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This autumn, fall for Moth Stories as we travel across the globe for our mainstages. We're excited to announce our fall lineup of storytelling shows from New York City to Iowa City, London, Nairobi, and so many more. The Moth will be performing in a city near you, featuring a curation of true stories. The Moth mainstage shows feature five tellers who share beautiful, unbelievable, hilarious, and often powerful true stories on a common theme. Each one told reveals something new about our shared connection.
To buy your tickets or find out more about our calendar, visit themoth.org slash mainstage. We hope to see you soon.
From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Ginness. In this show, stories of curiosity. All the stories in this hour start with a moment or a decision that broke a pattern, a step out of the familiar. Today we have four stories from Boston, Fairbanks, Yemen, and in a jet with a journalist going to Paris with Sean P. Diddy Combs. We start with Mercia Tapping.
Mercia is originally from the UK, but she told the story at an open mic story slam in Boston, where we partner with public radio station WBUR and PRX. Here's Mercia, live at the Moth. Don't, don't touch my food.
When I grew up in England, it was considered to be extremely impolite to touch somebody else's food. In fact, it was considered to be a real no-no. And then I moved to the United States, but old habits die hard. I nearly didn't survive one of my early dates with my late husband. He took me out to what he promised would be a real Jewish deli.
And I ordered a Reuben sandwich. And it arrived in its piled-high magnificence. And then Herman looked at my sandwich rather longingly and said, "Can I have a bit?" And I said, "Sure." Because I hadn't touched my plate yet. And I expected him just to cut off a neat, modest little piece.
But no! What did this man do, whom I hardly knew, was to take my sandwich, open it up, take half the filling, and then give it back to me? No longer a piled-high magnificent sandwich, but a rather flat and ordinary-looking one. I was rather repelled by this.
And of course catching my look of astonishment, he hastened to add, "I'm cutting carbs." I said to him, "Hmm, I need to tell you about our cultural differences." And then of course for years afterwards, when we were married and we went out to dinner with friends, he would say, to my utter humiliation, "Of course, you never touch Mercia's food." Well,
You can train husbands, but occasionally they slip the leash and run amok. We were out for dinner one night by ourselves, and we ordered dinner, and then this nice-looking couple sat down at the next-door table beside us, and they were studying their menu intently, and then our dinner came, and they looked up, as people do in restaurants, to see what our food looked like.
And then the wife leaned over to Herman and said, excuse the interruption, but what's the name of the dish that you ordered? It looks rather good. Lemon chicken, he replied. And then the food-sharing monster reared its ugly head. Would you like some, he said, I've got far too much. And
And the woman said, "Oh no, no, no, I just wanted to know the name of the dish." The food monster wasn't to be deterred. With one swift move, he took her side plate, shoveled half of his dinner onto it, and gave it back to her. And by this time, she was resigned to eating his dinner. I was totally humiliated. I wanted to go underneath, you know, the table.
And I said to her, "Oh, do please excuse us. We didn't mean to intrude." But by that time, her husband flew to my husband's defense and said, "Oh, no, that's fine. You look like nice people. Let me introduce ourselves, Dr. and Mrs. Cohen." Soon, both tables were discussing their children, their grandchildren, and we were becoming fast friends.
And then Mrs. Cohen's waitress came over and said, what would you like to order for dinner? So she told the rather astonished waitress that she didn't need any dinner because this nice man on the next door table had shared half of his dinner with her. I just threw up my hands. You know, I just, you know, game over.
And as we were leaving the restaurant that evening, Herman turns to me rather mischievously and says, Am I too friendly with strangers, honey? And I said, Well, yes, you are. But everybody, including me, loves you for it. Because, you see, I learned from him that when you...
break down the walls and cross boundaries, some delightful surprises, and new friends can enter your life. And by the way, I'm not so prim and proper anymore. That was Mercia Tapping. Mercia lives in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and after a career as a clinical psychologist, she's now a competitive ballroom dancer.
