Host: Sarah Austin Jenness
[Uncanny Valley by The Drift]
Sarah: [00:00:12] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin Jenness. And this hour has six stories told by women from Ireland, Kenya, Germany, France and the US.
Our first story is about six sisters at a funeral in Dublin. Mary Kate O’Flanagan told this story at our GrandSLAM competition in Los Angeles, where we partner with public radio station KCRW. She's also the winner of our first GrandSLAM in Dublin, by the way. Here's Mary Kate, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Mary: [00:00:45] So, my parents found themselves with the responsibility of raising six daughters. They took that really seriously and they really wanted to empower us. They told us there was no ground we couldn't break and we could be any number of things as long as we worked for them. But what they hadn't factored in was that they had already given us everything that we needed to walk through this world fearlessly, which was five sisters each. And if anything, we had a superabundance of self-assurance. My sister Olivia always says, “Our family motto should be underprepared but overconfident.” [audience laughter]
But all that changed one morning 10 years ago when my sister Catherine rang me to tell me that our father had dropped dead. He was 74, but he'd been as fit as a flea up until the night before. So, we were all poleaxed with shock. But thank God, if there's one thing the Irish do right, it's death. Because in English you say, “I'm sorry for your trouble,” but in Irish we say, “Tá mé i mo sheasamh leat.” I'm standing with you. And we mean that literally. First, the neighbors come with enough food for an army and then an army comes.
So, we had a traditional Irish wake where literally hundreds of people loved my father and loved us, came to sit with us and pray with us and sing songs. I'm not going to lie, a drink was taken and [audience laughter] mostly to tell stories. While he lay there in his open coffin, those stories kept him alive for a few more hours, how he read Tolstoy to us at bedtime when were little girls, before we could read ourselves.
When we could read ourselves, he made a big ceremony of taking us to the bed library and getting us our first library card and telling us, “The whole world is yours now.” How he didn't allow us to watch television unless there was a good movie on anything with Fred Astaire or John Wayne. He saw nothing contradictory and completely identifying with both those images of masculinity. [audience laughter]
And in the solidity of those Irish traditions handed down generation from generation, I felt such comfort, and I realized why they never change. But there was one tradition that just wouldn't work for us, and that was when the undertaker came to me and my sisters and said, “So, we need to know who are the six men who are going to carry the coffin?” And I said, “Well, there are six of us.” And he said, “Okay, so, you're husbands then?” I looked at my sisters, and I saw without us ever having discussed it, we were all in complete agreement. And my sister Sarah said, “No, she means we're going to carry the coffin.”
And he said, “Oh, isn't that lovely that you would want to do that. But a coffin's much heavier than you think, and it's unwieldy. It would be better if you let the men do this for you.” And my sister Catherine looked at him very calmly and said, “It would be better if you let us do this for our father.” He came back to us with a counter offer and he said, “How about if we wheel the coffin along and you girls walk beside it like a guard of honor?” And my sister Rebecca said, “Shoulder high. My father will be carried from this house, shoulder high, and by us.”
So, with misgivings, they allowed us to break with tradition and to stand up and carry our father's coffin as long as the men were standing in reserve. But when they lifted him and put him on our shoulders, he wasn't heavy at all. My father wasn't a big man, and there was nothing the six of us couldn't do together. It was unwieldy. We also had an additional problem, which is there's a big height disparity in my family. [audience laughter]
So, Rachel and Rebecca, do you remember that badass shoulder height for her is about four foot off the ground. They're like 5-foot altogether. Then come me and Olivia, who are 5’6”, and Sarah and Katherine bringing up the rear, 5”10. So, there's quite a considerable tilt [audience laughter] on the coffin. But we managed it. We carried him from the house to the church, from the church to the graveyard, where we put him in the broken ground and we said goodbye to him forever. My lovely aunt said afterwards, “You know, for all the great stories that were told, the most eloquent testimony to the best part of that good man's life was watching the six strong women he raised carrying him to his rest.”
