My trip with the children of the Hands Up Project

Adrian Underhill, who recounts in a separate article how the Hands Up Project has put young Palestinians in touch with their counterparts elsewhere in the world, describes his trip earlier this year accompanying a group of 15 Gazan schoolchildren through Israel to the West Bank to present their Hands Up productions to new audiences.

On Sunday 17 March my colleague Nick Bilbrough and myself get a lift from Jerusalem to Gaza with two UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) lawyers who are living and working there. We enter by the Erez crossing which, apart from limited access via the Rafah crossing into Egypt in the south, is the only entry/exit point between Gaza and the rest of the world.

On arrival we meet up with Melissa Scott, one of the Hands Up trustees, who’s made a number of trips here, and is writing a book on Palestinian cooking. Like Nick, she knows lots of people in the region and during the next few days she is as likely to be trying out traditional cooking with local women as visiting schools with us. She tells us there was a rocket exchange between Israel and Gaza a couple of days before we arrived; no one was injured though people in our UNRWA hostel had felt the building shake.

There are two delightful guards outside our hostel, an UNRWA guard to ensure no one UNRWA doesn’t approve of enters the building, and a Hamas guard to make sure Nick and I don’t go out anywhere we shouldn’t. But it’s all quite amiable.

Since it’s Nick’s birthday we celebrate. No alcohol of course, but a good fish meal and a chocolate birthday cake with a surprisingly robust firework on top. We are joined by local teachers involved in the Hands Up project.

On Monday Nick and myself (we are both English language teachers) attend the first conference of a new association of Palestinian teachers of English, which will give local teachers more contact with teachers abroad.

Outside the conference hall the sun is shining, and inside the hall is full of the smiling faces of enthusiastic teachers, a welcoming atmosphere and great feeling of achievement at forming a teacher association, and being together to speak about what matters.

When the conference is over we go with some of the local teachers to men’s night at the Turkish bath, built by Ottomans centuries ago and recently restored. It’s the hottest water I’ve ever been in.

Tuesday morning, and Maha (education specialist for UNRWA, which runs the schools in the refugee camps in Gaza) drives us down to Rafah near the Egyptian border in the south to visit several schools and see some of the Hands Up plays. We are welcomed by the pupils and staff.

We then meet classes and work with three of the plays. The plays we hope to take to Jenin and Bethlehem in the West Bank are Story of a Homeland, Lord of Show and I will Wait til they Open the Gate.

Later we hear that the 15 kids aged nine–12 doing the three plays which we will take to Jenin and Bethlehem in the West Bank have, on appeal, been granted four-day permits to leave Gaza – they had initially been refused permits. But there’s a catch – they must leave tomorrow, a day earlier than we requested, giving them only 24 hours to get ready. It is the first time in their lives they will go outside Gaza or be away from their parents. This means we need to get an extra day’s accommodation in Bethlehem for them and their three teachers.

Wednesday The children and their teachers leave for Bethlehem, which entails a two-hour drive from the Erez crossing to Jerusalem, and then under an hour to Bethlehem. Maha takes them in the UNRWA minibus. Nick and I decide to stay in Gaza City until tomorrow to work with the performances of several more plays in schools that are expecting us. It would be a pity to disappoint them – and ourselves – by cancelling. So we’ll leave Thursday and catch up with the kids in Bethlehem.

Later we hear that Maha has been refused exit from Gaza and has had to turn back. The kids and teachers continue on to Bethlehem without him. Everyone here has a plan A, B, C, D and beyond that any number of instantly improvised plans. They live on the edge the whole time, in a zone somewhere beyond Plan D. Throughout our stay Nick is constantly on the phone before leaving the hostel in the morning.

After visiting the schools in Gaza City, helping to develop the performances, giving out little prizes for those in winning plays, and watching a presentation by a newly established drama club for children, Nick and I visit the Qattan Library – an arts and education foundation set up by the Qattan family – to discuss the Hands Up Project. We show them some of the plays on YouTube and they are interested in getting involved in the project.