She says she's had to loosen up to tell funny stories on stage and that dancing has revealed a hidden and more mischievous side to her. Sadly, Mercia's husband Herman died a few years ago, but when she tells funny stories about him, it reminds her of all the good times. And has Mercia ever shared her meal willingly? She confesses the answer is no.
To see photos of Mercia spinning on the dance floor and her late husband Herman, go to themoth.org. For years, The Moth produced an annual main stage along with the New Yorker Festival, and the storytellers were all New Yorker writers. The shows were beloved, but I imagine it was a hard gig for the storytellers, since David Remnick, their boss, was most times in the first row.
Our next story comes from one of those events, and the teller is New Yorker staff writer Michael Spector. Michael specializes in stories about disease, but this story is about his assignment to deviate from his expertise and step out of it. Live from a collaboration between The Moth and the New Yorker Festival in New York City, here's Michael Spector.
I came to the New Yorker 13 years ago at the dawning of what is now considered the age of Remnick. And I came from the New York Times where I had been the Moscow bureau chief and did other jobs like I was a roving senior correspondent in Rome but really ran around Africa writing about diseases and death. That was my thing.
And I was really serious, in fact, super pompously serious. And I liked doing what I was doing. I was in Grozny when they started bombing. I was in Zimbabwe when they ran out of zinc to put in the coffins because so many people were dying of AIDS. Those are the stories that mean a lot to me, and they still do.
And when I came to the New Yorker, I expected to continue doing that and I did. And it was going pretty well. One day I came back from a trip to India, however, and there was a message on my machine from an editor that I really didn't know that basically said, "We want you to go to Milan to write a profile of a fashion designer named Lauren Steele." There were no words in that sentence that I understood. So I ignored it because it had to be a mistake.
A few hours later, David Remnick called and it wasn't actually a mistake. He's an extremely persuasive guy and he basically said, "Listen, it's like a palate cleanser. It's fun. You go to Milan, you stay in a nice hotel, you eat good food. No one will probably die except me."
I said, "Fine, you know, you want to please your boss, so you go and you do it." And the thing is, I kind of liked it. It was fun. He was a really interesting guy. There were some issues I'd never thought about. And I started doing that about once a year. I had this sort of formula: three parts death, one part ladies clothing. And I was fine with it. It was working for me. Until I came home again and David called and said, "We want you to write about Puff Daddy. He's getting into fashion."
I'm like, "What the fuck?" I said, "You know, you're proud of fine." John Galliano before he was an anti-Semitic lunatic. He just got out of, you know, he almost went to jail for a guns possession charge. This isn't fashion, this is ridiculous. He gave me the look. I said, "I'll tell you what, I'll look into it." He said, "Thank you." So I started calling his people. And to my awesome delight, they never called me back.
And I called and I called, and they ignored and they ignored. And I had this other story all set up about organic farming in Cuba, and I'd never been there, and it was kind of cool. And so I skipped on down to David's office and said, oh, due diligence, dude, I tried. He said, yeah, I understand. Let's just do this one sort of Hail Mary thing. Go down and see Anna Winter. She knows him, and she likes her magazine. She might be able to help him.
I said, "Fine." So I go down, I had never met her, and she had this imposing office, and she was herself, you know, imposing and fashionable, and I was as you see me. And it was something, and she said, "Sit down." I told her, began to tell her the situation, and about 21 seconds into it, she went, "Stop."
She got up, picked up her cell phone, walked into a corner and dialed and started talking urgently. I think I heard the words, "How can you not do this?" She came back, she sat down, and she said, "I think he'll call you." So I went back to my office he'd already called, or his people had called, and what they had said is, "We're going to Fashion Week next week. Puff would like you to come with him on the Concorde."