And that should have been a comfort, but it was no comfort at all. Because in the weeks and months that followed, what I discovered was we weren't strong women. We were women who'd had a source of strength that was taken from us. And each one of us was bowed down in our own private grief. I found that the bonds that tied us together were loosening, because before, whenever we came together, we'd laugh and tell stories. And now, whenever one of us saw another one, we'd just start crying and we started avoiding each other.
It went on like that until six months after his death. My sister Rebecca had finished a huge job, and she just got on a plane and went to the other side of the world. She rang me from there the next day and she said, “Mary, you're in Mom and Dad's house, right? Could you just go and check and see if someone's been monkeying with Dad's phone?” And I said, “Yes. What's going on?” She said, “Just check.” So, I went to his desk and I said, “Have it here, Rebecca. It's dusty and the battery's dead, like nobody's been near it. What's going on?” And she said, “Okay.”
I sat on the balcony of the hotel last night, and I looked up at the sky and I just said, “Dad, I can't go on If you don't exist anymore. I'm going to need a sign.” And I said, “Oh, Rebecca, but what's that got to do with the phone?” And she said, “So my phone beeped this morning and it said, you have one new message from Dad.” I said, “Dad sent you a message from beyond the grave?” And she said, “Well, it's the last message that he ever sent me, but it came through again. “And I said, “What did it say?” And she said, “It said, I'm home now, Bex. You can call whenever you want.” And I went, “Oh, Rebecca.” And she said, “Do you think that's a sign?”
Maybe it was just a glitch in the system, and I said, “Yeah, that happens sometimes. What's that called, Rebecca?” And she said, it's called a ghost in the machine. And we started laughing. And she said, “Do we have the audacity to believe?” And I said, “Rebecca, you sent up a prayer and your father's unstoppable love penetrated the veil between the living and the dead to send you a sign. I dare you not to believe. Plague. Locusts, you'll get next.” And she said, “So, what do we do now?” And I said, “We tell the others.” And that's how my father gave me back the only thing I need to walk through this world unafraid, my five sisters.
[cheers and applause]
Sarah: [00:07:21] That was Mary Kate O'Flanagan. Mary Kate is a writer. She and her five sisters live quite close to each other in Ireland. She wrote in an email, “We live in each other's pockets. I'm with my sister right now, minding her kids.”
It's been 10 years since her father's death, and the grief has receded a bit. Now she prays to him, she says.” I figure he's home now and I can call whenever I want.” She said, “After Dad's funeral, we saw our women friends start to carry coffins with their men folk. More than one of them said the sight of us made them think, well, why wouldn't I?” She went on to say, “Men shouldn't have to carry burdens alone when a woman can lend their strength. And women shouldn't be enfeebled by notions of daintiness.”
To see the photo of Mary Kate and her sisters in church as pallbearers, go to themoth.org, where you can find Extras related to most of our stories on The Moth Radio Hour.
[soft and melodious flute music]
Next up, Gail Breslow. Gail thinks of what you're about to hear as her Genesis story. She told it at a Moth night in Boston, where we partner with PRX and public radio station WBUR. Here's Gail, live at The Moth.
[applause]
Gail: [00:08:43] Thank you. So, it's 1964, and I'm nine years old. You can do the math if you'd like. My family has decided to move to Munich, Germany, for a year. They decide since I'm only nine years old, I might as well go to the local Volksschule. I hardly speak any German, but I'll figure it out as I go along and it doesn't really matter, because I'm nine years old. It's fourth grade.
So, on the way to school the first day, my mother's walking me over there and she says as casually as she can, “You know, you might not want to let anybody know that you're Jewish.” And I nod my head. I was only nine years old, but I knew about the Nazis. Every year in Hebrew school, Mrs. Preston, who had survived the Holocaust, would come in and talk with us around Yom Kippur about what had happened to her and her family. So, I understood. So, I just nodded, off we went to school.
So, we get there and I'm taken to my class, all the other fourth graders, and I'm ushered up to the front of the room to the teacher's desk. And her name is Frau Zwecksteiger. She's on this big platform. Her desk is on this big platform, like the stage is. She calls me up onto the big platform and she pulls out this form to start filling out. And first question, she goes, “Naama?” All the other kids are just sitting there, I can feel their eyes on my back behind me, like, “Naama.”
