"Salaam, Fatou, Jummah Mubarak, gorgeous, how are you doing?" Nagla Massoud whispered into Fatouma Kandeh's ear, and the six-foot-tall, brown-skinned, Afro-sporting young African Muslim woman turned around and smiled. Standing at the cash, waiting on slow-moving, short-tempered and often foul-mouthed customers to drop their crap on the counter so she could scan it and process the transaction got boring fast, and after six hours of this, Fatouma might as well be on autopilot. And then Nagla finally came...
Fatouma's lovely brown eyes sparkled with a special light that always came into them whenever her darling Nagla was near. Never mind that this had been a particularly tiresome day at the Walmart Supercenter where they both worked. To Fatouma, Nagla's comforting presence was as welcome as the sun clearing through a cloudy sky...and then some.
For Nagla, the day started out stressful enough. Rent was due and after paying it, she barely had enough for groceries and a few other things. Oh, and there was also the fact that some construction crew was blasting and drilling in the wee hours of the morning in her neighborhood. Nagla worked ten-hour days and usually got home late at night, so this just wouldn't do. Still, the young woman forgot about all her problems when her sweetie smiled at her.
"Better, now that you're here, sweetie," Fatouma replied, and Nagla nodded and grinned. Even clad in a blue work shirt and Black Yoga pants, Fatouma looked absolutely gorgeous. Born in the City of Banjul, Gambia, to a Gambian Muslim father and a Mauritanian mother, Fatouma is the daughter of two unique worlds. A newcomer to Ottawa, the young African Muslim woman was studying business at Algonquin College while working part-time as a cashier at Walmart to make ends meet...
"Come see me during your break, let's do lunch at Thai Express," Nagla suggested, and Fatouma smiled and winked at her. Nagla smiled and winked back, and then resumed her duties as a customer service manager. She'd been working at this Walmart, located in a particularly sketchy corner of the City of Ottawa, Ontario, for six years now. The place absolutely sucked, but lately, Nagla didn't mind the dreary routine as much. The reason why? The lovely and feisty Fatouma, she of the enchanting smile and amazing derriere...
Born in the City of Kunduz, Afghanistan, and raised in the Capital region of Canada, Nagla Massoud is, by all counts, a woman of mystery. Just under six feet tall, with light bronze skin and simmering dark brown eyes, her raven hair almost always tucked away under her collection of brightly colored Hijabs, Nagla is fiercely proud of her Afghan heritage and Islamic faith. Yet she's very much a woman of the world.
Educated in accounting at the University of Ottawa, Nagla Massoud is smart, ambitious and driven, yet circumstances have forced her into a line of work far beneath her formidable intellectual capabilities. Being a customer service manager at Walmart was not what Nagla spent years at the University of Ottawa for. In the City of Ottawa, Ontario, there's a pecking order. Middle-aged White people get all the professional jobs, followed by young White people, and in the name of diversity they allow a sprinkling of minorities.
It wasn't easy being a Hijab-wearing young Muslim woman in the City of Ottawa, and Nagla Massoud knew that upholding her faith by wearing the hijab probably hindered her prospects when she looked for jobs in her field of study. Nagla saw the way the other women in the wait rooms of various job interview spots and office staffing solutions looked at her. With a mixture of surprise and pity. All of these young women knew that Nagla wouldn't get hired because outward displays of her Islamic faith made White Canadians uncomfortable.
