To All and Sundry,
So the teacher for our Islam and Palestinian Civilization class is a Christian Arab man from Bethlehem. A couple weeks ago, Dr. Musallam couldn't come to class because of "technical problems" with his permit--it wouldn't scan right, and the soldier at the border wouldn't let him through. He came the next day, but then he was sick, and then the "technical problems" flared up again. And he went days before he could get a new permit. Brother Brown drove to Bethlehem to bring Dr. Musallam our take-home midterms, and we sent a big yellow card with him that said, "We miss you."
According to Sister Brown, he was deeply touched by the card. Sister Brown sent us a photo of Dr. Musallam holding up the card and beaming, and forwarded us an email from him thanking us and saying that he missed us too. He was able to come yesterday, and today we were supposed to have four full hours of his class to make up for the missed period. But then, this morning, the Israelis closed the border. Purim is on Monday--a festival celebrating Esther, basically a Jewish Halloween. Apparently it's harder to deal with security and identifying suicide bombers when everyone is in costume, so they're closing the West Bank until after Monday.
It's sad, but I think it was good for the students to see the human side of our teacher.
-Stella
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