And you can spend the week." And I thought, "This is fantastic." Because David Remnick is a brilliant curator of our cultural heritage. He also happens to be a pretty zealous guardian of the Conde Nast treasury. And he's not sending me on the Concorde. I'm out of this. So I go down and I tell him, and he blanches a little. And we walk into Pam McCarthy's office, and she's in charge of money and things like that. And he just says, "Do you think we should do this?"
And she said, "Yeah, I think it's worth it." And he said, "Fine. Just make sure he flies on the cheapest flight home." And he looked at me and he said, "You better interview him every fucking minute you're on that plane." Which, by the way, I wanted to do because I was doing this grudgingly. It was ridiculous. I wanted to get the interview, get the information, buy some chocolates, go out to dinner, get the hell out of there.
So I get to JFK, the Concorde. Puff had been at a party in Atlanta the night before. He chartered a G4 and flew to Teterboro. Then he choppered in from Teterboro, made it by about a minute. He was really warm. He hugged me, he greeted me, we sat down. I took out my notebook, he looked at me, and he fell fast asleep. And he snored for the next three and a half hours. And he only woke up when we landed. So we get off the plane.
I turn on my phone, it's ringing, it's David. He said, "How was the interview?" I said, "You couldn't ask for more." So, um, you know, we had a heavy schedule that day. There were fashion events and parties and try-ons and cocktails. And at three in the morning, two maybe, we end up at a strip club with Bijou Phillips and Paris Hilton. Do you want me to repeat that? And I just, you know, I want the damn story. And he's in a playful mood and he looks at me and says, "Hey, let's get a lap dance."
I could see page six in the background. New Yorker scribe, Puff Daddy and Bijou Phillips in lapdance. I was kind of annoyed. I said, "You know what? It's late." I went home, got into bed, went to sleep. My phone rang an hour later. It was his assistant, Norma, saying, "Where are you?" I said, "I'm in the hotel because it's five in the morning." She said, "You can't just leave. Puffy's really upset. He wants to have champagne at dawn at the Eiffel Tower. You have to be there."
I'm like, you know what? I really don't have to be there. I went back to sleep. But, you know, I needed the interview. I needed something. They sent me on the damn Concorde. So we did it again. I went around with him that night. I got into a limousine with him at about 10.30. We were going to Karl Lagerfeld's house. Another sentence you would never expect me to say. And the phone rang, and it was David. And he said, where are you? I said, I'm in the back of a limousine with Puff Daddy. We're on our way to Karl's.
He said, "Bullshit." I said, "Puffy, here's my phone. It's my boss." He said, he takes the phone and he said, "Oh, boss, I'm so happy that you called because I really got to tell you, you know, we don't do this very often. We don't take reporters in, but when we do, we go all the way. And you ought to know something. Your man has journalistic ethics because last night I offered him a lap dance and he refused. I heard David in the background say, "That wasn't me. That's on him."
So fine, we continue, I still need the damn interview, and yet again, 3 in the morning, we're in a strip club. But this is like a wild place, it's a sort of walkway, tea walkway, runway thing, where women are walking up and down in latex suits on spiky heels with strategic parts of their clothing absent. And Puff and I sit at a little ringside table, we both order club sodas, and he looks at me and said, let's talk.
So I asked him some questions and I said, "Listen, you make so much money, you must resent this ridiculous amount of taxes you pay." He slams his fist down on the table and says, "I love paying taxes. I'll pay every tax they ever ask. It means I make money. It means I can give something back. I love it." So then Jennifer Lopez had just left him and I asked him about that and he was silent for me. He started to tear up and he said, "I just can't talk about that." And I'm thinking,
"I may be getting Stockholm Syndrome, but I think he's being real here." So then I said, "Listen, who's your hero?" He said, "Well, the person I really want to be like is Martha Stewart." I'm like, "Come on!" You know, and then we talked. I went to a Catholic school in Westchester. He had two paper routes! And he was proud of it, and I talked to his mom, and I knew it was true. And I just thought, you know,
Maybe he's not what I thought he was. So we talk some more and I go on and I write the story. And I publish the story and I have no idea whether he read it or not. He was very warm. He invited me to things after that. I never went because I was still worried about page six. But it was kind of him. But I went on with my life.
