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Book Club: The Sea Cloak · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Sanny and Samantha and come with Steffan
0:07
Speaker 1: never told your production if I heard radio.
0:18
Speaker 2: And we are doing our month the book club. Yay.
0:23
Speaker 2: We have chosen a short story collection and it is
0:26
Speaker 2: by a Palacitian activist and writer, Nauru's Karmat, titled The
0:31
Speaker 2: Sea Cloak, and if you have an opportunity to read it,
0:34
Speaker 2: you should is it is a very short but heavy read.
0:37
Speaker 2: Speaking of which content warning there is mentioned of rape, definitely, death, war, colonization,
0:43
Speaker 2: and genocide. And though the stories are short, the book
0:46
Speaker 2: itself is less than eighty pages, the words are profound
0:50
Speaker 2: and powerful. There are some stories that had to be
0:53
Speaker 2: read by me a couple of times for me to
0:56
Speaker 2: get the depth and the meaning behind it. I even
0:58
Speaker 2: had to see some research still didn't quite get a
1:00
Speaker 2: lot of some of it. Rather, and speaking of which
1:03
Speaker 2: being completely transparent, there's a lot of things I do
1:07
Speaker 2: not know about the Palestinian culture or even the area.
1:11
Speaker 2: I do know the gist of it, and it was
1:13
Speaker 2: not so long ago that I even began to understand
1:16
Speaker 2: the depths of what is happening in the Gaza area.
1:21
Speaker 2: So some of the contexts in the stories were unfamiliar
1:24
Speaker 2: to me, but it is still a powerful story and
1:27
Speaker 2: the conversation of not only the state of what is
1:29
Speaker 2: happening there and the match gen aside and displacement, but
1:33
Speaker 2: also the need for gender equality and protection. Just also.
1:36
Speaker 2: This book was published in twenty nineteen, and yes it
1:39
Speaker 2: has won several awards. It is also a translation, so
1:45
Speaker 2: with that translation, much like our feminists around the world,
1:50
Speaker 2: we're going to try our best with pronunciations. There are
1:52
Speaker 2: gonna be mistakes that we make, probably some romanization, English
1:56
Speaker 2: translations and pronunciations that it is not completly correct. If
2:02
Speaker 2: you are understand the correct pronunciation or of those origins
2:08
Speaker 2: and you want to correct us nicely, that would be lovely,
2:11
Speaker 2: just so you know.
2:12
Speaker 3: So.
2:14
Speaker 2: But yes, there's a lot happening, and of course we
2:17
Speaker 2: always want to highlight those who have been working to
2:21
Speaker 2: create change and speak out, and this is one of
2:24
Speaker 2: those books that does talk about a lot of the
2:27
Speaker 2: ins and outs and the ugliness of what is happening there.
2:30
Speaker 2: And by the way, here's a bit about the author,
2:34
Speaker 2: Karmat herself from the Comic Press, which is what the
2:37
Speaker 2: press that was used for the book. The release of
2:39
Speaker 2: the book, Naarus Karmat is a Palestinian writer and activist.
2:44
Speaker 2: Born in Damascus in nineteen eighty four as a Palestinian refugee,
2:48
Speaker 2: She returned to the Gaza Strip as part of the
2:51
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four Israeli Palestinian Peace Agreement, where she now lives.
2:57
Speaker 2: I don't know how dated this is, so she gradual
3:00
Speaker 2: weight from Alizar University in Gaza with a degree in economics.
3:05
Speaker 2: She at the time of this publishing worked in the
3:09
Speaker 2: Ministry of Women's Affairs, raising awareness of gender issues and
3:14
Speaker 2: promoting the political and economic role of women in policy
3:17
Speaker 2: and law, as well as the defense of women from
3:20
Speaker 2: abuse and highlighting the role of women's issues in the media.
3:24
Speaker 2: Her political, social and literary articles have appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines,
3:29
Speaker 2: and online. She has also written screenplays for several short
3:33
Speaker 2: films dealing with women's rights. She's a social activist and
3:36
Speaker 2: a member of several youth initiatives campaigning for social change
3:40
Speaker 2: in Palestine. I don't know where she's at today. I
3:43
Speaker 2: think she does have some social media, so not sure
3:46
Speaker 2: what she's up to with what is happening since she
3:49
Speaker 2: was a resident of that area. So we'll look into
3:52
Speaker 2: that later. So for this we are going to go
3:56
Speaker 2: story by story, as each story as an independent, unique tale,
4:00
Speaker 2: with a small excerpt of each story if we can find,
4:03
Speaker 2: and some of them are so small and so just intense,
4:06
Speaker 2: we might not have one. We'll just give a brief
4:08
Speaker 2: explainer and then we'll discuss the themes as we go.