I don't speak much German, but I get that one. So, I'm like, “Gail Breslow.” I give her my name. She writes it down. Next question “Tresa?” I'm like, “Okay, I got that one too. I'm feeling pretty good.” So, I give her my address. She writes it down. Next question, “Religion?” I'm like, “I cannot believe this.” I just shrug my shoulders. She says, “Religion in this louder voice.” Like, if she says it louder, I'll understand what she means. Again, I shrugged my shoulders like, “I don't know that one.” She doesn't speak English, but she tries. She's like, “What is religion?” [audience laughter] And I'm frozen. I hear some kid behind me snicker like, “Boy, she's dumb.”
I think, what am I supposed to do? My mother's told me, “Don't tell them your religion here. It is I've been here five minutes. She's asking me to pronounce this in front of the whole class. And I think I could lie. I think about all I've heard in Hebrew school, about all those people who died instead of renouncing their religion, I'm like, “I can't do it.” Plus, what would I say? I mean, “What am I?” So, I go, “Jewish.” And she goes, “Wir beten?” I mean, I had said it as softly as I could, so I said a little louder still, in English, “Jewish.” She gets up out of her seat a little bit and frowns and goes, “Judah?” I'm like-- She goes, “Judah?
And now, she's bellowing at the top of her lung, “Du bist, Judah.” I feel like out in the hall, they can hear. I hear some kid behind me gasp. I mean, Munich, Germany, 1964. These kids have probably never met anybody Jewish. And here I am, first day of school, and I square my shoulders and “I go, “Ja, ich bin Jude.” And she writes it down. Nothing happens. [audience laughter] It turns out she wanted to know, because there were two religious class in the school. There was the Catholics and the Protestant, and she had to figure out which one to put me in. [audience laughter]
So, I learned a lot about Catholicism that year. [audience laughter] But you know what? After that, I decided, I wasn't ever going to try to pass for anything that I wasn't. Because sometimes you just have to square your shoulders and say, “Ja, ich bin Jude.” Thank you very much.
[cheers and applause]
Sarah: [00:13:38] That was Gail Breslow. She said, “My mother heard me tell this story many times as an adult and we always had the same exchange. She would say she was sorry for putting me through that experience, and I would insist it helped shape me into the person I am today.”
Gail is the director of the Clubhouse Network, a nonprofit dedicated to youth from low-income communities. She's also a competitive runner who's completed 20 marathons, including one on her 60th birthday.
After the break, a third grader jockeys for the lead in Paul Bunyan the Musical to catch the eye of her crush and a struggling intern navigates a New York City emergency room, coming up next on The Moth Radio Hour.
[upbeat music]
Jay: [00:14:35] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
[ambient and upbeat music]
Sarah: [00:15:45] Welcome back to The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin Jenness, and I'm your host. We're listening to stories from women. This hour highlights lessons learned as sisters, students, mothers, daughters, career women and friends.
Our next story takes place in the third grade. How do you get the attention of that crush of yours? Ally Mason details her strategy of stepping out into the spotlight. Here's Ally, live at a Moth StorySLAM in San Francisco, where we partner with public radio stations KQED and KALW. The theme of the night was Fools.
