Hebron: The Ladder Lady
by Art Gish (2/4/2003)

I went on school patrol with three other Christian Peacemaker Team members in Hebron this morning, something we do each morning to protect Palestinian children from Israeli settlers who often harass them as they go to school, and to help get the children past Israeli soldiers who often prevent them from getting to school.

This morning, as we started on our way, settler children threw stones at us. One of the soldiers who watched the attack cursed us and told us to leave. A settler cursed us and another settler greeted us with his middle finger. This is normal life here in Hebron.

Then I met the "ladder lady." I had heard so much about her. Each morning she puts down a crude homemade ladder from a rooftop of the old city to let between 20 and 30 children from her neighborhood get out of the old city so they can go to school. The Israeli military has put up gates to prevent them from leaving the old city.

The children climb over the roofs to get to the ladder lady's home. The ladder lady is waiting with her ladder when the children come home from school. Because of curfew and being locked in the old city, the roofs also are now where children play.

Kristin and I helped set up the ladder, and watched the beautiful little girls scramble down the ladder. They are quite good at it. This morning there were only girls, because we gave a message to the ladder lady that the Israeli military did not allow the boys' school to open once again today.

I was overwhelmed with emotion as I walked with the girls to their school. I felt I was on holy ground and given a sacred privilege of accompanying them to school. I felt unworthy to even walk beside these girls, their smiling faces so full of hope and expectation.

I also felt a deep disgust that anyone could be so perverse as to threaten young girls on their way to school or try to prevent them from going to school, and that my government supports these obscenities.

The children, however, have not yet lost hope. They are determined to go to school, no matter what. They walk past the settlers and soldiers. They even walk through the tear gas that is so common here recently.

Christian Peacemaker Teams is an ecumenical initiative to support violence reduction efforts around the world. To learn more about CPT's peacemaking work, please visit our website at http://www.cpt.org.
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