法图玛塔·乔比正在用沃尔夫语抄写几个世纪以来口头流传下来的故事，然后翻译成英语.
University of Rochester student Fatoumatta Jobe ’23 has a story to tell. Dozens of stories, actually.
For the past year, the English and biology double major from The Gambia, Africa, 她一直在使用面对面的采访和WhatsApp与她的家庭和社区的大约30名年长成员联系, 寻找几百年前的故事，像传家宝一样流传下来.
“这些都是她的祖母给我祖母讲的故事, who was told by her grandmother, and so on,” she says. “这些故事只存在于冈比亚和塞内加尔的口头传统中.”
Jobe audio records the interviews, then types up the stories in Wolof, 冈比亚五百多万人的主要语言, Senegal, and Mauritania. She plans to publish her Wolof transcriptions. But as her
senior research project for her English major, 她还将这些寓言翻译成英语(也是冈比亚的官方语言)。.
As fables, the stories carry moral lessons. 一个是关于一个固执的孩子，他被警告不要打扰鸟. One day, 他朝一只鸟扔树枝，直到那只鸟转向他，带着他在森林里转了一圈，直到把他带到一口井里. “这个故事被用来警告孩子们不要不听妈妈的话，”乔贝说.
乔比的父亲最近给她讲了一个家庭生活贫困的人的故事. 他会偷偷溜出去找吃的，回来时假装很饿. 一只鸡把这件事告诉了他的家人，这个人很羞愧，他变成了一座山. “所以，当你听到树林里的声音时，”乔贝说，“要知道，在树林后面的某个地方，有一个羞愧的人.”
Jobe的目标是将这些与冈比亚长者的对话变成冈比亚睡前故事选集, preserving them for future generations.
Lucid retellings, says Professor Kenneth Gross
乔比是在非洲领导学院毕业后来到十大赌博正规老平台的, a selective college preparatory program in Johannesburg, South Africa.
“我在网上做了一些调查，真的很喜欢十大赌博正规老平台的开放式课程, and I was able to explore different fields,” she says. “I came to Rochester sight unseen, but I love it.”
自从来到River校区，她就担任了the school of the school的前校长 Pan-African Students Association, a member of the Douglass Leadership House, and a Student Alumni Ambassador. She also works at the Simon Business School as a student engagement assistant.
这个翻译项目的想法来自去年肯尼斯·格罗斯(Kenneth Gross)教授的一门名为“危险的孩子”的课程, the Alan F. Hilfiker Distinguished Professor of English. 格罗斯说:“我让学生们分享一些他们在童年时听到或读到的故事，让他们思考童年, its imaginative world, and stories that belong to children.”
乔比交出了格罗斯所说的冈比亚民间故事的“生动复述”, 讲述了一个勇敢的女孩叫孙图，一只神奇的猿猴变成了人类，并帮助她处理她小气的继母的故事.
“Her pages not only lucidly retold the story itself,” Gross says, 她还回忆起小时候父亲反复告诉她这句话的情况.”
乔比在她的文章中写道，她的父亲每天晚上睡觉时都会给她盖好被子，用沃洛夫语给她讲故事，直到她睡着, “故事总是以我爸爸说‘Lëpp woon’(过去的故事)开始，我必须回答‘Luppën’(今天的故事)。. My dad would then say ‘Amonafi’ (it happened once here), and I would reply ‘Däa na am’ (and it shall again). And then the story would start.”
乔比的最后一笔是给格罗斯提供了她父亲用沃洛夫语唱歌的数字录音，并翻译了故事中心那首像咒语一样的歌. “这激发了我的兴趣，想要更多地了解这些流传了很多年的故事,” Jobe says. “There are so many. They’re only being told orally, and people are dying. How would they be preserved for future generations?”
Her translation project started soon after. 她说:“我问了爸爸一堆问题，我的祖母们在群聊里给我发故事。. “我联系了一位在冈比亚做历史学家的叔叔. 很多都是口口相传:你认识的人知道很多故事?”
Jobe did most of her interviews using WhatsApp, 但她在寒假期间回到了家乡，因为她获得了英国皇家科学院的一项十大赌博正规老平台经费 Department of English and the 弗雷德里克·道格拉斯非洲和非裔美国人十大赌博正规老平台所 that helped cover her travel expenses. At home, she did in-person interviews. She has translated about 30 stories from Wolof into English. 她打算把这本书作为她本学期的荣誉论文，但她还有更大的计划.
“Since embarking on this journey, 我一直在考虑做更多的十大赌博正规老平台，出版更多能代表冈比亚不同部落的书,” she says. “我和我的一个朋友还讨论过今年夏天把这些故事拍成纪录片，这样人们就可以真正地看到它们.”
在这个过程中，乔比对她的国家和她自己有了很多了解.
“我喜欢和老年人交谈，尤其是冈比亚人，”她说. “They know everything! I get to learn from them and laugh with them. My paternal grandmother loves that I’m doing this. 我开始明白，我的创造力并不是我自己独特的设计. It’s literally within my culture to be creative.”
Jobe正在申请十大赌博正规老平台生院，但也保留了她的职业选择. “I’m interested in writing, 但这段经历也教会了我，我有能力做十大赌博正规老平台,” she says. “And I’m a STEM student, so I’ve learned that I can do that. But this research, this is where I flourish.”
