December 2013 3:17 pm | Alexandra Hartmann

“Nuns?” I said in surprise. “You take Tunisian Arabic classes from nuns?”
Actually, my friend informed me, he was taking advanced classes with Father Paco Donayre, but at 280 dinars per year he strongly suggested I call up the White Sisters to learn more about their course.
Tunisia is a popular destination for students of Arabic. Anyone who has been to the country for a semester knows the grind: The most well-known school by far is The Bourguiba Institute in downtown Tunis. Several smaller, private, or more prestigious programs also exist in the country and among any group of foreign friends, it’s likely that most of them are taking classes from different instructors.

But Tunisian Arabic classes from nuns; that was something I had not heard before. 
A few sleepy churches and cathedrals are present and visible in the capital, but I wondered immediately what the work of missionary order looked like in a country that outlaws “proselytizing” and attempted conversion. The White Sisters belong to the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, founded by archbishop Charles Lavigerie in Algeria during the late 19th century with the initial goal of evangelizing North African Muslims. The sisters were known for donning the traditional white sefsari, hence their name. The order came to Tunisia in 1937. It’s primary apostolate, the Maison d’Etudes or “House of Studies” in Tunis, opened to the public in 1957, one year after Tunisia’s independence from French colonization. Now, the order is a well-known resource for community members in greater Tunis and for foreigners seeking to learn more about Tunisia. Sister Chantal Vankalck joined the White Sisters in Tunisia in 1996, after fleeing from a violent attack on the order in Algeria in which several brothers were killed. Vankalck entered the order in her early twenties and also served in Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya before coming to Tunis.

A few sleepy churches and cathedrals are present and visible in the capital, but I wondered immediately what the work of missionary order looked like in a country that outlaws “proselytizing” and attempted conversion. The White Sisters belong to the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, founded by archbishop Charles Lavigerie in Algeria during the late 19th century with the initial goal of evangelizing North African Muslims. The sisters were known for donning the traditional white sefsari, hence their name. The order came to Tunisia in 1937. It’s primary apostolate, the Maison d’Etudes or “House of Studies” in Tunis, opened to the public in 1957, one year after Tunisia’s independence from French colonization. Now, the order is a well-known resource for community members in greater Tunis and for foreigners seeking to learn more about Tunisia. Sister Chantal Vankalck joined the White Sisters in Tunisia in 1996, after fleeing from a violent attack on the order in Algeria in which several brothers were killed. Vankalck entered the order in her early twenties and also served in Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya before coming to Tunis.

“I told them,” Vankalck said, “‘I can’t explain to you, but this call for me is so deep that I want to respond to it in a very radical way of leaving my country, my family, and all what I have in order to move toward other cultures.’” The Missionary Sisters of Our Lady Africa and their brothers, the Missionaries of Our Lady Africa, strongly emphasize pluralism and cross-cultural understanding. When sisters arrive in a new place they are immediately trained in the language and practices of their host country. This was the initial purpose of the Maison d’Etudes. As sisters integrated with the community, they thought it was important to build a library as a resource for young female students in the neighborhood. These students aided in instructing the Tunisian Arabic courses, which soon expanded to local women interested in learning the language, usually those in religiously mixed marriages. Now, classes largely consist of foreign professionals based in Tunis.
“More and more, [our services are open] to lay people who have the desire to be in tune with what the people of the country are living,” Vankalck said. “The people we receive here have changed, but the spirit remains the same.” The library has since grown, including a study room and shelves of English, French and Arabic historical and philosophical texts used by both male and female students. Additionally, the sisters host weekly lectures on Christian and Islamic theology. “It’s all to help people to try to enter into contact, to have links with Muslim people beyond all the prejudices and fears we might have,” said Vankalck. “Because often in the media, they give an image that is not really real. In reality, we discover wonderful people here with the desire of openness, of trying to know the other and respect him, and to engage a kind of dialogue of life.” The Tunisian Arabic courses are modeled around such everyday conversations and cultural exchange, which Vankalck says is central to her religious life here. “It’s been 17 years that I have been here. So now, young girls that I knew as children, now they are mothers, and they invite me [over] and I see those little children, and they are like mine, they understand ‘that’s tata [aunt]’ and I’m like part of the family,” she explained. “That’s for me my biggest joy.” “You know for me we have been here for so long that I can say we are a part of the picture,” Vankalck continued. “Here, people are even protecting us. So when something happens like the revolution, we’re phoned by our friends everywhere [who ask]: ‘Are you ok? Do you have enough bread?’ For them, we are part even of their family.
This kind of familial care is a strong component of Vankalck’s work, which she says has shifted drastically in tone since the revolution. Where before, Vankalck addressed peoples’ want for a good education and an understanding of ‘the other,’ she says there now exists a general hopelessness. “We are already three years after the revolution and I can sense a kind of despair among the people I meet,” she said. “Despair first of all, among the Tunisian people, but also with some of our students in Arabic courses who…see the country going downward.” “So when I’m meeting people and discussing with them, for me it is very important to give a message of hope and [recognize] that we are in a very complex situation but a very impassioned time. Now people…can open their mouth and say ‘we want a society where we can live together in peace and justice; where everybody can be respected, have dignity, have work.’” Vankalck added that living conditions in post-revolutionary Tunisia have affected her friends, her community, and those who use the sisters’ services. Minds are preoccupied with joblessness. But, she says, she sees both despair and hope. “Even though they have to fight to finish the month, they say ‘hamdullah, hamdullah we are going on struggling,’” Vankalck said of a particular family she visits. “Tunisians have the strength in them to face the challenges.”