Toameh, Jerusalem Post.
  8. ^ translation by MEMRI, July 28, 2010, Al Ahram,
  9. " Report: Gaza water park closed due to gender-mixed parties," 08/22/2010, Jerusalem Post.
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