Mending Lives

Jane_Houng: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Jane Hong, and this is Mending Lives, where I'm talking with people from a patchwork of places. Some have had their lives ripped apart by loss, some are in the business of repairing others brokenness, but we're all seeking to make this world more beautiful.

Samira L. Hussain describes herself as a lifelong learner. Job wise, she's been teaching English to secondary and middle school students in Tripoli, Lebanon, for over 10 years and works part time as a translator. I met her through Freelance. com when I was looking for an Arabic translator for my memoir, Beirut is More Beautiful by Bike.

Tens of people responded to my offer, but Samira outshone the competition. Apart from her outstanding English, she was a lover of the poetry of Khalil Gibran and Rumi, poets I'd quoted [00:01:00] extensively in my book. Also, it was clear that she was genuinely touched by my daughter's death and wasn't going to use Google Translate for a quick service.

Jane_Houng: We thus worked together on and off for over a year. During which she showed great attention to detail, even spotting errors and making suggestions. She also provided unique insights into her culture and her life as a vulnerable young woman living in one of the world's, and I quote, least livable cities.

I've known Samira for over five years now, and I truly treasure our friendship. Dear Samira, in support of Becky's Button projects in Lebanon, rode a bicycle in a Raising Awareness About Gender Based Violence bike ride, and ran ten kilometers as a member of the Becky's Button team in a Beirut Marathon Association event last July.

Every time I [00:02:00] travel to Lebanon, I make it a priority to meet her. I was meant to visit her home in Tripoli last November, but there was an incident involving guns on her street, so it was postponed. Hopefully, I'll make it this November.

Jane_Houng: Hi, Samira. Welcome to Mending Lives.

Samira El Hussein: Thank you Jane for having me.

Jane_Houng: You've come all the way from Tripoli to Beirut. How long did it take you?

Samira El Hussein: Took me like an hour and a half because there was no traffic during this time of the day.

Jane_Houng: Oh, that's good news. So it was relatively quick.

Samira El Hussein: Yes.

Jane_Houng: Okay. And you've broken up from school.

Samira El Hussein: Yeah.

Jane_Houng: Let me explain to our listeners that Samira is [00:03:00] a full-time English teacher at the highest level, right? The last two years. It's English literature as well as language.

Samira El Hussein: Yeah. High school level.

Jane_Houng: Okay. High school. Yes. I think of it as secondary school. That's what we call it in England.

Samira El Hussein: Yeah.

Jane_Houng: But yeah. High school. Yes.

Samira El Hussein: We also feel it's a secondary school sometimes. Yeah.

Jane_Houng: I see. And we're friends on Facebook, right? And I always see you're beaming students at the end of the year. I have a sense you're a very popular teacher, Samira. You're a very popular teacher, am I right?

Samira El Hussein: Maybe.

Jane_Houng: You're being polite. Anyway, it seems that a lot of young men study English, as well as young women.

Samira El Hussein: Yeah. It is a main language that students have to study besides Arabic in our schools nowadays.

Jane_Houng: And how many of them go on to [00:04:00] university?

Samira El Hussein: A high percentage, I think. It's like most of them. I rarely hear about students who didn't go to university. They only do that if they are kind of, like, confused or they don't know what to do next. They're lost. They have to take a gap year. But generally speaking they go to university after high school directly.

Jane_Houng: Now I should explain to our listeners that we met around six years ago because I had completed my memoir called Beirut Is More Beautiful By Bike and a large part of that book is about my daughter Becky's life and of course she lost it here in Beirut. I went on to freelance. com to find an Arabic translator. And I got tens of responses of people. Many of them sort of said, oh yeah, I can do it in [00:05:00] two days. And they gave some ridiculously low price, but I went with you, Samira, because you said, this is going to take some time. I need some time. It took about a year in all, is that right?

Samira El Hussein: With all the work with the publisher and everything, yeah, almost a year.

Jane_Houng: And the remarkable thing is at the end of it, Samira said to me, Hey, Jane, I think a publisher may be interested in this story. And you took the initiative to contact publishers. And we got a very good response, right? The publisher, Dar El - Machreq, they're a highly reputable publisher.

Samira El Hussein: True it was a whole different experience, trying to contact publishers and to see what I have to say the information that I have to provide them and what to say to convince them to take the book and publish it. I learned a lot while doing so. [00:06:00] And I was happy that Dar El - Machreq agreed to publishing of our book.