And I went back to doing the sort of three parts death, it's actually got more parts death, and I was good with it. And one day, about two years later, I was in Uganda. I was going to see an AIDS researcher named Pantiano Kalibu.
He's a brilliant man and he's in Kampala now, but he used to be way out in the boondocks. It's a beautiful place, but you don't necessarily want to be on a six-hour ride. And I didn't, you know, he didn't have email. I didn't know if he was going to see me. I was assured that he'd be there, but I didn't know whether he'd get the message. And I got there and he comes bounding out of his hut. And he looked at me and he said, Michael Spector of the New Yorker, this is such an honor. I puffed back up.
I was excited, he said, "I've read all your work, I can't believe you're coming here to look into my work, I'm really excited about that, and we're gonna have a really good time." And I said, "Well, thank you." And he's a big man, and he just took his arm and put it around my shoulder, and he said, "I just have one question, though." I said, "Sure, what?" He said, "What's Puff Daddy really like?" Michael Spector has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998.
He says Puffy still contacts him to hang out sometimes, and who knows, maybe one day he'll take him up on the offer. After our break, a young Inuit woman revives the lost art of traditional tattooing. When the Moth Radio Hour continues.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by PRX.
This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Ginness. In this hour, we're exploring the spirit of inquiry, curiosity, and venturing into the unknown. Marjorie Kunyak-Tabone told our next story live at the Moth in Anchorage, Alaska, where the theme of the night was uncharted territory. She opens with a traditional prayer. Kuyanaagalugit, King Olivert.
When I was a little girl, I asked my mother what that tattoo on her wrist was. She said, "It's a tattoo I stitched on myself when I was a teenager." You're much too young to understand. Ask me when you're older.
I'm Inupiaq from Nome, Alaska, and my parents raised me to embrace my Inupiaq heritage. Raised out on the land, learning how to process and cut the animals, pick the greens and the berries and respect them in such a way that there was just no words to be shared. I knew who I was, but I wanted to be a woman.
that spiritual component, that link to our ancestors that I just felt was missing. I found an old photograph of a relative from the early 1800s. It was of a woman, and she had three distinct tattoos running from the bottom of her lip to the bottom of her chin. I had asked my grandmother what those were, what they meant, and she said,
A long time ago, every woman got those traditional chin tattoos. But I don't remember what they meant, but I think they were a form of beauty. I had asked several other elders, and they all gave me the same reply. But they told me that they were called "davlurun," chin tattoos. And the practice was called "kakinjit," traditional tattoos.
And I had soon learned that the practice of kakinits had been suppressed by the early missionaries in the late 1800s and had slowly faded away with the passing of our elders. What little knowledge was left were in myth and the occasional journal of early explorers. I was a young woman now and I asked my mother again what that wrist tattoo had meant.
And she shared with me, when I was a teenager, I decided to tattoo myself because I was so angry that our culture had been uprooted and our Native community was in a crisis of identity. And I wanted to be grounded so badly. And I asked her, why that tattoo?
Why one line across the wrist? And she said, your great-grandmother had three lines going across the wrist, and I wanted to have those three lines. But she was unable to complete them. I thought to myself, I want to have that spiritual connection to our ancestors, just like my mother. I wanted to be bold. I wanted to get my tableron.
But I knew I needed to get permission from my family because at that time, in the early 2000s, it was extremely rare to see a woman with facial tattoos. It would have been almost like an act of rebellion rather than a strengthening of my identity. My parents were supportive, but when I went to my grandmother and I asked her if I could get my tableron, she looked right at me and she said, Oh no, not your beautiful face.