[applause]
Ally: [00:16:23] So, the first time I ever performed in front of an audience was in the fall of 2004 when I was in third grade. Every year, the third graders, it was a tradition, would put on a play and it was somewhat of a rite of passage to do the third-grade play. So, we were all very excited for it. I, in particular, was excited for it, because I knew I was going to get the lead, because I was one of the only kids that did not have braces. [audience laughter]
So, I saw this as an opportunity to achieve celebrity status and get the lead. I thought I would get recognition and attention, which was something I really wanted, especially from the new kid who had just moved to our school from South Africa. His name was Dijon, and I was smitten. [audience laughter]
So, Ms. Billingsley, our third-grade teacher, decided that our play would be Paul Bunyan the Musical. [audience laughter] She also decided that instead of casting it herself or holding auditions, she would let us cast it by volunteering to play a part that she would briefly describe. So, we did this prior to reading It. So, we almost cast it blindly. When she described the role of Babe, [audience laughter] as having a lot of lines and a certain solo, my tiny brain thought, that's it. That is the lead. It sounds cute. I volunteered, and I got the part and I was so excited until I read the play. [audience laughter]
What my teacher had failed to mention was the full name of Babe was Babe the Blue Ox. [audience laughter] My solo was glamorously titled I Need Pancakes, [audience laughter] a song in which I lamented for three minutes about not being able to eat my daily serving of two tons of pancakes. [audience laughter] What made matters worse was, was that I was the tallest kid in the third grade. I was five feet tall, so I did not want to be associated with this large character and draw attention to myself in that way. So, I went to my teacher and I begged her to let me resign from the role of Babe the Blue Ox. [audience laughter]
And she would not let me. She said, “You know, that's not fair to the other kids who already have their roles and they already like their roles, and maybe they don't want to switch.” And so, I decided, well, fine, I'll just sabotage myself. [audience laughter] So, at every rehearsal, I would skulk around and be super mopey. But unfortunately, for me, my character was in a hostage situation. Babe the Blue Ox was Paul Bunyan's pet ox. Very unconventional pet. [audience laughter] But Babe the Blue Ox was kidnapped by the villains to upset Paul Bunyan.
So, the whole I don't want to be here attitude was exactly [audience laughter] what the character was supposed to be. [audience laughter] So, I thought I was going to be so bad I would be forcibly removed. But instead, I was praised for my acting talent. [audience laughter] So, I just accepted my fate. I'm going to be the laughing stock of the school and the butt of every joke for all of eternity. I did the performance, and everyone loved it, and I loved it and Dijon loved it. [audience laughter]
People would come up to me and ask me to do my song, and I would have to pretend like I hated the attention, “Oh, no, I couldn't possibly. I Need Pancakes.” [audience laughter] And so, it worked out well for me. I was happy. I found something that I love to do. I was confident, I was popular, I had a boyfriend, and all I needed to do was put on a blue fat suit and sing and dance to a song about pancakes. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Sarah: [00:21:16] That was Ally Mason. Ally is a student and lives in Berkeley. She said she fully recommends this strategy of getting that special person to notice you. But sadly, Dijon moved away the next year before their romance could take off. Dijon, if you're out there.
To the ladies listening, Aly's dating advice is, “Be yourself, unless you can be a giant blue ox. Then do that, because apparently guys love it and do embarrassing things because a lot of the time it's super fun and everyone else wishes they had the confidence to do it.”
[fast tense music]
Bess Stillman tells our next story. I've often wondered about the personal lives of hospital staff, the doctors, the nurses and the administrators. How do they do it, day in and day out? Bess brings us into that world. Her story was recorded at a StorySLAM in New York City. These evenings are supported by public radio station WNYC. And theme this night was Saved. Here's Bess Stillman, live at The Moth.
[applause]
Bess: [00:22:35] So, they wheeled her into the ER at 05:30 PM, 27 years old, unresponsive EMTs had found her slumped over outside the Starbucks on 2nd Avenue, and that's all they knew and she wasn't about to tell us anymore. So, we did what we always do when we have a patient like this. Was she breathing? Was she bleeding? Was her heart still beating? We got her into the trauma room, cut off her clothes, put a large bra IV in each arm, put her on the monitor, started a bag of normal saline and tried to figure out what was going on.
This was the last shift of what had been a horrible intern year for me. I had moved to New York from Arizona after finishing medical school to do my specialty training in emergency medicine. I did it for the same reason I think everybody does it, because it sounds fun and exciting and I'm going to save people, except less exciting is the 80-hour work weeks that you work in residency. I was working night shifts and day shifts and I had no real prescribed breaks. I was learning to work with 104-degree fever the day after my grandmother died, sneaking out between patients to vomit in the bathroom, only to come home and find out that my boyfriend of four years wasn't so sure about us anymore. I still couldn't call out to work, because then I would be publicly shamed as being weak.