4:11
Speaker 2: So per book, we'll discuss about it because obviously we
4:14
Speaker 2: can tie it all together at the end, and we
4:16
Speaker 2: probably will, but with short stories, we'd like to give
4:20
Speaker 2: attention to each one. So we are going to start
4:22
Speaker 2: with the first story, The Sea Cloak, which is the
4:25
Speaker 2: title of the actual book, and the story is of
4:29
Speaker 2: a young woman going with her family to the beach
4:32
Speaker 2: and she nearly drowns because of the amount of clothing
4:35
Speaker 2: that binds her in the water, but it's rescued by
4:38
Speaker 2: a stranger. Here they look at not only the implications
4:42
Speaker 2: of what the women and the young girls have to wear,
4:44
Speaker 2: but her interactions with boys in general, in which she
4:47
Speaker 2: is chastised at the beginning of the story for flirting
4:50
Speaker 2: with a young boy intent because she was chastised in
4:55
Speaker 2: she is afraid of being chastised again after being touched
4:58
Speaker 2: by the man who rescued her from drowning, which he
5:01
Speaker 2: doesn't get chastised. He gets thank you, thank you so much,
5:04
Speaker 2: rather for rescuing her. But it is an interesting interaction
5:09
Speaker 2: between her mind and figuring out, oh God, did I
5:11
Speaker 2: do something wrong versus her life essentially right. And here's
5:18
Speaker 2: a quote from the story that is just the way
5:20
Speaker 2: Gaza is a young girl yet to learn the art
5:23
Speaker 2: of elegance, a young girl who has not yet developed
5:27
Speaker 2: her own scent, and is still willingly or not perfumed
5:30
Speaker 2: by all around her. And in that context, she's talking
5:34
Speaker 2: about being affected by the culture, by ideals and traditions
5:39
Speaker 2: and rules of the place, as well as the five
5:41
Speaker 2: people's own assumptions of her. I thought it was very pretty.
5:46
Speaker 2: The entire book is beautiful, just fy, and very poetic
5:49
Speaker 2: and sometimes really very deeply thought provoking, which meaning like
5:54
Speaker 2: what did that just say? Type of level and I've
5:59
Speaker 2: had to backtrack what just happened? Here's another quote. She
6:02
Speaker 2: drifted toward it, carried like a mermaid by the breeze,
6:05
Speaker 2: her thoughts entirely immersed in the ways before her time
6:09
Speaker 2: was stealing her steps away, and the sea, without her realizing,
6:13
Speaker 2: had already snuck into her memory, and it was just
6:15
Speaker 2: such a vivid line about how memories are created in
6:19
Speaker 2: that moment and you know when you are they're just
6:22
Speaker 2: like this is going to be one of those things
6:23
Speaker 2: I think gone forever. And it was a gorgeous like
6:28
Speaker 2: look as well as like right before oh my god,
6:30
Speaker 2: I think I might die a moment for her.
6:33
Speaker 1: Yeah. I found that a lot of the so much
6:38
Speaker 1: of the environment was described so well, and so much
6:40
Speaker 1: of the water specifically to see the feeling of the sea,
6:43
Speaker 1: even if you're not necessarily near it, but just like
6:46
Speaker 1: this in the air, you can feel it.
6:52
Speaker 2: The oughts.
6:52
Speaker 1: That really painted a great picture of the area, the environment,
6:58
Speaker 1: and that shone through in that one. The next story
7:00
Speaker 1: is called Black Grapes, and this is about a friendship
7:03
Speaker 1: between a Palestinian and a Jewish settler. A man is
7:08
Speaker 1: trying to provide for his family, including his mother, who
7:10
Speaker 1: owns a land with grapes growing on it, but it's
7:13
Speaker 1: not really doing well, so he works for a man
7:15
Speaker 1: named David, who defends him against others that insult him.
7:20
Speaker 1: His name is Hammood, but after a small argument over
7:23
Speaker 1: wages in labor is overheard by a bystander, kind of
7:27
Speaker 1: an annoyed bystander outside Hamoud is shot after someone called
7:32
Speaker 1: in saying that he was a terrorist. And that one's
7:37
Speaker 1: sort of a circular, like you start at the end
7:39
Speaker 1: and then get the painting of what led up to
7:42
Speaker 1: that moment. And yeah, it was upsetting because they at
7:46
Speaker 1: least had somewhat of an amicable relationship and then this
7:52
Speaker 1: guy was just annoyed and called in. I mean, he
7:55
Speaker 1: did overhear some stuff, but he definitely was like annoyed
7:58
Speaker 1: and called in.
