6. The school teacher

We had been waiting for my Senussi tailor for almost an hour, so to stretch our legs we went out into the street. I saw a handicapped girl arriving in our direction. I said to Ali: “Do you want to ask her if she is part of the Tahara association?”
I sent old Ali to talk to her because I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable, Timbuktu girls don’t like being approached by strangers. She replied that she was the director of another association of disabled people, one which we didn’t even know about.

The girl is called Zahra and she walks with a crutch, probably because of polio.
She had been one of the founders of the Tahara association and was its secretary general, but having had a problem with Tahara, she had left the group.
We met near the school where she teaches children.
Zahra looks very young, almost a child, I would not have put her at more than 15, really very young to be a secretary general and a school teacher.

I was very surprised when she smilingly told us that she was 29 years old. Zahra was visibly flattered by my amazement about her age and took it as a compliment.
Now she had set up another association of disabled people, made up of only 8 people. They had had some money donated by foreigners, with whom members of the association can start a small business that will help them live.

I asked her if the associates paid interest on their loan, and Zahra told me yes, they pay 10% interest.
– “But it is not a good thing! I exclaimed, “you are Muslim, you cannot be involved with interests. Allah says in the Qur’an that those who take interest have declared war on him and his messenger.”
– “You are right”, Zahra granted me, “and we would stop asking for it. Our aim is to distribute the money that has been given to us, not to be funded by a bank.”
I went on to tell her that I came here to help handicapped women, and part of that money is also for them. We will meet in the coming days to learn about the association and understand how we can help them.
I am struck by how fate brought us together. I tell Zahra that it was Allah who led us to her, if we had not gone out to the street to wait for Senussi, we would never have known that there was another association for handicapped women.