SCHOOL
Halima tells me
that with the money her parents earn
they will be able to afford to send her
to Gad Primary School,
on the outskirts of Nyala,
Darfur’s largest town.
There’s word in our village about Gad.
Much of it scorn.
Some, praise.
Talk of Gad is a burlap sack
of mixed opinions.
Gad is a school that welcomes girls.
Gad pushes past tradition.
I want to go to Gad.
I’ve never seen that school.
I know of it only through village rumblings.
Whenever Halima speaks of Nyala
and of Gad,
I am reminded that she is truly the child
of her mother,
flap-flapping with excitement
about her new city home and school.
Most others in our village
are nothing like Halima’s mother and father.
Most are as closed-minded as donkeys
who will not turn their eyes to see anything
beyond what is right in front of them.
Most are small, not big, in their thinking.
This is especially true of Muma.
When it comes to schooling,
my mother is the most tight-minded of anyone.
She does not like the idea of Gad,
or any place where girls learn
to read
or write,
in Arabic or English,
or think beyond a life
of farm chores and marriage.
Muma,
born into a flock of women,
locked in a hut of tradition.
That hut.
A closed-off place
with no windows for letting in fresh ideas.
Sometimes I want to ask,
“Muma, can you breathe?”