7:58
Speaker 2: He took an opportunity. But the kind of the bigger
8:02
Speaker 2: theme of that, and I think one of the things
8:04
Speaker 2: she was leaking to was the power that the Jewish
8:10
Speaker 2: settler had. David had over the situation just because he
8:14
Speaker 2: said the word terrorist and that was enough to get
8:16
Speaker 2: him killed without any other conversations. And then of course
8:20
Speaker 2: he regrets it and literally like screams, we were just
8:25
Speaker 2: he he didn't get paid, That's all he kept saying
8:28
Speaker 2: in his heartbreaking because you know, the father's loss and
8:31
Speaker 2: the mother. We left a lot of this out because
8:33
Speaker 2: it's such a such a suisting story that it was
8:36
Speaker 2: just a lot, but like talking about trying to take
8:38
Speaker 2: care of the mother, her mother refusing to give up
8:40
Speaker 2: the land even though David really is trying to get
8:42
Speaker 2: that land. And then that's kind of a big implication
8:45
Speaker 2: of the story in general, between the Jewish settlers and
8:50
Speaker 2: then some of the people who come through that area
8:54
Speaker 2: versus the Palestinians who lived there. So yeah, definitely a lot.
9:00
Speaker 2: The next story is the Mirror. We see a woman
9:03
Speaker 2: named Laila and her niece Dahlia pretending to watch TV.
9:08
Speaker 2: And this is again one of those that had to
9:09
Speaker 2: come back and read twice because I was like, what
9:11
Speaker 2: just happened? Pretending to watch TV in a mirror with
9:14
Speaker 2: a key fob. I'm thinking they're at a refugee camp.
9:18
Speaker 2: I can't quite grasp what's happening because it's not or
9:21
Speaker 2: just a ruined, desolate building. And so they sit pretending
9:26
Speaker 2: to watch TV. The niece gets excited tries to get
9:29
Speaker 2: her aunt to come down, and which y'all, yeah, obviously
9:33
Speaker 2: my hard hearts. But as the young niece is using
9:36
Speaker 2: her imagination to remember her favorite TV show and character,
9:40
Speaker 2: we read have a throwback to a harrowing incident of
9:44
Speaker 2: Laila being raped as a child and her trying to
9:46
Speaker 2: protect her herself and her niece from that type of
9:49
Speaker 2: darkness in general. During the time of the incident, Leila
9:54
Speaker 2: had her own favorite character, much like Dahlia, and she
9:58
Speaker 2: used her favorite character as a way to protect her.
10:00
Speaker 2: And here's a quote she remains afraid of. That's their case,
10:03
Speaker 2: her entire life. She has nightmares for many years about
10:06
Speaker 2: the shadow that can make hands appear out of nowhere,
10:08
Speaker 2: grabbing her. But she always kept Lady close, Lady who
10:13
Speaker 2: runs through green orchards. She remains Leilah's favorite cartoon character
10:17
Speaker 2: even into adulthood. In nightmares, she too runs for the
10:21
Speaker 2: comfort of those green meadows, keeping the sunlight on her
10:23
Speaker 2: face rather than darkness.
10:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that one was really powerful too, because I've
10:29
Speaker 1: spoken about that before too, about using fictional characters to
10:33
Speaker 1: get through dark stuff. So that one was really moving
10:37
Speaker 1: and painful. The next one is called the Pen in
10:51
Speaker 1: the Notebook, and this one we see three brothers, am
10:55
Speaker 1: Asad and Adam, who travel with their donkey and kart
10:58
Speaker 1: to collect rocks to sell for the day. And here
11:01
Speaker 1: we witness the daily lives that the brothers trying to
11:03
Speaker 1: help their family. Carmott does a beautiful job showing their
11:07
Speaker 1: life as they travel through the town and then back
11:10
Speaker 1: into their home, and she ends the story in a
11:12
Speaker 1: way that shows how the warmth can be felt with
11:16
Speaker 1: their family. And here's a quote about that the warmth
11:19
Speaker 1: of her body seemed to restore them from the chill
11:22
Speaker 1: that had crept in since that evening sun had set.
11:25
Speaker 1: I am withdrew the crumpled twenty shekel note from his
11:28
Speaker 1: trouser pocket and placed it in his mother's hand. Her
11:32
Speaker 1: eyes glistened, and he gave her a kiss on the forehead.
11:34
Speaker 1: Of the four shekels that remained, he gave two each
11:37
Speaker 1: to his brothers. Don't forget what I told you. Buy
11:40
Speaker 1: a notebook and a pen so you can learn to
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Speaker 1: write like me, he said, in his most paternal voice.
11:46
Speaker 2: And obviously this is kind of I think this is
11:48
Speaker 2: a theme in general about the fact that the young
11:51
Speaker 2: children are having to play parents and caregivers. The father
11:55
Speaker 2: had gotten shot by what they say, is in a
11:57
Speaker 2: more American bullet and is paralyzed in bedridden, and so
12:01
Speaker 2: he's taking care of all of them. But one of
12:03
Speaker 2: the most important things that he teaches them is to write.
12:06
Speaker 2: That they need to read and write. Yeah, so I
12:08
Speaker 2: think that in itself has its own big themes.
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Speaker 1: Yes, that is definitely throughout. I would say children are
12:15
Speaker 1: present in most of these, if not all of these.