I was depressed, because were all depressed. But we didn't talk about it, because if you talked about it and your boss or God forbid your program director thought that you were mentally or physically unfit to do this job, then you would lose this amazing opportunity that you had to learn how to help people, this amazing opportunity that was killing you. And what would be worse than losing that? So, we all had coping mechanisms, casual sex, of course, but it wasn't like on TV where everyone's Dr. McSteamy and Dr. McDreamy. [audience laughter] Here it was more like Dr. McSweaty and Dr. McAnger Management Problem. [audience laughter] So, I stayed away from that.
There were also drugs and alcohol. Not my thing. What I like to do was go home at the end of the day, and get in the bathtub, and put my face under the water and breathe through a straw. [audience laughter] I would wonder if it was true what they would say, which is that those few seconds before you drown, you feel really euphoric. Really good. The lights were off and the water was body temperature, and it almost felt like not having a body at all. And those were the only times during residency when I felt like being stripped of feeling wasn't like being numb.
I'm telling you all of this to explain how, looking at this young woman who was my age, who could have been any of my friends, so you understand how I just shoved a breathing tube down her throat with the same perfunctory efficiency I used to snake the chronically plugged drain in my apartment. So, now she was on a breathing machine and we had that taken care of. But her blood pressure was still dropping and her heart rate was still dropping. And she looked pretty healthy. Usually what that means is an overdose. So, we started looking through her things, trying to get some clues.
One of the nurses found her driver's license in her back pocket and got onto our electronic medical records and tried to find out some information about her. I started rummaging through her bag, trying to see if we could find any pill bottles or any signs of drugs. And that's when the nurse called out that we were totally wrong and she wasn't really healthy. She had been coming to the hospital since she was about 13 for a really rare and really aggressive form of cancer. And over the last 11 years, she'd had 10 rounds of chemo. And the note in the chart from her doctor basically said that she was terminal and she had refused any more treatment, and she was just done.
And so, I figured, this is probably just the natural progression of her disease. I was about to close her purse when I noticed a piece of paper. I pulled it out, and on it was a list. And it said, “12 o' clock, take my dog Misty to the dog park and take three Xanax. And 12:45, go to Bite and get the bacon sandwich with extra cheese and take six oxycontin. One o'clock, go Tompkins Square Park. Finish reading the last chapter of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Take six more oxycontin, three Xanax.” The list just kept going on like this. It was just a perfectly detailed list of schedule, really, of how she was going to die.
We had just been shoving tubes in her and needles in her. And that was fine. But reading this, that's really what felt like the violation. I had to tell everyone, right? Because in an overdose, what you take tells you how to treat and I knew how to treat her. But I had taken an oath and the oath basically said, “Do no harm.” I didn't know in that moment what harm was. Do we bring her back and do we have her suffer through this again or maybe die of her disease? Or, do we let her go? But what if she is regretting it right now and can't even tell me? So, I did what we always do in those situations that we have new information. I held it up and I said, “Look what I found.” We treated her, and they whisked her away to the ICU.
My attending, the doctor in charge, she turned to me and she looked at me and she said, “This is why went into emergency medicine. This is why we come to work every day.” And I was like, “Wait, what? [chuckles] This is what we're killing ourselves for?” She'd been doing this for 20 years, but she just looked absolutely beatific, as if we had just pulled school children from a burning bus. I was so envious in that moment of her, how easy she interpreted the situation and how happy she seemed that I just wanted to hit her. But then, she told me I had to go see the guy in room 12 who was complaining of penile pain. I didn't even get a break, so I had to go.
That night, I went home exhausted and sick. I ran a tub, and I got into the water and I turned off the lights and I didn't take my breathing straw with me. I thought how nice it was to not have to make decisions in that quiet dark. I thought how nice it would be to just dissolve into everything, because I had another shift in six hours, and I just couldn't face it. And so, I let all my breath out and I tried to just let go until my lungs started to burn and my body, despite myself, pushed up from the water and I was gasping. I wondered if I would ever really learn how to save others when I was just barely able to save myself. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Sarah: [00:29:58] Bess Stillman is a practice ER doctor. The days were so hectic and long at the hospital where she did her training, that a fellow resident who was pregnant, worked through labor, gave birth and then went back to the ER. Bess said, “The hard decisions, especially the ethical ones, don't get any easier. I manage them better, but if I didn't write about them, I'm not sure what I would do. I'm not sure what other people do to process, and a lot don't, which is probably why the doctor's suicide rate is so abysmal.”
