There are many mornings in the last few weeks when I was awakened before dawn by the Imam’s call to prayers and may have been slightly annoyed by this interruption, however, when I think that those praying are Zanaib Jaloh and her family, I can quite easily drift off to sleep knowing that she will be in school in a few hours. One Friday evening I was in town at her father’s shop where I usually trade my US dollars or do some shopping, that Zainab was helping in the store, dressed, not in her pink and blue school uniform but in her lovely black head covering. There are many problems in this small and desperately poor country, but this thing of respect across religious lines, they have gotten right.
I don’t know if it is unique to Sierra Leone but it impresses me every time that I am at the CRC School in Kabala, that about 70% of the children come from Muslim families and they are pleased to have their children attending our school there. This is mostly a function of quality education but it also speaks to something else that is quite wonderful and that is a respect across religious lines; something to be guarded carefully. Maybe it is the result of the fact that civil war is in the remembered history of most adults, 11 years of war ending in 2002, and no wish to return to a state of conflict, and that if there have been attempts at creating a militant edge to Islam or Christianity in the country, so far it seems to have been rejected. People want to live peacefully with one another.
There are many mornings in the last few weeks when I was awakened before dawn by the Imam’s call to prayers and may have been slightly annoyed by this interruption, however, when I think that those praying are Zanaib Jaloh and her family, I can quite easily drift off to sleep knowing that she will be in school in a few hours. One Friday evening I was in town at her father’s shop where I usually trade my US dollars or do some shopping, that Zainab was helping in the store, dressed, not in her pink and blue school uniform but in her lovely black head covering. There are many problems in this small and desperately poor country, but this thing of respect across religious lines, they have gotten right.
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