12:18
Speaker 2: Right as we know, the majority at least, like they said,
12:23
Speaker 2: forty six if not more percent are children. Not sure
12:28
Speaker 2: the numbers now? Then the next story is the White Lilies,
12:32
Speaker 2: and the story begins with an exchange between the flower
12:35
Speaker 2: shop assistant and a man with a thick French accent
12:39
Speaker 2: talking about the area and about flowers for Mother's Day,
12:42
Speaker 2: and the flower shop assistant tells him white lilies are
12:45
Speaker 2: for Mother's Day and he buys, and the frenchman buys
12:48
Speaker 2: that and leaves. Later, we find out that the flower
12:50
Speaker 2: shop assistant is an orphan teenage boy named Ali who
12:53
Speaker 2: finds out that his neighbor just had a daughter, and
12:56
Speaker 2: he suggests naming her Zara, which they do. Zara is
13:01
Speaker 2: like a daughter to Ali and has been uh and
13:03
Speaker 2: he has been a part of her life. She's a
13:05
Speaker 2: sweet child who we are introduced to officially when she
13:09
Speaker 2: talks about mosquitoes that often bother her hearing and while
13:13
Speaker 2: she's studying, and how these mosquitoes can launch rockets as
13:17
Speaker 2: well as pesticides to quote unquote help the plants, and
13:20
Speaker 2: then we in this conversation to talk about drones as
13:22
Speaker 2: well as part of the mosquitoes. Her father tries to
13:26
Speaker 2: reassure her that they don't do the rockets, they're just
13:29
Speaker 2: there to help plants, and she is sent off to
13:32
Speaker 2: school reassured, where she waits for Ali. Ali is heading
13:35
Speaker 2: to the school to give her a white lily for
13:37
Speaker 2: Mother's Day. All the while, a man with a thick
13:40
Speaker 2: French accent that works for the military is order to
13:44
Speaker 2: neutralize the target after hearing the phrase the lilies have blossomed.
13:48
Speaker 2: Ali is time and then we soon read Ali is blasted, slash,
13:53
Speaker 2: knocked down and killed in front of Zara, who gets
13:56
Speaker 2: a part of that blast as well. But she I
13:59
Speaker 2: guess is okay, who had been waiting for him to
14:02
Speaker 2: arrive in front of the school the entire time.
14:07
Speaker 1: Yep. And then the next story is called Our Milk.
14:12
Speaker 1: We learn of two different instances, one occurring in nineteen
14:15
Speaker 1: forty six and another in two thousand and one. The
14:18
Speaker 1: scenery begins at an elegant restaurant with a young blond
14:21
Speaker 1: woman waiting for her milk as part of her breakfast,
14:23
Speaker 1: but as she waits, an explosion occurs, killing her and
14:26
Speaker 1: many others. Jump to two thousand and one. A young
14:29
Speaker 1: man is being driven to an area with a ukulele
14:32
Speaker 1: case and a camera bag. He is dropped off downtown
14:35
Speaker 1: at a cafe named Sabarros. There with a young boy
14:39
Speaker 1: and his mom, a worker, and another customer, a bomb
14:41
Speaker 1: goes off, and here is a quote from that. As
14:45
Speaker 1: the kitchen clock ticks noon, the white sauce sprays upwards,
14:49
Speaker 1: mingling for a frozen nanosecond with the red. The little
14:52
Speaker 1: boy with freckles daydreams for the last time about learning
14:54
Speaker 1: the guitar. The old man taps his foot to one
14:57
Speaker 1: last beat. The woman with the long legs takes her
15:01
Speaker 1: last sip of orange juice. In a tornado of spaghetti
15:03
Speaker 1: and wood and stone. Tables fly and the roof collapses.
15:07
Speaker 1: Blood and bone are scattered in the dust of the
15:10
Speaker 1: young man's curious gaze. Nothing remains.
15:15
Speaker 2: Yes, now, the beginning scene really does make you think
15:20
Speaker 2: of I guess it was before the official colonization slash
15:28
Speaker 2: displacement in that area, but still obviously socioeconomic divide with
15:35
Speaker 2: the whole like waiting for milk being really annoyed, waiting
15:38
Speaker 2: for that milk, which was a luxury at that time,
15:41
Speaker 2: to her being bombed. And then it flipped into the
15:47
Speaker 2: incident in which the journalists who had been reporting all
15:51
Speaker 2: these horrific things finally joins the cause. Slash joins the
15:55
Speaker 2: fight and delivers the young teenage boy to bomb the Saborrows,
16:01
Speaker 2: which I'm guessing it's the piece of place. Says they
16:04
Speaker 2: do discuisse pizza and Italian food, So it sounds like
16:07
Speaker 2: maybe a connotation about yeah, English or Americanized restaurants.
16:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but also just kind of that mirror of
16:22
Speaker 1: like time of like this instance in this sistance and
16:25
Speaker 1: how they kind of reflect each other.
