On 8 October 1961, Gali was born in the Chadian capital of N'Djamena, the second of sixteen children of parents from the Southern Chadian Sara-speaking clans. She was brought up in the poor N'Djamena neighbourhood of Ridina. Gali's interest in education was supported by both of her parents and went to secondary school at the Lycée Feminin before she was expelled for playing a prank on a French teacher. She moved to another high school and finished her studying there. When she was 18 years old, she became a mother out of wedlock to a man she later married and then divorced; Gali escaped to the south as a result of the Chadian Civil War.