Fatou - Blessed heart and mind

The first memory I have about the person I interviewed for this text is a core one of what it means to live in a student’s residence. In my first years in Salzburg, I shared a double dorm room with my then roommate. I liked the residence life with all the little quirks it had, such as not having your own vacuum cleaner, laundry rack or even bedroom. Although I was very happy with my roommate, there was one thing I did not appreciate about the dorm. People tended to be very quiet, and nobody spoke to you in the common areas such as the kitchen, with two exceptions. One of them was a girl from Gambia named Fatou who was cooking with cashew nuts. I was and am very curious about food from other countries and asked my fellow student which dish she was preparing. Fatou not only explained it to me but gifted me a whole pan of roasted cashews which I enjoyed happily back in my room. It was one of these situations where you really learn to appreciate human kindness in unexpected ways. 

For this interview, we had to recur to a phone call since she moved to Vienna in the meantime, and we have not seen each other for a while. Fatou tells me about a world that is completely foreign to me. She grew up in the town of Kololi on the Atlantic Coast of Africa, eating spicy okra soup with fish and speaking Wolof as a first language. Although Fatou tells me that the Gambian crocodiles are friendly and will not harm you when touched, I remain suspicious about cuddling with them if I ever get the chance to visit. 

Public affection displays are not frequent in her culture, but Fatou tells me that her parents have always been a role model of a loving and caring relationship to her. This girl speaks about a home that smells and tastes like black tea and has the aroma of Churray, a Gambian cultural element that Fatou also uses in Vienna. I learn from her that it is a clay pot with ashes to burn incense in like at home. 

During our interview, the young woman also talks about her music preferences. They turn out not to be limited to black music such as Afrobeats, drums, Hip Hop, Jazz, reggae or blues, but also include country love songs. Why Fatou likes these songs so much is because they are played on the Gambian radio and tend to tell stories while the lyrics in most music genres today are not seen as important anymore. To Fatou, Art is very beautiful, because you can express feelings and thoughts, as well as tell stories. In the end, everyone can interpret art differently, meaning that it is not a black and white painting but rather sprinkled with grey, which she describes as the beauty of it. 

When she mentions pictures of her parents in nightclubs, I am amazed, I would not have imagined their generation in a Muslim community to be so progressive. Fatou laughs and calls her fellow Gambians “rebellious and liberal Muslims” who wear nail polish, not always wear a hijab and go to parties, but they never abandon their praying. Something that impressed me immensely is that tolerance is not only appreciated but lived and seen in her country and there are many mixed families with Christians and Muslims alike in their midst. While we Christians assume frequently that we are a peace-loving community, past and present in Western countries show a different truth. I personally do not know any Austrian family who celebrates Ramadan and Christmas within their family and grants the festivities the same respect, but I would love to get to know one. 

Fatou and me talk for a while about school, she puts emphasis on the fact that learning does not stop in the classroom and that we have to continue doing it. Through Fatous different input in school, she learned to be resilient, to interact with people from different cultural backgrounds and to appreciate them. Her experience with foreigners did not start in Europe, already in Gambia she got to know people from the Scandinavian countries, the UK, the US, from Senegal, Nigeria and Ghana. Since education in her country is not for free, Fatous family had to pay for her to go to school since her nursery school days. She explains that where she comes from, education is a privilege and not a right and that she had to persevere through a lot to get to where she is at in life right now. Fatou worked, went to school, defied the odds, she did everything for her needs and believes in equality in many spheres. 

She appreciates her families support enormously and continues to feel morally strengthened through her relatives in Gambia but also the ones outside of her home country. Fatou now lives close to one of her uncles in Vienna and tells me that their level of sharing and being surrounded by family is priceless. The Gambian culture is not individual but tends to share sorrow and joy, which is what keeps their community going and helps them to calm down. At the same time, Fatous family always supported their children as their own individual beings and treated them with empathy – a characteristic trait she practices today still and tells me to call her whenever in need. This girls happiness is when she can make other people happy, to make them smile and help them. While she can be a rebel, Fatou is also sweet and soft and loves to give back to wherever she has come from. Her goal is to contribute positive experiences to those around her, to be curious, learn, grow, and explore. 

When she speaks about her wants in a partnership, rather than travelling with that special someone, Fatou would take them to a place where there is total understanding and respect, without guilt of being dumb. She wants to create a place where they can grow together without feeling bad, a fairytale place where everything is perfect, no matter where they are at. Since she would like to spend the rest of her life with this person, she would always want to relax and to stay at this place of harmony.

Something that Fatou stated and that astonished me is that we have to accept people for who they are because everybody is their own case with their own needs. She perceives people based on her interaction with them and does not generalize. 

We end the interview with a characterization Fatou makes of herself: She says that she is a girl who against all odds has reached where she is today. She tells each and every one of us, that besides the obstacles we need to follow our dreams and be courageous. A person needs to lead their way to get to where they want to be. I consider this statement very important because many of us grow up with a big amount of privileges we are not aware of, we complain and do not use our potential because of fear or laziness. I learned from Fatou that we have to be warriors always and that a smile (and some Cashew nuts) can take you very far in life.