This piece was inspired by the decline literacy & critical thinking. This is a mixed-media collage based on recent terms like âbrainrot.â I chose to use a collage of meat & televisions as a background to display the visceral nature of modern media. The being in the center is a hand-drawn creature rotting from the inside out.
My Experience Buying eSIMs for Gaza by Maia Kobabe
instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my books
Full transcript below the cut:
Cover:
My Experience Buying eSIMs for GazaÂ
Project organized by @ connectinghumanity_
by Maia Kobabe @redgoldsparksÂ
Page 1Â
In Fall 2023, I saw instructions on instagram for how to purchase an eSIM card and submit it to be distributed to someone in Gaza.Â
Download an eSIM app-> Select Middle East as the region-> Purchase-> Screenshot the QR code-> Do not activate-> send to [email protected]Â
Image of Maia looking at eir phone. âThat sounds easy, Iâll buy one.âÂ
I emailed an Airalo eSIM QR code to gazaesims on Nov 17 2023.Â
Page 2
By January 2024, it hadnât been activated yet. I bought a second one from Nomad and sent my new QR code and resubmitted my old one.Â
Image of Maia looking at eir phone. âHow long does this usually take, I wonder?âÂ
By February neither had been activated, but Connecting Humanity kept posting about needing more. I bought a second Nomad and resubmitted all of them on February 15, 2024.Â
Page 3
The Nomad eSIMs are much cheaper than Airalo, but what I didnât realize is that they expire even if they havenât been activated. At the end of February I decided to try a third company, Simly. Hereâs a price comparison:Â
AIRALO: $39 USD for 3GB, never expiresÂ
SIMLY: $22 USD for 3GB, never expiresÂ
NOMAD: $16 USD for 3GB, expires after 8 weeks even if unused, only offers in-app refundsÂ
Page 4
Connecting Humanity asks folks to wait at least 3 weeks before resending a QR code that hasnât been activated yet. On March 7 Mirna Elhelbawi posted:Â
We send EVERY esim we receive. Bear in mind that we are dealing with people at a war zone. They might take it and get killed before activating it, they might take it and their phone gets lost or destroyed. They might take it and search for days for stable internet connection to activate it, and some of them activate it unsuccessfully due to lack of knowledge and the horrific situations they are in. ~Connecting GazaÂ
By early April, my first Nomad eSIM expired unused. I resubmitted my three remaining eSIMs.Â
Page 5
Suddenly, two of my eSIMs were activated on the same day! The Airalo Iâd purchased 4.5 months earlier and my second Nomad.Â
Image of Maia looking happy and surprised.Â
Image of Maia looking very intensely at eir phone. âI have to make sure these donât run out!âÂ
I began buying top-up packages immediately.Â
Page 6
I felt like I had planted a seed in the fall and waited all winter for it to sprout. Seeing it activated was like watching the first new leaves break the soil.Â
Image of Maia with a watering can labeled âdataâ, sprinkling water on two little sprouts. âWatering my eSIMs!âÂ
Sadly, only .07 GB of data was ever used on my Nomad. It was never used again after that first day.Â
Page 7
But my Airalo has been in constant use for over a month now. I check on it every day.Â
I will never know the person I am buying data for and they will never know me. But we are connected by the same strings of hope and grief that connect us all.Â
Image of two hands holding a phone, which is connected to a flying kite.Â
Page 8
On April 5, 2024 Connecting Humanity reported they had sent more than 250,000 eSIMs to Gaza, equivalent to approximately $6.3 million donated! You can visit gazaesims.com for more info, instructions, and discounts. Here are my referral codes:Â
MAIA5367 for $3 off AiraloÂ
MB772 for $3 off SimlyÂ
MAIA66GF for $3 off NomadÂ
If you need more incentive, the Cartoonist Coop is doing art rewards. Visit cartoonist.coop/esims4gazaÂ
Page 9
Image of Maia, weighing two options. âBuying an eSIM is easy and can make a very direct impact. It can also take a lot of patience and could get expensive over time if you commit to keeping the eSIM topped up indefinitely.âÂ
If an immediate one time donation is more your speed, I recommend Operation Olive Branch and Gazafunds, two places to find Gofundmes aiding Palestinian families.Â
Wow wtf HIV/AIDS was discovered by Flossie Wong-Staal, an Chinese-American woman, and sheâs the reason the HIV test even exists. AND THEN she invented the molecular knife that lead to treatments for HIV/AIDS. And sheâs STILL ALIVE. We donât hear about the contributions of Women of Color enough, my word. Madness.
now is a good time to be listening to our black sisters, our jewish sisters, our asian sisters, our polynesian sisters, our latina sisters...we cant let the "first they came for the [x]" continue.
this shit has been happening especially to those who protest the injustices done to their people prior to this major incident, and now that we have all but confirmation that these designs are on purpose and working as the architects intended then we cannot disregard each time it continues to happen to one of us. especially for our POC sisters, and especially for our black sisters that get punished for daring to protest a system that all but wants them dead and out of the way. that shit has gone on for too long
we need to learn not just from the mistakes but the intentional cruelties and mismanagement of these systems and work together to improve things for everyone. all power to all people
getting up on my soapbox for a moment. i find it laughable that nearly every time someone says they donât like rap they cite hamilton and k-pop as the only rap they can tolerate. because everything else is just so violent and full of blatant consumerism. first off. so is k-pop. secondly. idk how to tell you the founding fathers were some of the most violent people around (coming from a black american descentant of slaves who is most likely related to thomas jefferson. shouldnât have to explain the relevance here). thirdly. hamilton and k-pop both reference and interpolate rap. so idk what to tell you babes. you do like rap. you just donât like black people. say it with your full chest next time.
âCritics have found that many of the Yiddish proverbs draw similarities with Kafkaâs narratives, including, âWhat will become of the sheep if the wolf is judge?â and, âThe hat is fine but the head is too smallâ (Furman). Through the Yiddish language, Kafka discovered how he could use words to fill his writings with the irony, paradoxes, and symbolism that characterized Jewish literary culture and the plays that he loved. With the motivation to create, and the influence of what he considered to be authentic Judaism, he wrote, eventually developing a style that was so distinctive the term Kafkaesque was coined to describe it. Despite the abundant evidence to support the influence that Jewish culture had on Kafka, several literary scholars have questioned the role that it takes in his writing due to the âvirtual absence of direct allusionsâ (Scott 7). Unfortunately, such statements arise from a lack of understanding of Jewish culture, and more importantly Jewish literary devices. These critics fail to recognize the multifaceted nature of the literary technique that Kafka employs. It is for this reason that much of Kafkaâs work is shrouded in debate and mystery.â
â Illuminating Kafka: An Analysis of Jewish Literary Culture in Kafkaâs Work by Joseph F. Allen