Marieme - A Cosmic Dance (#260)

Six months after Marieme was born in the African nation of Mauritania, her life changed forever. When war broke out between Mauritania and her parents’ native Senegal, Marieme and her family were forced to escape. “We literally got on the last plane before the war went crazy,” Marieme explains from her current home base in Santa Monica, California. Her father, a top executive at a major electrical company in the region, was stripped of his livelihood. Before the war, the Diop family had a large home with staff and two cars; after, they were left with nothing. Marieme and her siblings went to live with their aunt in Senegal while her father and mother moved to the United States, settling in New York City’s Bronx neighborhood. It would be five years before they would be able to bring the rest of the family together again.