Jane_Houng: Yes, and I warned you that the editing process can take some time because if you are accepted by a reputable publisher, they will read it and then they will come back with various required changes. And that took about three months, didn't it? It was quite some time, but it was normal for that to happen.

Samira El Hussein: Yes. Translating it itself was it took almost like four to five months just the translation part. And then the editing again, like making all those changes. And then there are some changes in the forms of the if you remember the formats of the pages and adding those images. And all these things were, like, worked on again and again, more than once. We went over the book more than once to to finish it.

Jane_Houng: You finished it, it was published, we had a book launch, and then in the [00:07:00] audience was a local man who owned a bike company called Beirut by Bike, and he offered to organize a bike ride to bring awareness about gender based violence in the center of Beirut. And then you came!

Samira El Hussein: Yes!

Jane_Houng: And we had about three hundred people. There were a lot of people, weren't there? And you could ride a bicycle or a tricycle.

Samira El Hussein: Yeah.

Jane_Houng: What did you ride, Samira?

Samira El Hussein: The tricycle, of course.

Jane_Houng: We have some wonderful photographs of you, and it was just fantastic that you participated in that.

Samira El Hussein: Of course.

Jane_Houng: It seems that as a result of translating my book, you have some Insights into gender based violence in Lebanon, right?

Samira El Hussein: Yeah, that's true. It's a subject that people don't talk about that much, but every woman [00:08:00] on her own experience it. So talking about this , which is like actually a sad experience, a tragic event. The death of Becky and taking it to raise awareness about this topic. It's like that strong message like look what this can do and let's do something about it.

Jane_Houng: And I remember you saying, the thing that you remember years ahead is that I'd written that how sad it was that in many countries the trust between people has broken down and Becky was a very trusting person and alas in this world and of course it's not just Lebanon it's around the world.

Samira El Hussein: True. I like the fact that you talked about trust. It is really Important to live your life knowing that people will take care of you. This is something similar to what you said in the book and you cannot live in a world where [00:09:00] you're worried all the time about your safety. So we have to try to make this world safer.

Jane_Houng: And that's what I'm trying to do now with Becky's button. And we should tell our listeners that last year we had a project in Tripoli. You were indirectly involved because you live in Tripoli. And it was a wonderful project in the way that the local NGO that worked with the Becky's Button team, they went to Tripoli. They gave some training to women mainly Muslim women, they were given buttons and they developed an awareness about sexual harassment.

Samira El Hussein: True. I wasn't there directly, but I watched their videos while like working on translating them. It was great to hear their stories. To know what they think about Becky's button and [00:10:00] how they think about their safety in the city in Tripoli

Jane_Houng: And what surprised me was how feisty they were. They were very outspoken and it was the time of Covid. So they all came of course, they you know, they had their hijab and everything. But they also wore masks, but by the end everybody had ripped their masks off and we're talking in such an animated way and tell me whether you would agree that, those women were basically saying of course sexual harassment is here and taxes are particularly unsafe. But this device will be very useful so that we can shop when we go shopping, you know we're not pestered by some guy. And even, you know walking along a street where maybe the lights have broken or something. So for their general daily life, it was a tool that was going to be useful to them

Samira El Hussein: True. It was as if they wanted someone to talk about this topic so that they give you their [00:11:00] opinion, right? As you're talking about their excitement to talk about this topic. Yeah, I think Becky's button will be very useful in in protecting them. You talked about lights, which is also an important topic, especially in Lebanon, where we don't have electricity 24/7. So Yeah, it's not that safe to walk alone at night, especially for a girl now.

Jane_Houng: Alas, and we should say actually even in London, I mean in many parts of the world now. Of course, yeah. Yes, it's a danger. I'm just reminded that there was one time when I came to Tripoli and that was actually linked to a project that I was doing with the British Embassy with another organization and we drove all the way there and there'd been some shooting on the street very near where we were supposed to be having the event. The ambassador himself was scheduled to come, but then it was all cancelled because of [00:12:00] this shooting. And you were the one that would take, was texting me and saying, Oh, it's not too bad. It's all finished now. And then the British Embassy was saying, well, we have to be ultra careful. And then nothing happened afterwards, right?

Samira El Hussein: I used to these things happening at night every now and then. We have some safety concerns, security concerns every now and then. But I think this is like the, the funny thing or the good thing at the same time about Lebanese people. We just live our lives not worrying about these things. We, like, get over them so fast. And life goes on.

