Nola

Nola Diop's life didn't begin easy: She is the third of four children born to Oumar and Khady Diop, an anfro-american couple of senegalese origin living in the Outer Mission neighborhood of San-Francisco.

As such, her upbringing and early life was as expected given the circumstances: Poverty, a bad neighborhood, with no bright future or easy chances for higher education.

Her parents, thankfully, did their best to raise their offspring. There was no neglect, nor - almost a micrale - substance abuse that wrecked the family. They simply made the best they could out of their situation; Even if this meant that Nola, upon reaching her teens, already had slid a bit onto a slippery slope of a track. The following years had her get involved into being a small-time drug courier in her neighborhood, as well as her performing the occasional theft. Wether her family knew where some of that money of hers came from, or if they simply shut their eyes and took it as part of life was up for grabs - she thankfully never was busted on the drug-trafficing - although she, over the next years, gained drug possession and petty theft on her criminal record. Which is, looking back, not the worst nor most socially stigmatized thing she could have gotten busted for. The money had to come from somewhere, somehow.

But thus, the gates to a careeer finally shut for good.
It's almost a miracle that things didn't turn into more of a downward spiral, but it was perhaps Nola's spark of a live of life deep inside her that kept her looking for more and brighter things. She always was a physically fit girl, with most of her hobbies revolving around common sports among her teen peers - basketball, dancing the skiprope, and her just not being the type of person to just sit around for long. Mixed with her personal interest in afro-american history not just of her own people but in general, she soon learned aobut senegalese native dances, and the progression that black music and dance had made into the US over the last century. People like Pearl Primus, Katherine Dunham and Josephine Baker became her idols, and Nola set her eyes on the big stage. A pipe dream, of course - but it's her energy and those dreams that kept her one of the most positive forces in her own life.

San Francisco, thankfully, was good grounds to get her started - And Nola's physical prowess, combined with an amazing flexibility and sense of balance made her stand out in small-time auditions and introductions to afro-american dance troupes. She began showing her skills on small stages and small acts on festivals, and her determination and relentless training slowly but surely gave her a more steady - and legal - income.

Despite that, the seasonal dependency on festivals and the ever changing climate of San Francisco's smalltime clubs forced her ever so often to look for alternative ways of income at times - and with her current and past skills, she had at times to make due with dancing a pole instead of gaining applause on a more traditional stage. But Nola's spirit remains unbroken.