Thursday morning and we have finished the first part of the trip – to visit schools where classes have written, performed and video-recorded plays, and entered the competition. The presence of Nick and myself, from the international community outside Gaza, who value them, and who see and feel their situation, and who engage in worthwhile activities with them, maybe offers some seed of hope for the future, some feeling of connection and cultural esteem.

We go to the Erez crossing where, as expected, the search is thorough, and for many humiliating, and where all luggage is completely emptied into giant containers designed for the purpose. In Bethlehem we find the kids, make sure everyone has a good meal and then go to rehearse in the Al Rowwad Cultural and Theatre Training Centre attached to the Aida refugee camp.

Now, think about this: these plays started life performed in a classroom and recorded on a mobile phone. Tomorrow they will be performed on a real stage to a live audience. This is a whole new step. The kids are right up for it but it requires major adjustment to use of space, voice projection and including a live audience. We should be okay for an enthusiastic audience because there are lots of visitors to the town for tomorrow’s Bethlehem marathon, which attracts charities from all over the world.

And there is another backdrop to everything here today – there is a strike because a local man was shot dead by Israelis last night, so things are in turmoil…as usual. Will there be violence at tomorrow’s marathon? Could it be suddenly cancelled?

In the evening near our hostel we find some guys making a polystyrene model section of Israel’s wall across Palestine, complete with graffiti, which they will put across the marathon route. This means that the leading runners will have to break through the polystyrene wall, and since runners are from all over the world, that means that it will be the international community that symbolically breaks through the wall…

Friday We watch the marathon which starts and finishes in Manger Square. Hands Up trustee Melissa is running so the kids have someone to cheer for, and she does well too! After that we eat, then go to the theatre to set it up and rehearse for the evening.

The runners from round the world provide a good and supportive audience for the children. It goes down well, and at the end the kids all came on stage with their teachers to answer questions and receive ovations!

On Saturday the main aim is to go to Jenin to perform the plays in the Freedom Theatre. But remember, this is the first time out of Gaza in the lives of 17 out of 18 of our group, so they want and deserve maximum exposure to life outside Gaza.

We become tour operators for the day, stopping on the way in Ramallah to see the Yasser Arafat museum, his tomb, house, meeting rooms and all the history, then on to Jenin for the rehearsal and performance.

And then we drive on to Nablus to eat, and for the children to buy presents for their families. Then back to Bethlehem, late!

Sunday Back to Jerusalem where it is time to take our leave of the group – we are staying here while they return to Gaza, via a two-hour journey to the Erez crossing. The teachers dearly want to visit the Al Aqsa mosque (the third most sacred site in Islam) in Jerusalem, on their one opportunity out of Gaza. It is on the site of the second Jewish Temple destroyed by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago and therefore a sensitive spot. And today is an Israeli public holiday which means Israelis will be walking in the area.

The Palestinian UNRWA drivers strongly advise we don’t take our group there, especially with 15 juniors, as things can easily get out of hand. So without fulfilling that particular dream the group returns directly to Gaza. And only just in time…a few hours later fresh rocket exchanges mean that the Erez border is closed once again. But in that four days, 17 people have been out of Gaza for the first time in their lives, and performed their plays to new audiences.

Meanwhile in Jerusalem Nick and I call on the Palestine National Theatre to see if they would like to put on a show featuring other plays from this year’s Hands Up entries. We meet Amer, the creative director, and Huda, promotions, who are both delighted by the idea and imaginative about how they can take three five-minute plays and mould them into a show. They can also help find accommodation for the kids and teachers in Jerusalem.

This will be perfect for the next group of kids from Gaza in June. We plan to bring another 15 groups, three at a time, to the West Bank to perform.

Update Since writing this account three more groups have been to the National Theatre in Jerusalem. They had a very exciting time, and once again this was the first time out of Gaza for all of the kids!

Adrian’s trip was sponsored by Totnes businessman Walt King, who accompanied him and made a video, A Taste of Palestine, which includes shots of some of the children’s productions.

Also in: Young People

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