‘MICKEY’
She is the youngest of our children and her actual name is Fatou, but since we had two Fatous in the group, we jokingly named her after Mickey Mouse, when she was leafing through a magazine we had brought along. After having completely sponsored her secondary education, we gave her the chance to go to the Gambia Technical Training Institute (GTTI) in order to become an accountant.
My wife and I consider it extremely essential that she – just like Sirré (see below) – is having an additional study, because education for girls and women is regarded as utterly unimportant in an Islamic country like The Gambia. A girl gets married, has children, raises them and … there you are, … her life’s duty is fulfilled! According to the commonly accepted tradition, all women stay at home and have the sacred task of taking care of the children and the household and this does not require any education!
The thing we admire in Fatou is that she is very strongly convinced that she has the moral obligation towards us and herself to finish her schooling before getting married. A mental statement like that may rightfully be called a pioneering policy of emancipation in The Gambia and so….thumbs up for Mickey!