April 29, 2002

One of our students with an Israeli shell he found near his home in Jenin.

At assembly this morning, a student showed Marthame a huge shell, which he found near his home in Jenin. Later at breaktime, the kids excitedly displayed it for Elizabeth. It is a little disconcerting to be so close to such things, especially as kids parade them about.

On the lighter side, a round of mabrouk (congratulations) was in order for one of the school's English teachers, who got married this weekend. In better times, the school's teachers would have gone to nearby Tubas for the party, and the newlywed would distribute sweets at school upon return. But there was no party and there were no sweets. Like the first Intifada, the current struggle mutes celebrations in respect for the dead and suffering - his family alone had four killed in the recent Israeli operations. He still managed to look the part of the newlywed, though.

Arab-American University students gather for a lesson in the language lab.

Marthame went to the University to take a look at their language lab, as the Latin school is interested in installing one as well. Such a facility would be a boon for our students, who rarely have the opportunity to hear and speak English or French outside their lessons. We'll be working on grant-writing for this project.

Later today, Marthame bumped into a friend who said his cousin was killed in Qabatiya. It was hard to hear how this young man, a good student involved in civic and peace initiatives, was killed with a bullet in his head. His fatal mistake was leaning out the window to get better cell phone reception as tanks entered the village. Few families have been left untouched.

After classes today, we headed back to Nazareth, to make good on a commitment to help the folks who have so kindly put us up during our exile. They needed two people to help with their weekly youth English class, which had kids from sixth to eleventh grade. We helped with online tutorials, SRA reading packs, and a rousing game of Outburst Jr. We then fueled up on hummus and set about writing an overdue article for Christian Century magazine - they just published another piece of ours in their most recent issue.