16:30
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah. Then we have fourteenth of June or
16:35
Speaker 2: June fourteenth. So here's a quote about the date. That
16:39
Speaker 2: is the title, so it says the back as a note,
16:43
Speaker 2: the title refers to fourteen June two thousand and seven,
16:46
Speaker 2: the day in which Palestinian President Mamouda Boss announced the
16:49
Speaker 2: dissolution of the Unity government and declared a state of emergency.
16:53
Speaker 2: It occurred at the height of a Battle of Gaza,
16:56
Speaker 2: also referred to as Hama's takeover of Gaza, which was
17:00
Speaker 2: June tentheenth in two thousand and seven, which followed FATA
17:05
Speaker 2: losing the parliamentary elections of two thousand and six. Harmas
17:09
Speaker 2: fighters took control of the Gaza Strip and removed FATA
17:12
Speaker 2: officials from the political and administrative positions, resulting in the
17:16
Speaker 2: defective division of the Palestinian territories into two entities, the
17:20
Speaker 2: West Bank governed by the Postinian National Authority and Gaza
17:24
Speaker 2: governed by Hamas. And The story follows a family watching
17:27
Speaker 2: the chaos happening around them as the city grapples with
17:32
Speaker 2: the current state, trying to remain safe from protecting their homes,
17:36
Speaker 2: we see the mother trying to find her husband as
17:38
Speaker 2: well as trying to protect the daughters. An uncle involved. Somehow,
17:43
Speaker 2: it did a double take on that, so I was
17:45
Speaker 2: kind of confused. Here's quote, images flashed through her mind
17:48
Speaker 2: like lightning, and this is I think this is the
17:51
Speaker 2: perspective of a daughter. How many times has she jumped
17:54
Speaker 2: out of bed thinking that a bullet has punctured her window?
17:57
Speaker 2: How many times have she and her sister thrown themselves
18:00
Speaker 2: into their mother's arms or huddle together at the foot
18:02
Speaker 2: of the bed on hearing an RPG mortar screeching towards
18:06
Speaker 2: the building on the square, and that's kind of the
18:09
Speaker 2: chaos that is happening, as well as men coming in
18:11
Speaker 2: and taking over places as well as stealing things. But
18:16
Speaker 2: she's able to hold tight. She's able to keep our
18:19
Speaker 2: family fed, and she's able to hail her hair from
18:21
Speaker 2: our husband to know that he's alive.
18:26
Speaker 1: The next story is called The Long Braid, which is
18:28
Speaker 1: about a young lady who is proud and outspoken, even
18:31
Speaker 1: if she is scared or nervous. She loves to sing
18:33
Speaker 1: and dance and is willing to stand up against those
18:36
Speaker 1: who try to shame her for that. Here is a
18:39
Speaker 1: quote This triggers in turn something else, and she feels
18:43
Speaker 1: tears stinging her eyes, like the ones she tried so
18:45
Speaker 1: desperately not to shed that day she was excluded from class.
18:49
Speaker 1: With each new sting, she writes down another word on
18:51
Speaker 1: a blank page of the notebook, a word that describes
18:54
Speaker 1: her love for her country, a word that stands in
18:57
Speaker 1: defiance of all meaningless symbols her mass teacher on the
19:00
Speaker 1: board that day. This episode might bring tears to her
19:03
Speaker 1: eyes later that night in her room, but she knows
19:06
Speaker 1: she has faced worse than this, like the time he
19:09
Speaker 1: kicked her out of class for standing up to him
19:10
Speaker 1: when he said women who called themselves emancipated were sluts.
19:14
Speaker 1: She is proud of the restraint she showed that day,
19:17
Speaker 1: despite her anger, despite his humiliation of her in front
19:21
Speaker 1: of the other girls. She can feel the same tears
19:24
Speaker 1: prickling her eyes as she felt then tears she refused
19:28
Speaker 1: to shed for his ignorance. She left the classroom that
19:31
Speaker 1: day without giving him another look. The god I know
19:34
Speaker 1: pays no resemblance to the monster you rant about, she
19:36
Speaker 1: says with a smile, and proceeded to skip all the
19:39
Speaker 1: way down the corridor and out into the courtyard of
19:41
Speaker 1: the Zatan Preparatory School for Girls.
19:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was a beautiful story. I think she does
19:48
Speaker 2: a really good job of making these young women or
19:53
Speaker 2: girls really strong. But at the same time that fear
19:57
Speaker 2: that like, you know this, you're so upset that you cry,
20:00
Speaker 2: but you know what you're saying is right, and even
20:03
Speaker 2: though you're crying, you're doing something brave.
20:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, And just feeling that kind of love of
20:11
Speaker 1: school or a love of dance, love of singing or
20:13
Speaker 1: whatever it is, and being told like no, that's wrong,
20:15
Speaker 1: and being like no, I'm good at it.
20:19
Speaker 2: As well as like she loves her country and she's
20:21
Speaker 2: singing and even though some of the old school thought
20:24
Speaker 2: is you shouldn't be doing that as a woman, she's like,
20:26
Speaker 2: but I love doing this and this makes me more proud.
