Religious Life

One aspect of life here that is very different from home is religious. Ninety percent of the population in the Gambia is Muslim, so Islam inculcates the culture and daily life here. For example, sometimes I will wake up around 5:30 in the morning and hear the Muslim call to prayer. The call to prayer can be heard basically no matter where you are, and comes from loudspeakers attached to the mosques scattered across the countryside. Muslims must pray five times a day facing Mecca. People carry around prayer mats so that they can do this no matter where they are. Out at the university, I sometimes see students praying on their mats, and the aerobics instructor at the National Stadium takes a break to pray between classes. Coming from the United States, where prayer and religion are viewed as largely private experiences, this took some time for me to get used to.

In addition, Friday, not Sunday, is the holy day in Islam. On Friday afternoons around 2 PM, everyone is supposed to meet and pray together. The men pray inside the mosques and the women pray separately, outside or in the back. At the university, 2 PM classes on Fridays are pushed forward by half an hour to allow for prayers.

Here, as in many Muslim societies, women keep their heads covered. Many Muslims believe that the Qur'an, the holy text of Islam, teaches that women must keep themselves covered. This means that they need to cover their heads and wear modest clothing. In class one day, Dr. Nagengast asked one of the Muslim women if the American women were dressed inappropriately, and she said yes, we needed to be "covered." (Keep in mind that we are still dressed much more modestly here than we would be in the states. We don't wear clothes above the knee or low cut shirts.) Even though most of the women here wear head coverings, I am not sure that it is really a sign of oppression. Very few of the women wear Burkahs (which cover everything except for their eyes), and most of the head scarves are colorful and match the women's outfits. There are still women at the university, women who own businesses, and they can leave their homes and walk in the streets unaccompanied.

Islam is also part of the education system here. Some of the male students in my Drama and Society course attended Islamic school as children, where they learned to speak Arabic and were schooled in the Qur'an. Some children only go to Arabic school, and never learn how to read and write in English.

Although the Gambia is mainly Islam, there is still a very visible Christian community here, and Christians and Muslims live peaceably side by side. (In general, the Gambia is a very peaceful country in that people of different religions and tribes live together peacefully and have for many years, which is rather uncommon in Africa.) Many of the Christians who do live here are Roman Catholic, and I see a Catholic church in nearly every town we pass through. I attended mass a couple of weeks ago for Ash Wednesday. The service itself was the same as home, but only the readings and a couple of the songs were in English. The sermon, prayers, and the rest of the singing was in Wolof, so I didn't really understand what was going on. Still, everyone was very friendly and I will probably go back for Easter.