849: The Narrator
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From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Hannah Jaffe-Walt sitting in for Ira Glass. This all started with a phone call, a call that eventually led to this episode. So that's where I'm going to start. I was talking to a journalist in Gaza on the phone. Hi. Hello? Hi, this is Tana. Hi. How are you? This was back in April. I'd been speaking to people in Gaza for months by then, but nobody where Maram was, in the middle area, Derbala. Maram Humeid. She's a reporter for Al Jazeera English. We were chatting. I was asking some pretty basic questions about what she was experiencing, what she was seeing, what the day had been like. She got interrupted.
It was, yeah, you know, a little bit calm day in Deir el-Balah, you know. Who is it, mom? So Banyas is listening. I need to introduce Banyas to you. Hi, Banyas.
Hi.
How are you? I'm fine, thank you. Good. Maram and I kept talking, or trying to. And you're in Deir el-Balah?
Are you in Deir el-Balah? Yeah, we are in Deir el-Balah in the central area. Now what do I do?
Is that where you're from? Is that where your home is? Or did you?
80.
Yeah. 80, not 80. 80.
Not 80.
That's a lot. That's a lot of people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mom, it's 80, not 80. So, Banias is correcting me regarding the American accent, okay? She's saying, like, what is it? It's 80 or 80?
80. 80. 80. Does she correct you a lot?
Yeah, a lot, a lot. She speaks English better than me because I started with her from very young. I'm here, you know, around, but yes.
Back to me.
Back to me. Yeah.
And where, where? She's, yeah. Does she want to talk?
Yes, I'm pretty ready. I'm ready, ready.
You're ready, ready. How old are you, Banyas?
I'm eight years old.
You're eight years old. And where did you learn to speak like an American?
From Mama.
She speaks to you in English?
Yeah. Do you hear that? Do you hear that?
I do. Yeah. What is it?
What is it? A warplane.
It's a warplane. I do hear it. Yeah.
Yeah. I, of course, hear it.
Because it never ends. Banyas then takes the phone from her mom. Having told me what they are hearing, begins pointing out what they are seeing. Saying, look at this, as if I can also see, even though we're not on a video call. She says, here we have the window, as you can see. Here's the curtains, they're flowers. We don't have any sofas, just, mom, how do you say it? Mattresses?
Just matrices, as you can see. We sit sometimes on bed, on the ground. Women are covering their heads all the time, as you can see.
She couldn't see. You can show her.
Yeah, tell me.
Okay. Did you see our room? No. If you see it, you will... You'll run, run, run, run from this. Why? Because it's so old and dusty.
Maram told me later she was so surprised at Banyas' performance in this call. That was the word she used. Apparently, Banyas was marching around with the phone in front of her, telling people, I need the room, please, jumping on the mattress, standing on the table, pointing, saying, here's my brother, Iyas.
There he is. He's pretty and smart like me.
Gaza is full of kids. About half the population is under 18 years old. And about half of that group is under 10 years old, like Banias. A huge way in which children in this war are different from kids in other war zones is that children in Gaza are not allowed to leave. They're not displaced to some other spot away from the fighting. They're displaced inside Gaza. They're stuck in the violence and stuck with their families in crowded rooms or tents, doing the things that kids everywhere do, building their inner world, trying to make sense of the world around them. I was calling Maram that day to ask about the situation in Derbella. And Banyas took the phone and said, no, no, no, don't ask her. Ask me.
Being in Derbella is boring.
It's boring.
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