Islam and the family: If don't understand them, you don't understand Senegal

I'm sitting in my computer lab at Suffolk University. I spent the whole 30 minute walk here thinking about how nice the air conditioning would be when I got here. It is. There is a class going on in this computer lab. The professor is explaining to the Senegalese students what snow is like, because she used to live in New England. There is a picture of house covered in snow from Google. She just finished miming how to shovel snow. She said snow is like that feeling when you stick your hands a freezer, only all over your body. The students are watching and smiling, incredulous.


Ramadam started yesterday, and since I didn't have breakfast I'm trying to sneak little bits of bread from my bag into my mouth because I'm not sure if it's right to eat or drink in public during Ramadam. My family asked me if I was going to do Ramadam. I tried to explain to them that I don't know why I would do something without knowing the significance of it. It would be like "doing Lent" to give up chocolate.

They were really surprised that I've never fasted before, becuase they assured me that the Catholics in senegal also do Ramadam. I told them I wasn't Catholic, and they said but I thought you were Christian. I said yes prostants are christians too. They were surprised at this too. Maybe once I learn the signifiance of Ramadam I might try it a few days. I would eat breakfast at 6am and not eat or drink anything until 7pm. I just learned from the world wide web that fasting is the third pillar of Islam. Ramadam falls on the ninth month according to the lunar calendar. On the 27th day of Ramadam, the Koran was revealed to the prophet, and the Koran says that this day is better than a thousand months.

I think my host dad has the koran in english and I plan to read it. Learning more about Islam is one of my goals here in Senegal. Without understanding Islam, I don't think I'll ever be able to understand life here. One of the aspects of Islam that all the American students and I are so curious about is, of course, polygomy. Our professor said that polygomy is based off the verse in the Koran that says (and this is not the direct quote) "take another orphan if it will help them, but only if you can treat all of them equally." This was because after the "great wars" (i'm not sure which one/s he was speaking of) many women were husbandless and many children fatherless, so the Koran allowed a man to take another family if that family needed a male provider. Many American students here have a host mom that is co-wife. They don't see their host dad very often, even though he is required by Islam to spend an equal amount of time with all of them.

Back in the days, a woman might not ever know that her husband would take another wife until the iman (the man that reads the Koran the local mosque) came to her house and told her that her husband had taken another wife. This is the premise of an amazing book I just read by the Senegalese woman author Mariama Ba, Une si longe lettre, or So Long a Letter. Nowadays, when a couple is married they decide to sign for polygomy or monogomy. If they sign for monogomy he can not take another wife. But the thing is, it's not a co-sign. The couple may choose to discuss the decision, but if they don't, the man decided on his own and signs on his own. My professor told me that most men want to sign for polygomy mainly because if their wife divorces them (which women can do here just as easy as in the West), they don't want to be stuck without a wife while waiting for the trail proceedures to go through. If they sign for polygomy they can get another wife right away.

Islam came to Senegal at the end of the 10th century, and ever since then has blended with the traditional beliefs held before the coming of Islam--beliefs like those I wrote about earlier. Many of us Americans didn't understand how they two religons could blend, because, after all, doesn't Islam say that there is only Allah? The prof said that any Muslim here would respond," I depend on Allah, but I am who I am." Many people still go see the traditional medicene healers, pay attention to signs from their ancestors, and believe in the jinns that I wrote about earlier. It's also very common to visit the marabout (religous leader, may be Muslim, may be not) and have him bless certain things, like your pen before you take your final. The underlying belief is that what you do on your own is never enough, you need the blessings from the marabout to suceede. The marabout might also give you a grigri to wear, a good luck amulet looking like a small leather bag. Every kid under three years old wears one in senegal.

The professor is still talking about snow. Now she's showing them how to make a snow angel.

So Long a Letter also helped me understand the importance of family in Senegalese society.
Take this passage:

"One is a mother to lighten the darkness. One is a mother to shield when the lightning streaks the night, when thunder shakes the earth, when mud bogs one down. One is a mother in order to love without beginning or end" (pg 83).

Family isn't an obligation like we think of it in the US of A. It's not like you have your friends and your own goals and dreams and then you have to make time for your family. There is just the family. There is no personal sucess, only family sucess. I've been trying to adopt this way of thininking, but my efforts only make me more aware of how far removed I am from this way of thinking. It's hard to shed years of self-imposed pressure to make the best of myself, of my education, etc. Sometimes it's a liberating feeling, like shedding off all these winter coats I've found I never really needed. Sometimes it's hard, like when I stayed in with my family all day Saturday. None of them really get out of the house much. It's hard for someone that loves to be outside and stay active and work on projects. It's easy to feel sluggish, with the heat and all the television-watcthing, the favorite pastime of everyone is Senegal.

Development in Senegal will never be orchestrated by those who have never lived with a Senegalese family. The family and the Muslim leaders are the forces that conduct development--no matter how well-educated or well-dressed or fluent in Wolof and French the World Bank employee may be. Society status means everything. To have nice things means everything. To maintain a good home means everything. These things effect the rate at which children are educated, determines which children are educated, and determines who gets a job.

Mariama Ba says it well: "The nation is made up of families, rich or poor, united or separated, aware or unaware. The success of a nation therefore depends inevitably on the family."