I asked her about the baths, that image I won't soon forget. And she said, “These days, I've figured out how to better keep my head above water. But yeah, I still end my challenging days in the tub. After the hardest shifts, I still completely submerge. The only difference is now it's easier to reemerge.”
After the break, our final two stories, falling in love in France with someone 16 years younger and a scene on the road to school in Nairobi, Kenya.
[serene music]
Jay: [00:31:18] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by the Public Radio Exchange prx.org.
[serene music]
Sarah: [00:32:33] I'm Sarah Austin Janness, and you're listening to The Moth Radio Hour. So far this hour, we've brought you lessons from women and girls. Next up, Aryana Rose. Aryana told this story in Houston, Texas at an open-mic StorySLAM supported by Houston Public Media.
[cheers and applause]
The theme this night was Love Hurts. Here's Aryana, live at The Moth.
Aryana: [00:32:57] I was 45 and he was 29.
[cheers]
We met in a French medieval village called Bruniquel. And after four days of debate, I decided to go out with him. I couldn't resist him. He was the most extraordinary partner I have ever had. [audience laughter] I am so nervous. Okay, so, let me look at somebody I know here. [laughs]
He was a painter and a sculptor. He loved Roman architecture and he was building his own house with a patio and a fountain in the middle with columns. He loved nature. He taught me the names of and the properties of trees and plants and flowers. He was an outstanding musician. He had created his own style of music. That was flamenco music and Irish music put together. When he played that music, it had delicious, indecent effects on me. [audience laughter]
Everything about him was exceptional. I couldn't believe that a man of his age and beauty and talent could be free and even more be interested in a woman of my age. As time went by, he was more and more exceptional. I couldn't understand really what was happening. We traveled a lot. We went to a lot of festivals where he performed with this group called Kill the Dog. He used to play Irish music. We used to go up and climb in these old churches used to have this key ring with old keys that would go into any church. I'd open and we'd sneak inside and look at the paintings. I always wanted to make love in there.
So, he started calling me Puerquito. That means little pig in Spanish, because he said that I was defiling all the holy places of France. [audience laughter] But he never said no, so I called him Puerquito too. [audience laughter] There was one thing that was very peculiar about him, and that is that when he looked at children, his eyes would just beam and glow. And one day, it suddenly dawned on me and I said, “Jean Michel, do you want to have children?” And he said, “Yes, of course. I would have plugged them into the sun,” he just beamed.” And at that moment, I just said, “Oh, my God. Oh my God. My heart just stopped.”
Have you ever seen Iron Man when he puts on his suit? It was [onomatopoeia] That was my heart. I just barricaded my heart. My heart stopped. I knew that it was the end. At that moment, I knew that it was the end. You see, I had two children of my own. They were already grown up. I loved my freedom and I loved my life. And for nothing in the world was I going to deprive that human being from living the experience of having children. I went home and I cried all night long and the next day I left him. But it wasn't over.
For three and a half years, Jean Michel and I would struggle to go our separate ways. We would struggle to talk sense into ourselves. And in his folly, he was ready to give up his dream and I was ready to give him kids. But we both knew that it just wasn't possible. We could not do this. We shouldn't do this. We shouldn't sacrifice our lives in such a way.
So, I began bringing girlfriends to our outings in hopes that he would look at them. But he would never look at them. I really didn't know what to do. We couldn't stay away from one another. We'd cry and just didn't know what to do. Our friends didn't understand us, our families even less. And time was ticking, I was almost 50. And then, one day I was sitting in a terrace in Toulouse, drinking. And suddenly, she walked by. It was magical, ir-reasonable. It was powerful. I could feel her essence.