Jane_Houng: Life goes on, yes. And as it has to. And so it was disappointing for me because we drove all the way there and then suddenly this emergency text from the Embassy in Beirut. Oh , you must turn back. There's been a shooting. So we just went back.

Samira El Hussein: And I was expecting you to come and to see you and

Jane_Houng: oh, that's right. We were going to, you were going to show me around Tripoli and I booked [00:13:00] that nice hotel.

Samira El Hussein: So disappointing.

Jane_Houng: Me too. Of course, now Tripoli is out of bounds. And but I really look forward to coming one day to accept your hospitality.

Samira El Hussein: You are welcome to come anytime.

Jane_Houng: So we're in Beirut now I'd like to tell our listeners that also when the British Embassy organise a commemoration every December, on the strength of you going to Beirut by bike, you met some embassy people and now you receive invitations to join.

Samira El Hussein: Yes

Jane_Houng: And you're on the photographs. I mean, that's really no problem. You can be there and by the tree and.

Samira El Hussein: Yeah, of course, of course It was the first time I met people who met becky, you know the first time I joined the commemoration the first time yeah.

Jane_Houng: Of course. The local staff in the embassy. Yep. She worked [00:14:00] with them and they're still working there and they feel it. They feel the loss.

Samira El Hussein: I saw how great of an impact he had on them. You know, not unlike an ordinary person.

Jane_Houng: She was well liked. And then last year, there was a book fair and you had a number of books, Beirut by Bike. And you sold a few, I believe. But at that event, you said, I would like to distribute some Becky's Buttons at the same time.

Samira El Hussein: Yes.

Jane_Houng: Tell our listeners about that.

Samira El Hussein: So it was also the first time I meet people and talk to them myself about Becky's button. So I was like, this is the button. This is what it does. Look at it. Like I tried the sound too. And they were very interested. They listened carefully and wanted to know more about it, how they can get it for other family members. I was like.

Jane_Houng: You were [00:15:00] surprised, weren't you?

Samira El Hussein: With their reactions. So it, it also seems from people's reactions that they need such a device that can help them protect themselves.

Jane_Houng: Well, our work with Becky's Button goes on in Lebanon. That's why I'm here today. And the main reason is that we have this wonderful collaboration with the Beirut Marathon Association. I've donated a number of buttons, and it's a lot more than that, because we want to raise awareness about gender based violence.

We want to give information. We want women to feel empowered. I think if you're running a marathon, you need to do a lot of training. Tomorrow it's only 10K. But you have women on the street, they're training, and there have been a few reported cases, that some women have been accosted in Beirut. So Becky's Button is recognized as a very useful tool. [00:16:00] They can clip it somewhere on their body or they can carry it on a key ring and women talk about feeling empowered to go out and train to run on the streets. I don't think we'll need one tomorrow because the race will start at 6. Have you been training?

Samira El Hussein: I didn't have the chance to train.

I actually participated in half marathons. They're called like five kilometers ones in Tripoli before, but I haven't been very physically active lately for different reasons. But I will push myself for this important cause.

Jane_Houng: Have you brought some running shoes?

Samira El Hussein: Yeah, of course. I'm well prepared for it.

Jane_Houng: Have you brought some plasters to put around your toes in case your feet get sore.

Samira El Hussein: No, no, there's no need for this.

Jane_Houng: Are you willing?

Samira El Hussein: Will be good.

Jane_Houng: Oh, these are ones you're wearing. Oh, great. Samira. Well, and you're willing to be on some photographs?

Samira El Hussein: Of course.

Jane_Houng: Oh, fantastic. Well, [00:17:00] we have quite a team coming. We have people from the embassy and then we have university students. We've been working with the AUB, the American University of Beirut on a project. The women were from Baalbek.

Samira El Hussein: Yeah, I watched your interview on Télé Liban.

Jane_Houng: Yesterday?

Samira El Hussein: Yes.

Jane_Houng: Did you?

Samira El Hussein: Yeah, I did.

Jane_Houng: Did you have the television on by chance?

Samira El Hussein: No, I watched it on YouTube, the one, the link you sent.

Jane_Houng: What do you think? Tell me. Honestly,

Samira El Hussein: Great. I understood more about how you collaborated with the AUB's students. And it's nice that when they try to find a device for this kind of an alarming device, they couldn't find anything in Lebanon except Becky's button. That means that, explains how important it is. And I think even people don't understand a lot about these types of devices here. We don't have a lot of them. [00:18:00] So it was great to introduce them to women in Lebanon.

