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Our delegation built three playgrounds in Gaza. I joined the team of about 12 people assembling the second playground, after most of the kinks had been worked out on the first! The very talented and dedicated Tighe Barry, who works in film and has been CodePink’s prop man for several years now, designed and purchased the material for the playgrounds, needless to say, bright pink in color. [See photos of the playground]
We first stopped by a storage facility of the Ministry of Youth and Sport to load the playground equipment on a truck and then drove to the north to Beit Hanoun, an area just across from the Israeli border and heavily damaged during the attack. We met with municipality officials who first directed us to a small private garden. This site was rejected because of the locked gate – we wanted a place that would be open as much as possible – and, in any event, it was too small.
We then drove over to an area where there was a soccer field, with no grass, of course, and a bombed out mosque in the background. This was looking a little better, certainly symbolic with the mosque, but we wanted to try one last possibility.
The third location was by far the best. It was in a public garden, and though there was already a playground there, funded by The Gates Foundation, USAID, and Save the Children, it was in a state of complete disrepair. We started unloading the truck.
Slowly, children from the neighborhood began to arrive. We had learned from the team that set up the first playground to be ready for swarms of kids. Before we knew it, there were literally 300 children surrounding us, making it nearly impossible to work. Half of us were given the task of distracting the children so the others could complete the assembly. Just taking their photos and showing them on the camera was almost enough, the children were so starved of any kind of guided playtime. But it was clear that we needed to get more creative.
I had just recently taught my Italian niece to do the Hokey Pokey (You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out…) so I tried it on these kids and it worked. I soon had a circle of about 30 kids around me, dancing and laughing. We also played ring around the rosy and formed a choo choo train of kids winding through the playground. Some of the older girls tried to teach us debka, the traditional Palestinian dance, but they were far to fast for us! Rose, Shelley and Jeanie played similar games with the children, and together we managed to keep at least half the children busy. Though we did have a number of older boys who were at times a bit aggressive, making it difficult to play with the younger ones.
Many of the children spoke a few words of English, such as “What is your name?” and “Where are you from?” We were all taken aback when even the really young children asked, “Hamas or Fatah?” It was an clear indication of how politicized the society is. I responded, “Palestine!”
Meanwhile, the rest of our team, with the help of some locals, assembled the playground. We had a swing set, with a baby swing for toddlers, a slide, a teeter-totter, monkey bars and a rope ladder for climbing. Medea’s initial theory that no boys would want to play on a bright pink playground was dead wrong – they were all over it!
It was evident that what the kids need more than anything else is simply some structured playtime. Athena and I have taken on the task of contacting the Gates Foundation to let them know about the state of the playground they funded and suggest they donate the money needed to employ a local person to spend time with the children at the playground several days a week.
Category: in gaza