My grandmother was one of the first generations to be sent to boarding school as a child and learn to assimilate into the Western society. She was told to just fit in and to do away with the Inupiaq traditions that she had learned. I think she feared that I would stick out too much and maybe wouldn't get a job. I needed to prove to her that I was strong enough to wear the "dablarun"
I needed to earn it. With the little literature that was available, I come to learn that the main technique of giving a tattoo was done by a needle and thread. The thread was dipped in ink made of soot from the sea oil lamp and skillfully stitched in the top layers of the skin to create intricate designs that told a story.
I also learned that it was almost always women getting the tattoos done. But the coolest thing that I learned was that the tattooist was always a woman. I was empowered.
an opportunity came up where I could compete in a statewide cultural pageant. And the cultural pageant, you know, it's similar to a beauty pageant in the lower 48, except you're not really judged on your evening wear or how good you look in a bathing suit. But instead, you're scored on your cultural knowledge and your ability to demonstrate it to a wide audience.
I asked my grandmother, "Does our family have any traditional regalia that I could wear to represent our family at this competition?" And she continued to pull out the most beautiful, unfinished ground squirrel parka. She said, "Your great-grandmother started sewing this parka in the 1960s. My same great-grandmother, who had those three lines tattooed on her wrist.
The competition was three weeks away, and we still had to do the bottom half of this parka. And mind you, this parka had intricate geometric designs that made our family kupuk, family crested designs that people knew who you were, and the stitches were so fine, tight, and close. I wondered...
if my great-grandmother had tattooed herself or tattooed others. It was so unifying knowing that my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother and I worked on this family heirloom
And with a finished ground squirrel parka, I went to the competition and shared the cultural knowledge that I had learned growing up on the land and talked about the importance of reclaiming our cultural identity, and I won. My grandmother was so proud, and I asked her again. I said, Grandmother, I really want to get these tattoos, but I really need your blessing. And she looked at me, and she said reluctantly,
Okay. Now, I knew I wanted to get it in a respectful way. In some of the research that I did, I found that when a young woman reached a marriageable age and she was able to bear children, she would receive her traditional chin tattoo. I thought, "How can I keep that concept the same but adapt it to today's world to make it relevant to me?"
So I decided that I would get my traditional tabloon when I graduated from college and felt more secure in my identity as an Inupiaq woman and moved back to my home community and worked for my people. So the day after I graduated college, I made that appointment at the only place that was available to me because there were no traditional tattooists at that time, at the local tattoo parlor by a non-native man.
I had the tattoo done, and it was a beautifully transforming time. I had my family's support, but it lacked something. That ceremony, that prayer, that connection with the ancestors that I wanted so desperately. I went back home, and I was walking down the street, and I remember an elder stopped me, and he looked at my face, and he said, I remember when my grandmother had traditional chin tattoos like that.
Another elder stopped me another day and said, "I remember seeing women always having traditional tattoos. I'm so glad you're bringing that back. I remember babies would reach out and they would touch my chin almost as if they recognized me like the ancestors were acknowledging me and approving of my tattoo because you see in our culture
The babies are the closest link to our ancestors. Getting my tattoo opened the floodgate of knowledge. People were sharing stories from me from all over Alaska. They wanted to know the ceremony. They wanted to know designs. Everybody wanted to learn more. We needed it. We needed it so desperately because we needed to heal from the historical traumas
And I couldn't control what was done in the past, but I could control my next move forward. And even though I didn't know what was next beyond that step, I decided that I was going to be an Inupiaq tattooist. And so I went and I learned from a traditional Filipino tattooist the ancient techniques of skin stitching and hand poking.
And along that journey, I learned even more about our tattoos. I learned they were far more than just for beauty. I learned that they were to honor the animals. They were to acknowledge the spiritual realm. They were also to recognize accomplishments of family. It was like our own form of literature. It was so beautiful. And it was ours, ours to reclaim.
