Hola chicos,
Have you ever had an experience that was so extreme that it takes your body multiple days to process? That is where I am write now after my visit to the Koranic school in Koki. I am still not ready to write about this yet but I am going to try. I think writing about it will help me process it in my mind and I also want to share with you the raw details of such an intense experience.
To start I want to give you a little background of Koranic schools and the different types so that you don’t get just one single story. A Koranic School (or Quranic as it is sometimes spelled in English) is a school that teaches the Koran (Quran). The Koran is the main book behind the Islamic religion. I want to let you know that I am not an expert in Islam or the Koran and these experiences are just my own and what I have learned during my trip here.
In Senegal, there are many different types of Koranic schools. My host teacher, Mansour, sends his children to a Koranic school in Louga on Saturday mornings. This school kind of reminds me of CCD or Sunday School class that I used to take as a child. At this school, the students learn the Koran for a few hours a day. The Koran is written in Arabic and although most students in Senegal do not understand Arabic, Mansour says that the memorization of the Arabic language in the book helps learning the understanding and pronunciation of the language later on. He says that the Koran teaches moral ethics and is a guide of how to live your life according to the religion. His kids seem to have a very positive experience at the school. Mansour and his family pray five times a day and are very respectful to people of all religions and backgrounds. He has friends who are Christians and others who are Muslim.
They all mix and mingle and share special foods at holidays. He even took us to view one of his good friends teach at a Catholic school. Even at the Catholic school, of the 700 students, 650 were Muslim. Only 50 students were Catholic! Those 50 Catholic students took a religious class at school while the other students took a general ethics class. When Mansour and his family prayed he was very open to sharing what he was doing. He invited us to photograph and video him to show others in a cultural way. He also invited me to join him if I wanted and pray for whatever I wanted. He said “we all pray to the same God, just in different ways” and that I was welcome to participate in whatever way I felt comfortable. I would say this experience was the NORM in Senegal. Religious tolerance and openness was beautiful and I wish many people from the United States could have had this experience in this wonderful, mainly Muslim, opening, and welcoming country.
That being said, I did have one experience at a Koranic school that is currently still haunting me. Remember, this is just ONE, SINGLE STORY. However, I have a feeling this is what is portrayed many times in mainstream media. It causes fear. It makes you angry. I still don’t completely understand it. I do not think it is okay. Personally, I am angry. I am confused. And mostly, I am overwhelmed.
The story starts like this… A few days ago, my host teacher, Mansour, told my coteacher, Noel, and I that we would be visiting a famous Koranic school in Koki. At this point, I really did not know what I was getting myself in to. My only experience with Koranic schools was the CCD version that Mansour’s children had told me about. As we drove into Koki, I realized that this was an entirely different world. On the streets to Koki, children were playing soccer in the sand, families were selling fruit, mothers and daughters were dressed in many different ways and eating with their families. However as we entered the Koranic school grounds, all of this changed.
To start, before I got out of the car I was required to put a head scarf on my head. Even though this seems like a little thing, and even though many women do this in Louga just because they want to and it is part of the fashion, the fact that I HAD to put it on bothered me. Why did just women have to cover their head? I did it as a sign of respect for the cultural and initially it did not bother me too much but as I continued my tour my scarf kept getting heavier and heavier and it made me feel like a weight of oppression was continuing to weight down on my head.
The school was laid out like what at first felt like a campus and by the end of it felt like a prison. Children were roaming the sandy grounds wearing t-shirts that were caked with dirt. Kids had no shoes. Snot was running down many noses. Eyes were sunken in. These kids ranged from around 6 to 12 years old. They were the skinniest children I had ever seen. And the hardest part was that each one of them had this blank stare. As if nothing was going on behind their eyes. They looked like zombies.
