WESTLAKE, Texas — Everywhere you go, everyone you meet has a story. But few have a story like the Austin woman you're about to meet.
In the search for happiness, a lot of people seem to think the recipe calls for more.
But take a look at the happiest people, and you'll wonder if maybe the recipe is less.
"I wake up in the morning, and I have bread," Austin resident Fatima Barry said.
She doesn't need a lot because she has been through a lot, especially during her childhood growing up in West Africa.
"Oh, it was very tough," the Central Texas woman said as she sat on a balcony in Westlake, overlooking the city of Austin. This is where she works as a caregiver.
Barry lost her mother when she was two years old. As a child, one of her many jobs was to guide her blind grandmother on the hour-long trip back to her village.
"It was not easy," she said.
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One of those walks still haunts her.
"I was so afraid," she said.
It was near midnight, and she could "hear the animals screaming." The trail they were following came to a dead end.
"We were completely lost," she said.
She was just six years old.
"Please," she prayed at the time, "I don't want to die like this. I don't want to end up here."
After that night, her father decided to send Barry away from home to be raised by a friend's family, while the single dad went out to try and find work.
"That's the last time I saw him," Barry said.
She wouldn't find out until years later that he had gotten a tooth infection and died from a lack of medical care.
By the time she was 13, the family she was living with sent her to visit one of their children, who was living in Texas.
"The vacation was [supposed to be] for six months," Barry said with a smile.
But during that time, she made a discovery.
"In America, you can have any bread you want," she said.
Bread, it turns out, is her favorite food.
"I know I was not going to go back," she said. "That's the truth."
PHOTOS: Fatima Barry's pictures from Africa and Austin
Barry has never forgotten her home. Every paycheck, she sends money back to Africa to feed her family.
"I make sure they have food on the table," she said.
But there's still one ingredient missing: clean drinking water – something her village has never had.
She decided to raise the $3,000 needed to dig a well by cooking up a book. "My Early Life" tells the true story of Barry's struggles.
"That's the story who make me cry every day," she read the book through tears. "But I'm still here."
Today, Barry continues working on that recipe for a better life, whether it's in Westlake or West Africa.
You can check out her book at the Austin Public Library, but if you'd like to help her raise money, you can buy her book online.