With only an old photograph and her grandfather’s birth certificate, Janine Berridge walked the dusty, unfamiliar streets of Gambia to find the family she had never met.
She traveled to Gambia to find where her grandfather came from as a stowaway on a ship.
Her grandfather, Ebrahim “Dodou” N’jie, was 20 or 21 years old when he snuck on a ship leaving Gambia in 1948 to go to work in the steel mines in Liverpool, England.
Growing up, Berridge, a graduate student in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, was very close to her grandfather.
“(My grandfather) used to say I was his favorite, and I would say he can’t say that,” Berridge said.
Dodou told her that she was his mother reincarnated and would write “Dear mom” in his letters, Berridge said.
Their strong bond led her to try and learn more about his life and her cultural background.
“I don’t know where it came from, but you could tell there was something very special about them,” said her mother, Jean Berridge. “That is why Janine took it upon herself to find out where he lived.”
Janine Berridge was born in Wales – thousands of miles away from her grandfather’s home country of Gambia.
Dodou died of lung cancer when she was 12 years old. After hearing stories of Gambia when she was young, Berridge realized that once he passed, there was no one she could go to to learn about her heritage.
After studying at Cardiff University, she journeyed from Thailand to New Zealand for her work with a community service organization for five years, which gave her the confidence to travel to Gambia.
But she was still terrified about what awaited her there.
“I wasn’t scared of the travel, I was scared of my story and what I might find,” Berridge said. “If I would find family, if they knew about us, would they want to see us, why we haven’t kept in contact. Our relationships broke down once (my) grandfather died.”
Once Berridge arrived in Gambia, she went to a records office to find her grandfather’s original birth certificate. Though it was difficult, a clerk found the original record in the archives.
Armed with the name of the street her grandfather was born on, Berridge took her search door to door.
At the third house she approached, a woman who was well dressed welcomed her inside.
The residents in the home were having a memorial service, even though she didn’t know at the time. As she began to tell the women her story, she broke down.
“They welcomed me in, gave me food and water and didn’t even know why I was there. … The woman who just lost her husband was comforting me,” Berridge said.
The women in the home were invested in her story and once Berridge showed them the old picture she had carried all over the country, one of them recognized someone in the photo.
One of the women from the funeral took Berridge outside and pointed at her relative from the photograph walking down the street.
The woman leading her outside whispered the news into her newly-found family’s ear. Her relative started to cry and say her grandfather’s nickname, Dodou. She took Berridge into her compound and showed her a photo from her grandfather’s youth.
The woman was her grandfather’s first cousin, who Berridge now calls Grandma Rohey. Berridge was introduced to Grandma Rohey’s side of the family and learned that she had a cousin living in Manchester, England.
Berridge said she first felt apprehensive about how she would be perceived by her grandfather’s family, but was surprised at the warm welcome.
“They said, ‘We welcome you not just as a woman from the west, but as a woman from West Africa,'” Berridge said. “It really made me get emotional about my heritage.”
When Berridge called home to tell her family the news, they couldn’t believe it.
“It was through her that I had a connection to my father’s family, which I never dreamed would happen,” Jean Berridge said.
Janine Berridge stayed with a friend, Georgia Burford, while she was looking for her family.
Being in a small country like Gambia was helpful when she was trying to find her distant family, Burford said. In the U.S. or U.K., it would have been much more difficult to find a relative going door to door.
At first Berridge’s family had reservations about her traveling to Gambia, but Berridge was fixated on going, Burford said.
“I remember her sister saying that she shouldn’t go because the family hadn’t been there, but Janine was curious,” Burford said.
Berridge was able to connect with her cousin in Manchester, England and said she remains close to her family in Gambia.
Now, five years after her trip, Berridge is studying public policy at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her heart is set on traveling and helping develop communities, she said.
After graduating from UCLA, Berridge said she plans on living all over the world with her husband, going from Africa to Malaysia and eventually settling in the U.K. to be with her family.
Conquering her fear of the unknown marked her drive to find her family.
In one Gambian restaurant, Berridge said she found a sign that read: “Don’t let fear get in the way of your dreams.” Since then, that is how she has lived her life.
“You have to know your own appetite for risk,” Berridge said. “Sometimes things don’t work out, but at least you tried and at least you were not afraid.”