An African Heart!!

             Fatimah is a young orphan girl in her home of Dakar, in the West African nation of Senegal. Her parents died in the civil war when she was just nine years old. She has to live with her uncle and his wife. They are abusive to her and make her work as a maid for their household and also other people as well. They even make her sell her body at times when they really need the money. Despite all that chaos, Fatimah has dreams.

She dreams of one day coming to the United States to study to be a dancer. Sometimes at night, when she is in her room all alone, she will dance in the moonlight from the window, and then she will lay on her bed and cry herself to sleep. She has secretly been saving money for three years to leave her uncle’s house. One day, she wakes up and realizes that she has enough money to go to America and study dance at the prestigious New York School of Performing Arts in downtown Manhattan! She buys a plane ticket and leaves the next day. She is only sixteen.

She arrives in New York and finds a job as a waitress at a small café in downtown Manhattan. At first, she has to live in a homeless shelter, but she saves enough money to rent a tiny room downtown. Sometimes, she sneaks onto Broadway and looks at all the famous dancers, and dreams one day that that will be her. She starts school the next semester. She has no friends at first, but eventually a young dance student, who works at the college, named Alexander befriends her. Alexander is one of the best dancers in the school, and everyone thinks that he will be an internationally famous dancer one day.

Fatimah is a shy student at first. However, she comes out of her shell. Her instructors and fellow classmates see that she has real talent! She and Alexander begin to get closer, and they fall in Love! Alexander is dancing one day, in a big rehearsal, and he falls and breaks his leg! The doctors tell him that he will never dance again! Meanwhile, Fatimah’s career is skyrocketing. She begins to get jobs on Broadway and starts to make good money. In another year, she gains international fame, and this causes her uncle and his wife to hear about her from Africa. They tried to come to America and take control over her. They were planning to tell the school her real age (sixteen) and try to get custody of her so they can get her money. Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t have the visa.

Alexander becomes extremely sad. His dream to become an international dancer was over. He feels like his dreams have been stolen by the woman he loves. As time goes on Alexander becomes more and more irritated, harder to get along with, to an extent that Fatimah has to choose between her career and the man of her dreams. After serious thoughts, she decides to put her career on hold and help Alexander to overcome his injuries. After all Alexander has always been there for her and it is never late to make money.  She stayed one year out of work, taking care of her “baby”. Because of Fatimah’s unconditional support, Alexander decided to change his career to a Business manager. One year later, Alexander opened his own dance studio for handicapped children. Alexander’s injuries not only kept him away from his dreams but also made him handicapped. But no matter what, Fatimah always stands by his side, her one year break ends up being the end of her career at Broadway and the beginning of an unconditional support for her Alexander. What would one not do out of love?