20:31
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot to be said to that
20:32
Speaker 2: as well. It was really good. And of course the
20:36
Speaker 2: long braiden is referencing her hair, so that it's that conversation.
20:41
Speaker 2: She doesn't really talk about the head coverings at all
20:45
Speaker 2: much hajabs or anything, so I'm not really sure if
20:48
Speaker 2: she was implicating that or just like braids in general,
20:52
Speaker 2: but that is that conversation about her hair being shown,
20:56
Speaker 2: and he does make mention of that as well, essentially
20:59
Speaker 2: again calling her a slot for doing such a thing,
21:03
Speaker 2: which I think it was like a powerful statement in
21:06
Speaker 2: that self. And the next story is the Anklet of Mayomas.
21:11
Speaker 2: I hope I'm saying that right. And in this story
21:16
Speaker 2: that threads quote together The Lives a Young Woman. I
21:18
Speaker 2: got this from a review Together the Lives of Young
21:21
Speaker 2: Women across sentries and their parallel desires and all those
21:25
Speaker 2: times and places for love, for freedom, for escape. This
21:29
Speaker 2: is one of those that I had to research because
21:30
Speaker 2: it is a lot. There's a lot to this story
21:33
Speaker 2: that jumps kind of all over the place. Also involves
21:36
Speaker 2: the sea, and we get to have like that moment
21:40
Speaker 2: of like the sand and conversations about what that felt like,
21:43
Speaker 2: the smell of hay, great, great imagery. The story flows
21:48
Speaker 2: as we see tales of love and art as well
21:52
Speaker 2: as loneliness and anger. A young girl dances in a
21:55
Speaker 2: temple and watches as a sculptor works. A young man
21:58
Speaker 2: is working and digging for something we don't know of
22:01
Speaker 2: until the end, with the sea always in the background,
22:05
Speaker 2: patiently waiting with those who are looking or waiting for
22:08
Speaker 2: someone to come. Here's a quote. He remembers his girlfriend's
22:11
Speaker 2: tearful words to him. When am I going to break
22:14
Speaker 2: through that border? When will they give me a permit
22:17
Speaker 2: to come and see you? Other voices crowd his mind,
22:20
Speaker 2: like the sound of his father's voice. You don't have
22:23
Speaker 2: to wait for her to come. You only spent a
22:25
Speaker 2: few days in Gaza. How can you say you're committed
22:27
Speaker 2: to her? The situation has changed, son, They have stopped
22:30
Speaker 2: letting ordinary civilians pass through Arres. Our lives and our
22:34
Speaker 2: work are here. I build the wall, and you build
22:36
Speaker 2: the settlements. Wake up from your daydreams. Boy, there were
22:40
Speaker 2: the other sounds crowded his thoughts as well, sounds he
22:43
Speaker 2: wished he didn't hear, drums and whistles, the clamor of
22:46
Speaker 2: festivities surrounding his eventual wedding to his cousin, So so
22:50
Speaker 2: much happening. And the story ends with him shooting, not him,
22:58
Speaker 2: one of the boy who had been trying today for
22:59
Speaker 2: some things, shooting at a crowd. I say this talked
23:04
Speaker 2: about Israeli couples across the wall and border. So there's
23:08
Speaker 2: a lot, but there's all like this imagery of a
23:10
Speaker 2: woman dancing, a princess dancing with her anklet chiming. And
23:15
Speaker 2: then they compare the noise of the gunshot to the
23:17
Speaker 2: chiming of anklets. So yes, a lot there.
23:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again these are very short, like you, it's
23:25
Speaker 1: it's a lot that uh yes, has managed to get
23:31
Speaker 1: across in like literally some of these stories are three pages. Maybe,
23:37
Speaker 1: so you really gotta you gotta pay attention. Yeah, in
23:41
Speaker 1: a good way. It's great, Like the imagery is amazing,
23:44
Speaker 1: it's really really powerful, but you do, you really gotta focus.
24:02
Speaker 1: The next story is called Breastfeeding. This is the story
24:05
Speaker 1: of a mother and daughter. Mother Yara dreams of continuing
24:09
Speaker 1: her education and going to school in Cairo, but at
24:11
Speaker 1: the age of thirteen, is told that she would be
24:14
Speaker 1: marrying her cousin after having three kids, and her husband
24:18
Speaker 1: just decides he wants a new wife. He says that
24:21
Speaker 1: Yara's mother was a mother to him as well, since
24:25
Speaker 1: she had breastfed him when he was younger due to
24:28
Speaker 1: the fact his own mother was too weak at the
24:31
Speaker 1: time to do so herself. He soon left Yara, but
24:34
Speaker 1: Yara continued her life and provided for herself and her
24:37
Speaker 1: family through sewing. So we later see Yara's daughter, Sarah,
24:42
Speaker 1: getting ready to get married herself to a man she
24:45
Speaker 1: had never met but talked to through the internet. She
24:49
Speaker 1: was excited, even though he was a much older man
24:51
Speaker 1: than her, she would be able to leave and move
24:55
Speaker 1: to Paris. She was excited about that. Later, she moves
24:59
Speaker 1: back with the child, saying that she was divorced and
25:01
Speaker 1: needed to come back. The marriage had not been good.
