favourites...

Well, the first day has come and gone. I am now relaxing in my dorm-room, listening to Bedouin Soundclash on iTunes and enjoying the overhead fan set on high. It is 8:00 pm and the temperature has cooled down to a beautiful 27C, but the breeze is still welcome. The best part of my day was the arrival of one of the participants.

It was a real joy when Halmassad walked into the classroom at about 3:00 this afternoon. He was 7 hours late for class, but that didn't matter to anyone in the room. We were all just really happy to see him.

Halmassad is a muslim man from a nomadic group of peoples in a country near here. His journey is a 3-day trip on public transport, plus however far he has to travel by Camel to get to a centre that has public transportation!! I'm not kidding. That is where he lives - amongst nomadic camel herders!

One of my brightest students, Halmassad has an extraordinarily deep love for his own people. There is very little written in his language, but Halmassad has been working to change this. He is the author of a many books on many subjects, all aimed at helping his people. He travels constantly, meeting with different groups of families as they move their herds around the desert and teaching them the skills they need to read and write.

His people have been in the news in the past few decades mostly because of their rebel movement which struggles (often violently) with the government which makes decisions about their region with little or no input from the local people. The rebels consider themselves to be oppressed and under attack from those who run the government.

Of course Halmassad is not his real name, nor could I include photos of him or the people he works with. This is a sensitive subject and I don't want to endager him or his work. At one point, Halmassad was jailed after being accused of helping in the rebellion, but he has dedicated his life to bringing change to his people by teaching them how to communicate with the other peoples in the country. He is crusading for empowerment through the the pen instead of the gun.

And it is working. Many people (including women) are beginnning to read in their language and then making the jump to writing in the majority language of the country. His people have not known peace for a long time, and Halmassad sees literacy as the key to bringing it to them.

Apart from the fact that he can drive a camel and a 4WD, write fluently in 3 languages, navigate the internet and the waterholes, and teach a group of nomads to change their situation through the power of writing, Halmassad is still my favourite student. He is quiet and reflective. He waits for everyone else to give their point of view (sometimes on a very heated subject), and then he proceeds to explain how the differing views have their merits and why somewhere in the middle is probably a wiser approach. He is a true peace-maker, a lover of his language and his people - a real visionary and man of action.

A short time ago, we were worried that Halmassad would not be able to attend part 2 of the course. First of all because there was a lack of funding for him to come (funding cuts around the world have been severe over the past 12 months), and then more recently due to a very serious bout of illness. We were relieved to hear that the Doctor cleared him to come (on the proviso that he doesn't exert himself too much). He told me that he wouldn't miss it for the world!

Is it wrong to have a favourite? I don't know, but I do know that I am praying a lot for Almassad. You don't meet people like him every day!!