For the past year, the English and biology double major from The Gambia, Africa, has been using in-person interviews and WhatsApp to connect with\u00a0around 30 elder members of her family and community, seeking stories that are centuries old and have been passed down like heirlooms.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are stories my grandmother was told by her grandmother, who was told by her grandmother, and so on,\u201d she says. \u201cStories that only exist in the oral traditions of The Gambia and Senegal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jobe audio records the interviews, then types up the stories in Wolof, the primary language of more than five million people in The Gambia, Senegal, and Mauritania. She plans to publish her Wolof transcriptions. But as her
\nsenior research project for her English major, she is also translating the fables into English (also an official language of The Gambia).<\/p>\n
As fables, the stories carry moral lessons. One is about a stubborn child who was warned against bothering birds. One day, he threw sticks at a bird until the bird turned on the boy and carried him around the forest until guiding him into a well. \u201cThat story is used to warn children against not listening to their mothers,\u201d Jobe says.<\/p>\n
Jobe\u2019s father recently told her about a man whose family lived in poverty. He would sneak out for food and pretend to be hungry when he returned. A chicken told the family, and the man was so ashamed he turned into a hill. \u201cSo when you hear voices in the woods,\u201d Jobe says, \u201cknow that an ashamed man is somewhere behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jobe\u2019s goal is to turn these conversations with elders in her country into an anthology of Gambian bedtime stories, preserving them for future generations.<\/p>\n Jobe came to the 人妻少妇专区 after attending the African Leadership Academy, a selective college preparatory program in Johannesburg, South Africa.<\/p>\n \u201cI did some online research and really loved that Rochester had an open curriculum, and I was able to explore different fields,\u201d she says. \u201cI came to Rochester sight unseen, but I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n Since arriving on the River 人妻少妇专区, she has served as the former president of the Pan-African Students Association<\/a>, a member of the Douglass Leadership House<\/a>, and a Student Alumni Ambassador<\/a>. She also works at the Simon Business School<\/a> as a student engagement assistant.<\/p>\n The idea for the translation project came last year in a class called Dangerous Children taught by Kenneth Gross, the Alan F. Hilfiker Distinguished Professor of English.\u00a0Says Gross: \u201cI asked the students to share in writing some story that they had heard or read in childhood\u2014to get them thinking about childhood, its imaginative world, and stories that belong to children.\u201d<\/p>\n Jobe turned in what Gross calls \u201ca vivid retelling\u201d of a Gambian folktale, about a brave girl named Suntu and a magical ape who becomes human and helps her deal with her mean-spirited stepfamily.<\/p>\n \u201cHer pages not only lucidly retold the story itself,\u201d Gross says, \u201cshe also recalled the conditions under which she had heard it told repeatedly as a child by her father.\u201d<\/p>\n Jobe wrote in her essay that her father would tuck her in every night at bedtime and tell her a story in Wolof until she fell asleep, or the story finished: \u201cThe story would always begin with my dad saying \u2018L\u00ebpp woon\u2019 (a story of the past) and I would have to reply \u2018Lupp\u00ebn\u2019 (a story of today). My dad would then say \u2018Amonafi\u2019 (it happened once here), and I would reply \u2018D\u00e4a na am\u2019 (and it shall again). And then the story would start.\u201d<\/p>\n Jobe\u2019s final touch was providing Gross with a digital recording of her father singing in Wolof and translating the spell-like song at the center of the tale. \u201cThat spurred an interest in me to learn more about these stories that had been passed down for years and years,\u201d Jobe says. \u201cThere are so many. They\u2019re only being told orally, and people are dying. How would they be preserved for future generations?\u201d<\/p>\n Her translation project started soon after. \u201cI asked my dad a bunch of questions, and my grandmothers sent me stories on a group chat,\u201d she says. \u201cI reached out to an uncle who is an historian in The Gambia. A lot of it is word of mouth: who do you know that knows a lot of stories?\u201d<\/p>\n Jobe did most of her interviews using WhatsApp, but she returned home over winter break after being awarded a research grant from the Department of English<\/a> and the Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies<\/a> that helped cover her travel expenses. At home, she did in-person interviews. She has translated about 30 stories from Wolof into English. She intends to present the book for her honors thesis this semester\u2014but also has bigger plans.<\/p>\n \u201cSince embarking on this journey, I\u2019ve been thinking about doing more research and producing various volumes that are more representative of various tribal groups in Gambia,\u201d she says. \u201cA friend of mine and I also have discussed making a documentary of the stories this summer so people can actually visualize them.\u201d<\/p>\n Jobe has learned a lot about her country\u2014and herself\u2014during this process.<\/p>\n \u201cI love talking to older people, especial Gambian people,\u201d she says. \u201cThey know everything! I get to learn from them and laugh with them. My paternal grandmother loves that I\u2019m doing this. And I\u2019m learning that my creative capacity isn\u2019t something of my own unique design. It\u2019s literally within my culture to be creative.\u201d<\/p>\n Jobe is applying to graduate schools but also keeping her career options open. \u201cI\u2019m interested in writing, but this experience has also taught me that I\u2019m capable of doing research,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I\u2019m a STEM student, so I\u2019ve learned that I can do that. But this research, this is where I flourish.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fatoumatta Jobe is transcribing in Wolof\u2014and then translating into English\u2014centuries-old stories passed down orally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":672,"featured_media":553652,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[36732,20542,29502,19242,2666,16072,20932],"class_list":["post-553602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-life","tag-class-of-2023","tag-department-of-english","tag-featured-post-side","tag-global-engagement","tag-kenneth-gross","tag-school-of-arts-and-sciences","tag-undergraduate-research"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Fatou](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/inline-fatou-jobe-wolof-fable-translations-420x630.jpg\")
Lucid retellings, says Professor Kenneth Gross<\/strong><\/h3>\n