25:04
Speaker 1: He refused to let her leave and come home, and
25:06
Speaker 1: she was unhappy the entire time. Yara declared it would
25:10
Speaker 1: all be fine and that she would provide for them
25:12
Speaker 1: through her sewing. So here's a quote from that one.
25:17
Speaker 1: With that sound, she knows what she will do. She
25:20
Speaker 1: will not despair or indeed look for a new husband.
25:23
Speaker 1: She will just sew, stitch and sew and tear and cut.
25:26
Speaker 1: The sewing machines were will ring in the ears of
25:29
Speaker 1: all of her children through all of the years ahead.
25:31
Speaker 1: It will drown out the sound of her own regrets,
25:33
Speaker 1: and it will keep the house together. As long as
25:36
Speaker 1: it's whirring deafens them. They will not hear the bitterness
25:40
Speaker 1: of the mother that brought them into this world.
25:45
Speaker 2: Collective side but no yet. It was this powerful story
25:48
Speaker 2: because also she thought that she was going to get
25:50
Speaker 2: this opportunity to go to Cairo because she was a
25:53
Speaker 2: really smart girl. Her parents didn't want her to marry
25:55
Speaker 2: the cousin, but the aunt was very, very insistent. And
26:01
Speaker 2: then the daughter was trying to escape, thinking that she
26:04
Speaker 2: was going to do have this amazing life, but was
26:05
Speaker 2: literally in prison in her own home because her husband
26:09
Speaker 2: would not let her out, and so she left after
26:11
Speaker 2: the baby, which was good to see that she could
26:15
Speaker 2: still return home. There was also the conversation of her
26:17
Speaker 2: not being able to leave at that time on time
26:20
Speaker 2: and it almost came to a divorce because they had
26:22
Speaker 2: agreed to get married. I think they did get married,
26:24
Speaker 2: but they hadn't met. And it took him almost a
26:26
Speaker 2: year for her to leave because of all of the
26:28
Speaker 2: technicalities and the hardships that she had to go through
26:31
Speaker 2: in order to try to be able to leave in
26:34
Speaker 2: the first place. So that all happened, and then it
26:37
Speaker 2: ended up not being great for her either. But that
26:40
Speaker 2: whole bastfaiting thing that was interesting because it also talks
26:42
Speaker 2: about like the fact that through the Koran, like the
26:50
Speaker 2: clergy essentially told him, you know, if you've been fed
26:53
Speaker 2: more than four times, then yes, she could be considered
26:55
Speaker 2: like a mother to you. And I was like, huh,
26:58
Speaker 2: I don't know much about the Quran, so that was
27:02
Speaker 2: very new information. I was like, that's an interesting, very interesting,
27:08
Speaker 2: very specific technicality.
27:10
Speaker 3: Yeah.
27:11
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a bunch of those in religion
27:13
Speaker 1: where it's like seven times in this.
27:16
Speaker 2: Fair Yeah, the Old Testament, I guess the Torah for
27:21
Speaker 2: some things like essentially the same things that are like, wow,
27:24
Speaker 2: that is real specific with those numbers, which is why
27:28
Speaker 2: I think one hundred and say one hundred and forty
27:29
Speaker 2: four thousand is the number for heaven like that is
27:33
Speaker 2: also very specific that, yeah, that's the case, like the
27:37
Speaker 2: idea that it's going to be one hundred and forty
27:39
Speaker 2: four thousand chosen. And I think the Son of Jacob
27:43
Speaker 2: is the idea. This is a whole like kind of
27:46
Speaker 2: Zionist ideas that's underneath that. But it is in the
27:51
Speaker 2: Old Testament. But yeah, it's very specific. May also be
27:56
Speaker 2: in the Revelation. No, I think about it because it
27:59
Speaker 2: kind of tastes from the Ol Testament. Go back to
28:01
Speaker 2: the religious thoughts. So we're in our final story and
28:06
Speaker 2: I could not find Somemaland, so someone can tell me
28:10
Speaker 2: if it's Somemaland or Samuel land Uh. The Somelan Moon
28:15
Speaker 2: And it's a story about Rima and Ziad, a young
28:18
Speaker 2: couple in love, and it's really cute to the first
28:23
Speaker 2: time they profess to each other to eventually becoming engaged. However,
28:28
Speaker 2: throughout their years they have grown different with different opinions.
