By Mathew K Jallow

I picked up the phone and dialed. It rang twice. A subdued voice came alive from the other end. Hello, the voice said. Even after more than thirty years, the crisp voice sounded familiar. Hi, I replied. This is Mathew Jallow. Do you remember me, I asked? There was a second’s pause that seemed to last forever, then a loud burst of surprised laughter. Mathew, the voice inquired rhetorically. Dawda Kah, I replied in an equally euphoric tone. It was a moment like no other; a moment from another time, another era. On that day last week, I was again reconnected with Norway after more than thirty years. And for one long moment, it seemed as though I had been transported back to the past, walking once again, on Karl Johan’s Gata in the center of Oslo. In the distance, I could see the imposing Royal Palace stand in rapt silence, as if listening to the unspoken voices of a people now mellowed down by the demands of modernity.

I was once again in Norway if only in spirit, to revisit the faces of a people once very much a part of my life. A visitor to Norway will not fail to be surprised by the easy going nature of its people, but looks can be deceiving. Behind their blue eyes and blond and red hairs is a legendary warrior people with a fierce-some history, whose Viking ancestors visited terror on northern Europe and brought half a continent to its knees. The Vikings bequeathed to their Norwegian descendants an alluring history and a legacy to be proud of; one that is both terrifying and mesmerizing. With their signature cow-horn helmets and magnificent ships, the sea-faring Vikings conquered the open seas and laid waste to large parts of northern Europe. To this day, part of their past is preserved for eternity in the ancient coastal stone ruins that dot the rugged coastlines of Scotland and Ireland. But, perhaps one of the greatest distinguishing features the Vikings infused into their vanquished subjects is the red hair that will for all time stand out as a reminder of the power of a warrior tribe whose unforgettable history of conquests lies partly buried beneath the piles of relics they left behind or perhaps blown away by the winds of time to the forgotten history of yester-year.

I first went to Norway back in the roaring seventies; roaring because it is inarguably one of the most transformational period in human history. It was a period that redefined an aspect of human nature that has seen the dispersion of the human race from a corner of East Africa to all parts of the globe; migration. For the first time, black Africans were populating the northern reaches of Europe in a significant way and Norway perched in a quiet corner of the globe, was one of the epicenters of this new migration wave. Norway’s first African immigrants, the Gambians, were beginning to add color and character to the virtually homogeneous agrarian country, and the streets of Oslo bore a testament to that history. The culturally powerful forces that separated us by race, color and geographic origin, were beginning to erode from our human consciousness, and the imaginary political boundaries that had hitherto encumbered travel and limited human interaction across barriers of land and race, were slowly crumbling into disarray; perhaps even dissolving into nothingness. For the seventies redefined the old world order to usher in the quantum cultural leap that continues to shape and reshape the global geopolitical map.

In Norway, I was part of the small pioneering band that made immigration history. And so was Dawda Kah who by virtue of age became de-facto leader of the band of Gambians who were slowly immersing themselves into the sounds, smells and rhythm of their Norwegian promise land. At first we were a tightly knit group of two dozen hardy young men so full of hope for the future. We came to Norway driven by the same primordial instincts and motivated by the same human desires. Nonetheless, we each had our own unique and compelling journeys, yet our individual escapes from home were characterized by an instinct to survive the challenges of abject poverty and lack of opportunities. Each of us by our own wits found a way to escape the crushing poverty of the Gambia, which, to some of us, was a life, lived on the edges and periphery of society. And in the flash of a second, last week, the nostalgic memories of those pioneering days came rushing back into my mind as if time just stood still.

It is now three decades since I left Norway, forced out for overstaying my visa, and though I left the country, Norway never really left me. When I first landed in Norway, I was still a young man growing out of my teenage years; a young man still searching for my own identity and purpose in life. I was still full of youthful vigor and overflowing emotions not unlike those bouts that occupied my consciousness throughout high school and left me paralyzed by homesickness and a longing for the familiar; mother, siblings, family, friends, places and the scents and sounds of home. The desire to build a future for myself far from home and the emotions of wanting to return to the familiar, is a paradox that defied definition. But all was not clouded by a longing for home; far from it. If there was one thing the Gambian community in Oslo excelled at, it was building a support structure that carried us each individually and collectively through our unique challenges to adapt to a strange land with an alien culture.

At first we adopted a restaurant close to the main Oslo university campus in the center of town as a place of meeting and socializing. This was soon followed by a popular discotheque d-jayed by Max Jagne, and the founding of the Gambian Association of Norway at the residence of Dawda Kah. But even as we built our own social institutions, we were individually building our own bridges with the caring, giving and nurturing Norwegian society into which we were slowly assimilating. Wherever we met, there was never a dull moment, because Midnight Mover usually provided us comedy, lots of it, and in so doing provided us some relief from our daily struggles far from home, if only while it lasted. Then there was Mbayang Jobe the ultimate hustler; a man given to few words, but with a keen eye on making a buck even in the midst of a financial drought.

But the list is long; Mbye Babucarr Sarr, the late Alhagi Jagne, Tijan Nyang all of them friends from our Primet Street Vous day back in high school, and there was Edi Fota Jagne, Essa Barajo, Matarr Jarju and Daha Boy among a long list of others. For theirs’ are stories that need to be told; stories of Norway and Gambia, stories of adventure, of assimilation, and above all, a story of our capacity to overcome social and cultural adversities. Some of the group have passed on to another adventure we do not choose, but which must come; my best friend the late Dr. Alhagi Jagne and the indomitable Midnight Mover among others, but hopefully the living will tell their stories of struggles and successes too, in the strange land they called home; Norway. It is a compelling story, too long, too full of twists and turns to fit in the pages of a newspaper story, but hopefully someone will tell it, document it and establish a record for posterity. As for me, while my body lives in America, part of my soul still resides between the tall, majestic walls of the Norwegian fjords. And hopefully this is the beginning of that story-telling. I hope.