Inside a school bus, Bay Area Sudanese moms steep kids in culture
The mothers of the Sudanese Association of Northern California. Photo by Hana Baba. This is a field trip. East Bay school kids going to the California Academy of Sciences – pretty typical, right? Wrong. This is the weekend school of the Sudanese Association of Northern California, or SANC, where Sudanese kids come every Sunday to learn their parents’ mother tongue and immerse themselves in Sudanese poetry, folklore, music, and spirituality. Even this bus ride from San Leandro to San Francisco is a cultural lesson in disguise. Twenty kids and 15 adults pack a big yellow school bus. The Sudanese moms and dads talk in Arabic. Their American-born kids at the back of