One of the first tattoos I did, my mom said, could you finish the tattoos on my wrist that I started when I was a teenager? I was so honored. And I remember us sitting at fish camp and me steadily stitching those last two lines to finish those tattoos that were grounding not just her, but me. And soon after that,
My grandmother's younger sister, in the same generation that went to boarding school and was told to assimilate, called me on the phone and in her most grandmother tone said, "You will do my chin tattoo." And I said, "Okay, Gram."
And I remember going to her house, and I was so nervous. I was putting down the stencil on her chin, and I remember saying, the ancestors are here. They're going to help guide me. And I put the stencil on, and it looked perfect. And we tattooed it in this beautiful ceremony that was just healing for both of us. And as it was done, we both looked into the mirror, and we knew that
that it was meant to be there, and she looked at me in my eyes through the mirror and she said, "Thank you." I was also able to get my traditional thigh tattoos done because I had also discovered that we didn't have tattoos just for this generation or for the past generation. We had tattoos for the future generation. You see, we believe that when a baby exits a womb, the first thing we want them to see is beauty.
and know that they're coming into a world full of love. And I wanted to make sure I had them. And I was preparing to be a mother. Now, there's several Inuit tattooists. Dozens of women have facial tattoos. Hundreds have traditional tattoos somewhere on their body. But the greatest thing is eight months ago,
I birth my daughter into a world where she's seen beauty and full of love, and she will grow up in a world where our traditional tattooing is a thriving part of being Inupiaq. That was Marjorie Kuniak-Taba.
Marjorie was raised at her family's fish camp just outside of Nome, Alaska. She is Inupiaq and Kiowa. She's an entrepreneur, artist, hide tanner, tattooist, subsistence gatherer, and mother. To see photos of Marjorie, her tattoos, and her beautiful daughter, and to hear an interview with Marjorie, go to themoth.org.
After the break, a young woman inspires girls to come out and ride bicycles in the midst of war. When the Moth Radio Hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by PRX. You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Ginness.
Bushra Al-Fusail tells our final story in this hour, all about venturing out. The story takes place in Sana'a, Yemen, during a three-day ceasefire with Saudi rebels. But that doesn't mean that the city is safe. In fact, her choices in this story garner a lot of outside attention and put her at risk. I called Bushra to have her set the stage for us. So was this the first war you had lived through?
Unfortunately not. Through the history of Yemen, we always had civil war, but this was the first time we had airstrikes. How dangerous was it?
With airstrikes, we just didn't know how to deal with it because there's a bomb coming from the sky. So we don't know which areas are safe and which ones is not. So we were dealing with a new situation. Everybody was locking themselves inside the houses, so the streets were empty. What kind of a kid were you? Well, I was quiet, but also I was a rebel. I remember when I was five years old,
My mom started to teach me Arabic stories and the boys would always go with their fathers and the girls would always go to the kitchen and cook. I always asked my mom, why the hell the girls are not going with their fathers? So that was my start. For context, this story takes place in 2015 when Bushra was 27 years old.
Live from the Moth Mainstage in Los Angeles, in collaboration with public radio station KCRW, here's Bushra Al-Fusail. One of the nights in 2015 in Sana'a, Yemen, I used to live at my parents' house, and it was around 12 a.m., and I woke up, and I felt my bed was shaking. I get out of my bed, and I heard a huge explosion.
and I saw my dad standing on my bedroom door screaming, telling me to go to the basement. I ran to the basement and I saw my mom and my two siblings. There was no electricity and there was no internet. An hour later, the internet was back. So I went to my Facebook and I see Saudi coalition started to bomb Yemen. My parents were really scared because we never been bombed
in Yemen. We always had a civil war, but we never been bombed. We never experienced an airstrike. So me and my parents decided to stay at home and try to keep safe. But two weeks later, I started to get depressed and I wanted to go back to work. At that time, I used to work at a UN agency and I was a freelance photographer.
So I had a fight with my mom that I want to go back to work and they were just telling me it's crazy, it's so dangerous. But at that time Sana'a was controlled by Yemeni rebels and it was under a siege as well. So we didn't have any fuel in the country and it wasn't the first time that we had a fuel crisis.
