Illustration through Hannah Kirmes-Daly.Radio Hakaya is a community radio assignment started by means of Brush&Bow in a refugee camp in North Lebanon. Radio Hakaya's podcasts function people whose communities have been at once plagued by the war in Syria and the displacement of Syrians to Lebanon. each podcast gifts a subjective opinion that, combined with the rest of the sequence, gives a mosaic of differing perspectives and experiences, exploring the explanation why individuals fled Syria, the residing circumstances in Lebanon and what the long run might cling.
All recordings are taken, translated and edited with the support from participants of the local community.
Interviews and modifying through Roshan De Stone & David L. Suber.
enhancing and Translations through Fadi Haddad.
Illustrations by means of Hannah Kirmes-Daly.
here is the fourth podcast of an eight-part collection. it is an interview with Rayan, a 24-year ancient widow from Homs, living in a refugee camp in Lebanon's place of Akkar, along with her two small babies.
Rayan speaks of the first demonstrations she witnessed in Homs in 2011, remembering how without delay peaceable protests escalated into civil war.
Married all the way through the siege of Homs, Rayan explains the concern americans lived beneath, noting how some guys would get arrested only for having aname similarity. She tells the story of how she escaped Homs to observe her husband's movements, from one city to an additional, until they finally decided to flee to Lebanon.
Rayan's husband died just a few months after arriving to Lebanon, consumed through a drug dependancy. A widow at 21, she discovered herself raising two small babies on my own. Sitting in her tent for many of the day, she speaks of the affect warfare and displacement have had on Syrian ladies.
Her story reflects the collective sorrow of many Syrian refugees residing in Lebanon's camps, individuals whose lives have persevered an eight-year long limbo that none imagined might ultimate so lengthy. Rayan's story is an emblem of the resilience shown every day by way of so many Syrian ladies and guys, each in Syria and abroad, anticipating a political answer to the struggle that's destroying their nation.
Her journey represents most effective a fragment of the very complex puzzle of reminiscences and opinions Syrian girls in Lebanon dangle of their latest state and or the war in Syria. As such, it would be heard on the subject of the contents expressed within the old and impending podcasts.
hearken to the podcast in English or in Arabic below
read the transcript
Podcast #four Rayan: women in struggle
Introduction:
Welcome to Radio HAKAYA – حكايا the legitimate podcast sequence of Brush and Bow. These podcasts file on reviews and challenges of the Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian communities in Lebanon. by means of focusing on individual stories, we hope to bring the complicated realities of lifestyles here in Lebanon: americans's recollections, current experiences and hopes for the longer term. we would want to remind you that the views posted on these podcasts are the individuals on my own and do not mirror the opinions of Brush and Bow.
nowadays's podcast is an interview with Rayan, a Syrian widow dwelling together with her two infants in a tent via the Syrian border in Lebanon. Rayan is an illustration of the resilience shown via girls who've learnt to navigate a patriarchal society in the context of struggle. during this podcast, she speaks about her event of the transition between the early uprisings in Syria and the unfolding civil conflict. She reflects on the closing 5 years she has spent in Lebanon, and the difficulties of residing as a younger widow with two small toddlers in this kind of opposed ambiance.
Interview:
Rayan: I come from Homs, in Syria. i'm 24 years historic and that i have two youngsters, a boy and a girl. If i used to be nonetheless in Syria, I'd be researching on the university, as i really like gaining knowledge of and that i need to develop into a translator. I communicate some English and Italian.
In Syria, earlier than the struggle, there become one of these level of safety that we may go to the market at 2 am within the nighttime, I swear. we might acquire at the hours of darkness with my aunt and family and go the park, to the markets…without a complications.
As a bit lady i was very naughty; I could barely reside within the condominium in any respect and would spend the day on the street with pals drawing with chalk on the ground or enjoying soccer. We have been outside all of the time.
Interviewer: When the revolution started, have been the individuals at demonstrations all guys, or had been there also ladies?
Rayan: originally they have been all guys, however soon girls joined too. Now everyone who took part in those protests regrets it. no one may have guessed the protests would have taken us here – to warfare, killings, exile. We idea it become pretty much words.