I learned that these children were sent here by their parents to live and learn the Koran. They lived at the school for 2-3 years and sometimes longer until the Koran was memorized. The children lived in dorm-like structures with many kids to a room. A woman was in charge of a group of children to feed and bathe them but it was obvious that the kids were not getting the care that they needed. These kids were so young and were only tasked with memorizing the Koran- a book that they did not understand. They did not speak Arabic so they were literally just memorizing sounds of words- for years. Think about someone you know who is six. Or what you did when you were six years old. Think about Kindergarten and First Grade. Think about all of the colors, shapes, sounds, experiences that you had. Now imagine if the only thing you had to do during those few years was memorize a book that you did not understand. No playing. No learning how to write, no reading children’s books, no family celebrations, no music, no family tucking you into bed. Just memorization. On your own. In the middle of a sandy desert. With no stimulus expect this book. It was crazy to see. And heart breaking. At this age kids are so vibrant and alive, they smile and laugh and dance, they seek to explore the world. These kids were the opposite. I hate to say this but they looked dead to the world.
As we continued our tour of the school, I realized that there were much older students going to this school as well. Many older students were in charge of teaching the younger kids. Even though we toured on a Friday (a day of rest), there were still many small groups running because there was literally nothing else for the children to do there. Hundreds of tiny children sitting in different groups in the sand, on the concrete, in staircases, anywhere you went… all rocking back and forth and just repeating sounds over and over and over. The older students looked a bit more alive but I think it was because they were in a teaching role. These students had memorized the Koran and were passing their knowledge on to others. They now had a purpose more than just rote memorization.
The school did have actual classes but only were available to those students who had passed the memorization of the Koran. The most vibrant students we saw where in an actual French class. These students were sitting in desks in front of a chalkboard and you would have thought they were at the most riveting presentation ever. Their eyes were hungry for knowledge. They were so welcoming to us and so thankful that we came to experience their culture. It felt like an actual school. It was such a confusing feeling because right outside the window were hundreds of younger children looking like they were starving, rocking back and forth memorizing something looking like zombies… all at the same “school”. But here in this classroom, there were students that had went through that who were great kids, opening, welcoming, eager to connect to the world. Clearly, these kids still turned out okay after the years of memorizing and missing vital (in my opinion) learning and curiosity-filled years. But was it worth it? Did they need to go through that hardship first? I don’t know. I don’t think so. But it is not my culture. I have to respect that I might not be able to understand. This is hard to process. I am still struggling. But I am trying to share this struggle with you.
The other really difficult part for me about this was that in the middle of the prison-like campus was the most beautiful building I have ever seen. It was an incredible Mosque. We got to have a private tour inside as tens of young, dirty, starving looking children looked at us through the doorways pearing in as much as they could without actually stepping foot in the building. Can you see how I felt uncomfortable? It still makes me cringe just writing about it. The Mosque was amazing. It was like the Sistine Chapel mixed with a palace mixed with a Cinderella ballroom. The chandelier was enormous and light bounced off all of the windows making it feel like I was walking in the clouds. It was empty and powerful and I felt like such a small person in this giant, monstrous, palace.
In such a soul sucking campus, it is obvious to see how much awe and wonder this Mosque produces. Here are all of these childrens living in complete poverty (on purpose!… their parents, even rich parents, forced them to attend this school) and the only thing they have to look forward to it getting to enter into the Mosque. It was such a divide of wealth and poor. It seemed like mental manipulation. Like a giant symbol telling the children “If you just memorize this book then you will be able to have all of the grandness of this Mosque.” Maybe that is the point? It reminded me of the Churches in Ecuador that are made of gold but yet surrounded by poor villages. This splendid thing in the midst of poverty. Why starve children of food and stimulus and education, on purpose. And spend millions of dollars building this Mosque in the middle of it all. I still can’t quite understand it. But man, was it hard to see.
Oh and one more thing. The Headmaster also showed us where the women sat in the Mosque…guess where that was? It was behind a large fenced barrier in a tiny square at the back. The women could not see or experience the splendor of the Mosque due to the fence blocking them and if this space was filled they had to pray outside. I asked later why the women had to sit in the back and the guide said that it was because the women may “distract” the men while they were praying. If this isn’t sexism in its finest then I don’t know what is. I was horrified that women were treated so unequally and it makes my insides still turn when I am writing about it multiple days later.