So I knew from where to get fuel from the black market. I knew to which point and which street they're just standing with gallons of petrol. So I decided to go to the black market and to buy a gallon, which cost me that day from 80 to 100, used to cost 15 to $5. So I was so happy I got the fuel and I took my car the next morning and I decided to go to the office.
I started to drive and I look up and I started to see men are biking. And I was like, okay, this is, I felt happy because people are trying to find alternative ways. And it's not very familiar that bikes in Yemen, to be honest.
And it reminds me as well about my childhood, where me and my older sister, Sarah, we used to bike in the old city of Sana'a, which used to be safe and people were open-minded. And while I was driving, I looked at the other side, I started to see women waiting for public transportation, fully covered from head to toe, holding a very heavy grocery plastic bag on their heads.
under a very strong sun. And it reminded me about why I can't bike anymore. So Yemen is one of the most patriarchal countries in the Middle East. It's not forbidden that women couldn't bike, it's not against the law, and it's not against the religion, but it's against the society and against the traditions in Yemen. And as much as I asked myself, I started to get more angry at why I couldn't continue to bike.
So I started to talk with my friends. What about we start to bike? And then I decided just to create a Facebook page called Yemeni Women Bike, just to see what people are going to react about it, and to create a platform that I could just suggest about women biking in this crisis. So people started to like that page, and I was happy that people started to talk about what if women could bike in Yemen.
And at that time, the Yemeni rebels were having a negotiation with the Saudi coalition for having a ceasefire for three days. And I was like, "Okay, if I'm going to bike, I'm going to bike in these three days." So I did a Facebook invitation inviting Yemeni women, "Come and join me for a ride bike." But then the problem is, again, Yemen is not Amsterdam. We don't have bikes.
I can't just, you know, I can't just go to the street and rent a bike. So I was like, okay, around 100 girls, they signed up that they're going to attend this campaign. So I started to call friends and family and everybody, neighbors, who's going to lend me their bikes. So me and my friends, we gathered around five bikes, which is amazing. So I remember that night, I was so nervous because I
I didn't know what to expect. It's so dangerous. Anybody could shoot us. There is no government is present at that time. And to be honest, even if the government was there, they would never protect women. So, but I was like, I have to do it. So that morning came at 6 a.m. I woke up. I wrote on my Facebook, it's a revolution day. And I hid the bikes at the backyard because I didn't tell my parents. I was always the golden sheep in my family.
So I just hide them and I took my car, my dad's car, and I just shoved them inside and I just went. And then I chose this huge highway in Yemen. And I knew it was dangerous, but I wanted us to be very visible for everybody. And I just want everybody just to see us.
But that street was destroyed because there was, before they bombed that street, so there is rock there and there, and there was a checkpoint. But I ignored all these facts, and I just put the five bikes next to me. And I was just waiting, holding my camera, and I thought that, "Okay, I'm crazy. Maybe nobody's going to show up. It's just going to be me." But I look up, I saw my friend, and I was like, "That's great."
Two of us is amazing. And then I look up, then my other friend came. I was like, I can't ask for more than that. Three of us is amazing. And then I see two ladies are walking from the checkpoint toward us, and she came and introduced herself. She's like, hi, this is me and my daughter. We came to support the campaign, but we don't know how to bike. That was the cutest thing I ever saw in Yemen, to be honest.
So I was so happy and around five minutes we gathered 11 girls and everybody just started to take the bike and take the turns and everybody was so happy and I was trying to take photos with my phone and my camera and the girls told me please don't show our faces and I respected that. So I was like taking photos but not showing the faces.
And it came my turn, and as I said, we were like a long abaya, so I pulled out my abaya and got on the bike. And as soon as I started to bike, I started to feel the breeze into my scarf, into my abaya, and I went back. I felt like later moments are just biking.