What we lived right through the struggle was so complicated that words may by no means deliver the meaning of what came about; the destruction, the concern, the concern for our infants. It became too hard. and then the consistent moving, making an attempt to are trying to find protection, one morning in one region, the night in an extra. And all this with infants… I didn't have youngsters returned then, but I remember the little kids of my aunt and my uncle.
all over the revolution it turned into complicated to locate medicine if somebody turned into in poor health. It was tough even to discover bread and fuel for cooking. This become as a result of total areas have been being sieged by means of the army, so any resources of fuel and bread had to come from outdoor the besieged area.
Interviewer: How did you be capable of get meals?
Rayan: We Arab people have the addiction of storing food reserves for the wintry weather, things like sugar, rice and cereals. since the food turns into lots extra costly all the way through the winter. So many of the properties had stocks of meals.
Then we moved out of Homs to an additional enviornment, for stronger security. youngsters, we soon discovered men were more in danger than women there. because if women may circulate round freely, however guys couldn't. If there have been caught they'd be conscripted for armed forces provider of two years. at the start it become every Syrian between the age of 19 and 21, then it turned into each person.
Interviewer: And if they don't go?
Rayan: They'd be in situation, they may be arrested and brought to reformatory. now and again americans may be arrested for mere names similarity, like there's a person called "Mohammed" that has accomplished whatever thing incorrect, and they'd arrest an extra 'Mohammed' instead.
where the men went, complications adopted. We went to Yabrud and issues began in Yabrud, we went to Aleppo, and problems began in Aleppo. Then my husband went again to Yabrud with different men. I didn't go with him. He went through the bad routes, to stay away from checkpoints, whereas I took the highway, on the grounds that I as a lady might stream freely so long as I carried our household documents with me.
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Rayan: Now, I individually agree with the circumstance in Syria is an awful lot improved than it might ever be right here in Lebanon. for example, the kids listed below are limited to this tent. only this tent. They don't have any other region to head, the simplest different area they could go is outdoor the tent, on the street.
here our youngsters can't study anything. My daughter hears other children saying swear words and begins repeating what they say. she will be able to't recognize what the change between right and wrong.
We mothers are tired, our minds are drained and we don't manage to train the babies on what's appropriate and incorrect, on the does and don'ts.
every thing I actually have hear inner my coronary heart is long gone, shut down.
now and again my daughter askes me "mum please draw me whatever thing", and that i reply "I don't need to", because as an instance i am unhappy, concerned or upset. this is the reason why we are able to't guide our little ones psychologically and in their education.
I've been in Lebanon for five years now. I agree with them as the garbage years of my existence. every little thing I lived here in Lebanon is marked with simplest dangerous and dark reminiscences.
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Interviewer: How are you able to be so potent?
Rayan: How am i able to be so powerful? i'm not potent. I pretend to be. I are attempting my surest for my children, as a result of they have no one left however me to learn from and trust. it's definitely complicated. If their father become here, it'd be lots enhanced. If he wasn't lifeless, we might be at an advantage than now, but i will be able to't do much about his dying, so I have to be mighty for the youngsters, because if i'm vulnerable, they'd develop vulnerable as smartly. on occasion, after I go through a troublesome emotional moment, I basically wish to cry. however then I inform myself i will't cry. and i hang it in as a result of I can't let the little ones see me sad or determined.
It often happens that people inform me "Gosh! you are a 24-yr-ancient widow? That's so incorrect, this type of pity!" they say this because i am alone, with two little ones and no husband, and i'm so younger. It makes me irritated when they are saying that about me; or when I consider my toddlers will develop up without a father.
In Arab societies there is not any freedom for women, notably in struggle time and exile.
as an example, feel I have a cell here in Lebanon -not that I have one, mind you- its forbidden for me to have a facebook account, and if I had Whatsapp i'd be allowed to talk only to women and my mobile would be checked to peer with whom i was texting, to peer if I had written wrong issues in my messages.
In Syria it wasn't like this. however now, because we are in a foreign country, we don't comprehend any one. I don't have Lebanese friends or neighbors. We meet the locals simplest when we leave the camp to move to the sanatorium or to the hospital.
We observe faith to know how to stay away from committing unhealthy or shameful deeds. faith educates us about the appropriate and the wrong. for example, faith says a person and a lady who don't recognize every different can't speak over the cellphone. given that i know this is wrong I need to not do it, but now and again I want to. just to have a person to consult with about what I suppose in my heart, about my existence right here or about my husband. and that i'd be relieved and chuffed after having spoken, even if my listener was a man or a girl, i would not mind.
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