28:33
Speaker 2: After the death of Ziad's father, things had changed for
28:36
Speaker 2: both of them. Rima was more open and they had
28:39
Speaker 2: become more traditional. After a heated discussion and a car accident,
28:45
Speaker 2: Ziad and Rema decide to go back to their spot
28:48
Speaker 2: by the water, but it's soon targeted by an Apache
28:51
Speaker 2: helicopter and their car is destroyed. However, they soon make
28:55
Speaker 2: it to their spot, where they declare their love for
28:57
Speaker 2: each other. Still here's a line For a moment, they
29:03
Speaker 2: lie still in the street on opposite sides of the car,
29:06
Speaker 2: gazing across at each other through its burning undercarriage. The
29:09
Speaker 2: helicopter search light lights up Rima's face for what seems
29:13
Speaker 2: like an age until she starts to move, at which
29:16
Speaker 2: point it crosses back to the car still on fire,
29:19
Speaker 2: then back to Rema once it finally sets off, taking
29:22
Speaker 2: the blaze cacophony with it. Zod slowly gets to his
29:25
Speaker 2: feet and staggers across to help Rema up. They steady
29:28
Speaker 2: themselves for a moment and realize the streets are empty,
29:30
Speaker 2: just as the beach at the end of the road
29:32
Speaker 2: will be empty. And I think part of this is
29:34
Speaker 2: Ziod has gotten into something that he knows he has
29:37
Speaker 2: to leave. He's very angry about things that have happened,
29:41
Speaker 2: including what has happened to his father, and is not
29:44
Speaker 2: happy with the traditions being thrown out, while Rema is
29:49
Speaker 2: all about letting go of traditions. But it was actually
29:53
Speaker 2: really sweet ending even with all of that action fact
30:00
Speaker 2: moment essentially to this talking about friends and talking about
30:06
Speaker 2: have change and talking about how they still love each other.
30:08
Speaker 3: Though yeah, yeah, And I feel like a lot of
30:14
Speaker 3: the stories had that kind of vibe of like tragedy
30:18
Speaker 3: and hope, but also definitely like children and loss of
30:21
Speaker 3: innocence was throughout.
30:24
Speaker 1: But it was really I recommend it a lot because
30:29
Speaker 1: it really was evocative of like the environment, and I
30:34
Speaker 1: could like hear the sounds and feel the air and
30:37
Speaker 1: like smell the sea. Like it was a really set
30:40
Speaker 1: the place right, very very well.
30:43
Speaker 2: They do a great job in making sure they reference
30:46
Speaker 2: any of the historical events and or terms that you
30:49
Speaker 2: might not know. Not all of it, but a good
30:50
Speaker 2: bit of it in the back. And I think it's
30:53
Speaker 2: good to note. It's also good to note that the
30:57
Speaker 2: entire areas that she's speaking of I have been completely
31:01
Speaker 2: changed at this point in time. I had mentioned to
31:04
Speaker 2: Annie we were talking before that the hospital she mentions
31:09
Speaker 2: just was announcing that the entire ICU section had all
31:14
Speaker 2: passed away because they had lost electricity and water and power.
31:19
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of heaviness, especially right now. But
31:23
Speaker 2: it's something that we who are not involved or have
31:28
Speaker 2: not do, not have family or friends there can't ignore.
31:32
Speaker 2: And I think many people say this have been saying
31:36
Speaker 2: it when you feel helpless, that the best thing sometimes
31:40
Speaker 2: that we can do, or the only thing sometimes that
31:42
Speaker 2: we can do, is to be witnessed to it so
31:44
Speaker 2: we don't forget it. And in these conversations, I think
31:46
Speaker 2: that's important. The stories that she wrote, obviously things were
31:51
Speaker 2: still happening then, tragedies were happening, Then displacement was happening,
31:54
Speaker 2: then battles and deaths were happening then, and I think
31:58
Speaker 2: it's something to remember. She does even mention Hamas and
32:02
Speaker 2: what they did to the country as well, but I
32:04
Speaker 2: think obviously there's a bigger conversation to be had about
32:08
Speaker 2: how it led to that anyway. In all of that, again,
32:13
Speaker 2: like I said, I think it's important that we make
32:16
Speaker 2: sure we keep talking about it and not let people
32:20
Speaker 2: not let be forgotten, as well as being really careful
32:24
Speaker 2: of propaganda or conversations and having literature like this is
32:29
Speaker 2: really really important, and having conversations that she has led
32:34
Speaker 2: about gender equality and the gender violence that were happening
32:41
Speaker 2: and what has been happening throughout is really important as well,
32:46
Speaker 2: which she does a great job in talking about without
32:50
Speaker 2: preaching about, because these are experiences that are very realistic.
32:55
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, So definitely go check out this book. We
33:01
Speaker 1: highly recommend it and as always, you can send us
33:06
Speaker 1: any of your recommendations. You can contact us at steffmediamom
33:11
Speaker 1: Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on
33:14
Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok
33:16
Speaker 1: at stuff I Never Told You. We have a tea
33:19
Speaker 1: puppet store and we have a book that you can
33:21
Speaker 1: get where you get your books. Thanks as always to
33:23
Speaker 1: our super producer go steenair executive producer Maya, and your
33:26
Speaker 1: contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
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