Jane_Houng: We've had a change of policy. We're putting a lot more effort in our social media and those university students found us through social media.

Interesting. I've heard the story since I met them this trip. They contacted us and they didn't expect very much, but we did respond because increasingly I'd like to talk to young people, young men and young women. We're looking for firstly, people to listen to Becky's story and feel sad. And I think the rather typical response for young women, and this was the situation with Becky's friends, when she was killed, it was like, Oh my goodness, that could be me. And that wakes people up, that alerts people. And then.

Samira El Hussein: They should be more careful.

Jane_Houng: They should be more careful, yes. And then with the young men, a lot of them felt aggressive. It's a manly thing.

Samira El Hussein: Yeah, I should have done something maybe. I should do something about these kinds of [00:19:00] behaviors if they happen.

Jane_Houng: With generalizing but it was interesting the difference in the sexes when the response of what happened to Becky and I like to think that by talking to young men, we can say, yes, you know, that's probably initially how you feel, but going forward, could you consider, if you see a man doing some abusing a woman, basically, you as a man, could you go up? Could you intervene? Could you say what's happening? Especially if you hear this alarm.

I believe that. talking to the younger generations, you know, they're going to be the ones in the future that are fathers. They're going to have wives. It's a sort of long term plan, what could they do if they see something and please of course don't abuse women yourself. What do you think about our new plan?

Samira El Hussein: That's a great plan. I think it starts with women choosing to talk about this. Because while you were talking about this. This is a a good [00:20:00] thing about our communities. If someone is in trouble, people come and help. You know, we have this, like if someone falls on the ground, you will find like, especially like I see this in my city, like two or three people coming to help them stand.

Jane_Houng: Immediately. And this you're talking about the big city of Tripoli.

Samira El Hussein: Yes.

Jane_Houng: Yes. wonderful.

Samira El Hussein: So this is a good thing. But when we're talking about. Like violence against women. That's like her husband They're like behind closed doors. You know or when we talk about sexual harassment also. But now it's getting better. The more awareness we raise to women, especially like you did nothing wrong It's not your fault. You have to talk so that this man can be punished. That's it. And Becky's button can help in at least like telling people around the wearer that something is wrong here. I'm in a dangerous situation. So yeah, this is a great [00:21:00] and it will also encourage young men to take action. Maybe they might be hesitant, but wait, like something wrong is happening. You have to interfere. So yeah, it's a great plan.

Jane_Houng: Well, I feel we're going to be friends for a long, long time.

Samira El Hussein: Of course.

Jane_Houng: And I hope that as we journey together

Samira El Hussein: It's a friendship I'm very proud of.

Jane_Houng: Me too, Samira. . This kind of relationship would never have happened without me losing my daughter. And my life has just been so very colorful and interesting since. So every time I come to Lebanon, I will contact you and if you're free, you're very welcome to come. If I have time, I'll try to come to Tripoli. I've already met two of your brothers at the book launch and it will be really fun to see them again. So, thank you so much for your interest in Becky's Button and for [00:22:00] translating my book and let's go out for dinner now.

Samira El Hussein: Thank you so much for having me and I would happily have you in Tripoli again so that we can show you around the city and the food.

Jane_Houng: Ah, the food. We haven't talked about that. Okay, very quickly. Tell me what are the specialties. Yes, I'm hungry now. What are the specialties in Tripoli?

Samira El Hussein: Yeah, we are famous for our Arabic sweets. Yeah, the one that make you fat. That are full of sugar and butter. But they are very delicious. You will see for yourself and taste them.

Jane_Houng: Very good, I look forward to that. You know what, there's an Indian restaurant just down the road. Have you ever eaten Indian food before?

Samira El Hussein: No.

Jane_Houng: Never?

Samira El Hussein: Never.

Jane_Houng: Would you like to try?

Samira El Hussein: Yeah, I want one. I like to try new things.

Jane_Houng: Very good. Well, as you're in the capital city, let's do that. Okay?

Samira El Hussein: Okay.

Jane_Houng: [00:23:00] Bye. Thanks again for listening to Mending Lives with me, Jane Houng. It was produced by Brian Hou. You can find relevant links to this show in the comments section. I would not, could not be doing this without many people's support and encouragement. So, until next time, goodbye.