And I was so happy, I completely forgot that we were under a siege or controlled by Yemeni rebels or being bombed with the Saudi coalition. And as well, there was like men were driving through with their cars and screaming, "You're crazy!" or,
"Go back to your home," and all these nasty words, but I completely blocked them out because I was so happy, and I just felt the moment of freedom at that moment while I was biking. So for two hours, we biked, everybody left, everybody was happy, and I was so excited, I shared some pictures to my friends. I was like, "What do you think?" And I returned the bikes, I went back home, and as soon as I stepped in, my parents were standing there,
telling me, "Bushra, what did you do today? Did you bike?" I was like, "No, I didn't bike. I just photographed." I lied. They're like, "People are knocking at the door. People are calling us." They were so mad. But I just left to my room. I was like, "I just photographed. That's it." So I went in, and I checked my Facebook, and I started to receive all these phone calls and messages. What have I done?
Where is my dad? Why is there not controlling me? People are starting to knock the door, asking about my dad. What have I done? Was I creating a war in a wartime? And I'm a bad influencer for the Yemeni girls. And all these messages that they said that if they ever saw me biking, they're going to just beat me up.
So it was very intense. I just closed the phone and my dad ignored his phone calls too and he didn't open the door for anybody. Next morning, my mom decided to take us to my older sister's house because it was so intense. And we went there. I had a nap that afternoon and I woke up and I was listening. I heard that my mom, she was laughing. So I went down and I went to the backyard and
and I saw my mom is trying to get on the bike, trying to balance. And in our backyard, like, nobody could see us. It's fully covered. And that was like a silent solidarity from my mother without no words, which was very, very cute. And then my sister came, and she was telling me, look, at her Facebook,
I started to look to the photo, and then there's this Yemeni girl who posted a picture while biking in Yemen, underneath it saying, "In solidarity with Yemeni woman bike." And then, while scrolling more down, I started to see Yemeni women in Canada doing a campaign in solidarity with Yemeni women bike.
And then I scrolled down from Canada, from Egypt, from New York, from DC, from London, from all over the world, and hundreds and hundreds of pictures that have been posted, posting in Facebook and hashtagging in solidarity with Yemeni woman bike. I was extremely, extremely happy, and I felt like I'm not that crazy girl. And I showed my parents like, "See, your daughter is not crazy. We have the right to bike."
And it's true that this happened since five years. And unfortunately, the war is still going on. And the Yemeni rebels are stronger. And there's no rights for women in Yemen. And it's true that we were just 11 girls, including myself. We were biking. But it felt a moment of freedom. And thank you.
That was Bushra Al-Fusayl. Bushra lives in New York now. She does organizing in the Yemeni American community. She also works in property management, and she's still taking photographs. Do you think women are still biking? No, unfortunately not. As I said, they are controlling more of the city, controlling more of the country, and women are being more scared.
So do you think that the bike riding was worth it? Yes, definitely. Yes. Because the amount of the Yemeni woman that I get support after the campaign and that they know this is possible. Can you describe some of the beautiful photographs that the photographs related to this historic event?
Well, my favorite photo is the one that comes with the background of the mosque. But I loved taking pictures while the girls were getting on the bike and just riding the bike and, you know, seeing their abayas are just flying at the back of their bikes. So I never imagined that I would see that at all. So seeing that, I felt like I was in a dream.
Bushra Al-Fusail. You can see Bushra's photographs from this historic day at themoth.org. And that's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour. Thank you for taking the time to listen, and we hope you'll join us next time. This episode of the Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Katherine Burns, and Sarah Austin-Ginness, who also hosted and directed the stories in the hour. Co-producer, Vicki Merrick. Associate producer, Emily Couch. The
The rest of the Moth leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Cloutier, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Kaza. The Moth would like to thank the New Yorker Festival for their collaboration. Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers.
Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Blue Dot Sessions, Sean P. Diddy Combs, and Alcira and the Nubatones. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.
