"When I came to Catalonia at the age of fourteen, I barely knew my parents."

Babou Cham (Gambia, 1974) is a theater, film, and television actor. He can currently be seen on tour in The storm, from the company La Perla 29, on February 28 in Manacor, on March 6 in Reus, on March 14 in Tarragona and on March 15 in Igualada.

When he was three years old, his father left for England, but stopped halfway, in Mataró. "He was going to study in England, but he stayed temporarily in the Maresme region and started helping other people who were also coming here, and many of them did make it to England, and some to Sweden and Denmark."

Then Babou Cham's mother came with two children. "I was the youngest. When my mother came, after a while, my older brother came, and then my sister; they were eight or nine years old." He didn't come to Catalonia until he was 14. "I stayed with my grandmother. Since I was a good student, they didn't want to interrupt my studies," he explains.

He comes from a family of carpenters. "The concept of family in Gambia is very broad. My biological family are blacksmiths and jewelers, a family with a long tradition. But I grew up from the age of three in the home of my uncle, who is a carpenter. I worked in his workshop, helping the community make tables and chairs for the school..."

Ens. "I wanted to go further afield, but I came to Mataró because I barely knew my parents. I hadn't lived with them. And we decided that I would spend the summer here and then go to live with my uncle in Denmark, because there I could continue studying in English, as I did in Gambia."

But he also stayed there. "At first it was like an adventure. I met the younger siblings who had been born here." And what did he find most different? "What surprised me most was that there was a lot of indoor life at home and less time spent outside. Families were isolated. I had the feeling that there was very little sense of community, because obviously I compared it to what I knew. And when winter came, it was great fun for me, because I had never been cold like that."

First, he spent a few months at home, not going to school, studying Spanish and Catalan with his younger siblings. "At home there was a mix of languages; my parents tried to speak Mandinka, but it was very mixed up with Spanish, Catalan, and English words..."

Then he went to study at the Menéndez Pelayo school in Mataró. "They put me in a reception class, and I started studying language." He liked the school. "But it was very frustrating because I came from Gambia, where I was an excellent student, I had gotten one of the best grades in the whole country. And there I felt like I wasn't up to par."

Medical vocation

He comes from a working-class family. "His father in Gambia was an aircraft and ship engine mechanic. He wanted to study engineering, but he had to pay the rent. Here, he first worked in the fields and greenhouses of Maresme, but then he did all sorts of jobs." And his mother "was an administrative worker, but here she managed local businesses." "We've always had some kind of neighborhood business, like a clothing workshop."

As a child, he dreamed of being a doctor. "In Gambia, at school, I did some informational plays about illnesses or precautions. I played the doctor who explained things; I wasn't aware that I was acting. I wanted to be a surgeon," he recalls.

Here he discovered theater. "My older brother did the play Black people, by Jean Genet. And from there he went to the Flotats company, but he was clear that he wouldn't dedicate himself to it." And then his opportunity came. "Through him I went to a rehearsal because they were looking for Black actors and actresses and almost my whole family went. And I liked it a lot. Everyone who brought me left and I stayed, and I ended up starring in that play."