As this tour continued to go on, I felt more and more uncomfortable. My headscarf was weighing heavily and I felt like my brain could not take much more of this intensive experience. Our last spot was the Alumni Hall. Noel and I tried to convince the headmaster that we didn’t really care to see it but he persisted. He explained that the residency hall is a building that the parents get to stay in when they visit their children. (It was completely empty so I don’t see this being very often… but regardless, they were very proud that they had this hall.) We finally agreed to see the hall and when we entered, I understood why they were pushing it on us. It was just as fancy as the Mosque. The rooms were air conditioned and it looked like we had set foot back inside some kind of elegant meeting hall in the United States. It gave me such an uneasy feeling. It made me feel like the school owners were also mentally manipulating the parents in the sense of making them feel like “see, when your children finish school, they will become alumni and get to have access to this kind of fancy building and life.” Having such an extravagant building for the parents while the children lived squished in sweltering hot, unclean dorms like cattle just seemed so wrong. I kept asking myself why a parent would purposely pay to send their child to this school, well knowing that they would experience these terrible conditions.
As we left the school, my brain kind of shut off. I could not take in any more new or confusing information. I could not ask one more question trying to understand something so foreign to me. A few days ago I finally was ready to ask my host teacher about the school and he shared with me that it was actually extremely hard for him to tour Koki. His parents sent him away to a similar school when he was a child and it brought back memories that he did not want to relive. He also said he was on the brink of tears when he saw students at such a young age spending so many years of their life memorizing the Koran instead of getting a wider education. Mansour, my host teacher, is a teacher through and through.
He teaches in schools, on the bus, to the random lady walking down the street, anywhere he can. He lives and breathes education. He said it was so hard to watch these young kids miss out on all of the learning they could have potentially been gaining during these critical years. I asked him why his parents (and other parents) send their children to these particular harsh-style Koranic schools. He said that it teaches the children to overcome hardship and to make do with nothing. And they are absolutely right. By the time these children finish, they are resilient. But at what price? I asked Mansour if he would consider sending his own kids to this school instead of the Koranic school they already attend in order to gain this perspective of overcoming hardships. His answer surprised me and reminded me of why I value him so much. Mansour said “I want my children to learn the Koran. And they will. But I do not want my children to feel the extent of this hardship. I can teach them these same values through education in a less harsh way.”
So that is my story and I apologize that it is so long. I want you to remember that that was just ONE single story of the Koranic school in Koki. It is not how every Koranic school operates and does not represent the majority of Islamic parental views that I have come across so far in Senegal. But it has stuck with me and I wanted to share it with you.
As you continue your life journey and travels among different cultures, you will come across experiences that make you uncomfortable. You will feel confused. You will want to scream and say “this is not right!” You may want to curl up in a ball and cry to just get the feelings out. You may think things are unfair. You may feel frustrated or worse, powerless. But this is part of the journey. As a traveler, your job is not to impose your views on others. I cannot scream and cry at the teachers of the Koki school and be angry at them for teaching in this way. I am not Muslim. I am not from Senegal. My parents did not go to this school. I do not understand the whole context. I do not understand the centuries of history this school has. Or the family ties. Or the religious strength. I am an outsider. And even if I wanted to change this school and the views of the people, I cannot.
What I can do and what I am trying to do, however, is share my own story. When traveling, you are allowed to be confused. You are allowed to not understand. You are allowed to feel hurt and tired and experience mind-numbing differences. You are allowed to ask questions. To challenge. To discuss. To reflect. And you are allowed to take time to figure out exactly what you want to do with the new knowledge you just learned.
I started this post by letting to you know that I was not ready to write about it. And that is still true right now. I still need to process. I still need to cry. I still need to accept other points of view even if they are extremely different from my own. I still need to do a lot of things. And that is okay. But this was a good start and I will continue to reflect as the days go on.
Thanks for processing with me,
Senora Traub
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