Studying abroad

While the world remains riveted by developments in the Muslim world, and while it attempts to gain an understanding of the Islam religion, Orcas High School Class of 1999 graduate Marcy Grossman sought her own understanding of these matters through a first-hand look at the predominantly Muslim area of Kenya.

Marcy, a junior at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, spent September through December in a study abroad program in East Africa. She also wrote a thesis on the impact to society of the month-long Ramadan fast.

When Marcy arrived in Kenya on Sept. 1, she had every reason to believe she would be participating in a calm and stress-free inter-cultural experience.

But then came Sept. 11, when much of the world was turned upside down, and more than a few Muslim Kenyans expressed their support for the terrorist acts sponsored by Osama bin Laden and his network Al Qaeda. Grossman watched some Kenyans raise their fists on his behalf, shout slogans, and write graffiti on city walls saying “Death to the Americans.”

Young men rioted in the streets of the city of Mombasa shortly after the United States began bombing Afghanistan, on a day when Marcy and her 19 fellow American college students were there. Although nobody was hurt, local shopkeepers became so scared that they boarded up their buildings and closed for the day while police chased the rioters through the main streets and back alleys. Incredibly, Marcy didn’t even know about the rioting until after it was over.

Nevertheless, the organization which sponsored the student exchange program became extremely concerned about developments, and the leaders held lengthy meetings with the young American men and women, in which they considered such contingency plans as moving them to another part of Kenya, or another country, or even sending them home early if things continued to deteriorate.

On one occasion a man made a fist and threatened to hit Marcy on a main street of Mombasa, in broad daylight. But that particular moment also demonstrated the feelings of most Kenyans, who raced up to her, asked if she was OK, and offered to help.

And as the war faded off the front pages of the Kenya newspapers, the bin Laden threat subsided, and when Marcy returned to Orcas Island on Dec. 19, her thoughts were largely about a friendly, outgoing, generous and gracious people who welcomed her into their homes and treated her as an honored guest. Marcy lived with three different families during her study abroad, two of them ethnic Kenyans and one Pakistani.

While there, Marcy gained an understanding of Islam that’s entirely different from the hateful messages preached by bin Laden. “Islam emphasizes brotherhood and fellowship,” she says. “It’s a religion of peace,” and it condemns all suicides, including those undertaken by the Sept. 11 terrorists.

Marcy is now talking about going abroad again, but next time it will be to do community service. Not surprisingly, she and her friend Lisa Hutchison had lots to talk about when they were reunited on Orcas last week.

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