She had red hair. She was wearing a velour hat. It was a Victorian hat. It was a little bit crushed, soft. She was the most beautiful thing walking on two pair of legs. I walked up to her and started a conversation with her. She was an author for children's books. And for four weeks, I entertained a unique relationship with her, until the day that I invited her to come and see and meet my friend Jean Michel. When they crossed, when their eyes met and I saw his smile, I knew that it was good. It was good. It was good.
I had arranged for a girlfriend to call me and tell me there was an emergency, so that I could leave. He knew. He knew. I hugged him, he hugged me. He wouldn't let me go. He said to me, “Don't leave me.” But I just said, “Just be free. Make your dreams come true. Be free even without me, just be free.” So, I turned around to never return. I walked away. They called me the next day. They called me dozens of times. I changed my phone, I moved away and I didn't see him for four years, until one day I took the phone and I picked up the phone and called him and told him I was coming. He was exposing in a nearby village.
And as I walked into the gallery, I saw that four years had gone by and this beautiful little red head came running out with curly hair. She ran towards me as if she had known me all her life, with the beautiful green eyes. She said to me in French, “Tu es la féserie, tu es la fée.” That means, are you the fairy?
[cheers and applause]
Sarah: [00:40:20] That was Aryana Rose at a Moth night in Houston, Texas. I asked her about the end of this story, “Are you the fairy?” And she said “Jean Michel had told his daughter that I was the magical person who had brought her mother into his life. And thanks to this, Amelie had been born.”
Aryana hasn't seen Jean Michel in a few years. She dates, but she says nothing compares to this relationship. She likes being alone and independent, and she loves freestyle and barefoot dancing. And by the way, you're listening to a ballad by Jean Michel's band.
[Ballad music]
Our last storyteller is Jane Otai. The story was recorded live at Lincoln Center at a Moth night we produced at the same time as the 71st UN General Assembly. The night featured stories from our Moth Community Program, where we teach storytelling worldwide.
[applause]
The hope is to share stories that explore the world's most complicated issues. Here's Jane, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Jane: [00:41:32] I remember my friend Camilla. Camilla was such a dear friend of mine whom I went to school with. We were 16 years old and I loved Camilla, because she was such a brilliant girl. Each time we were in class and the teacher would introduce a mathematics concept, Camilla always got it very quickly. An equation, she would get it quite fast. If I didn't get it, she would teach me and I would really understand the concept very well from her. I learned better from Camilla than from the teacher.
Apart from just being bright, Camilla was a beautiful girl. At 16, she had this dark skin, short hair. We used to wear white blouses. And her blouse was sparkling. She kept it very clean. So, for me, Camilla was really the epitome of it. She had both the brains and the beauty, and I admired that in her. But she also reminded me about my younger sister, Alice. Alice was younger than us by two years. She was 14 years old. She was also impressive in her classwork, but she was physically strong. When we went to the well to fetch water, she would balance this pot on her head. She was a very beautiful young lady.
Each time, the boys would like to bully me, my sister was always there for me. She would protect me, and I loved her for it. So, to me, Camilla and Alice were my heroes. As a young girl, I wanted to be like them. So, I remembered also one evening, mom was having a conversation with my auntie, who had come all the way from the village to visit us in the city. My Aunt Helen was telling mom, “You are wasting time. Why are you educating girls? They will never amount to anything. Girls get pregnant, they drop out of school. Why are you wasting money on them? You'd rather educate your sons? Girls, nothing. You're wasting all your time and money.”
I remember my mom telling her, “They will go to school. My daughters will get all the education. No matter what you say, you don't contribute to their education. They will go to school.” So, that is how the conversation ended well. From home to school was about two hours. And every morning, I would walk with Camilla, chatting, going to school. But on our way to school, there were always these young men, you know, married men, luring girls into a romantic relationship. It was such an occurrence every day when you're going to school, this is happening.
But soon and very soon, I started seeing Camilla with gifts, and I wondered where she was getting the gifts from. Because at one time, I had got some gifts from a married man. When my mom saw the gifts, the lotions, she threw them into the toilet. I also saw my sister with gifts of perfume, lotion, sanitary pads, white underwears and hankies. And they were really nice things. Any girl would have wanted to have those items. When I asked my sister, “But where are you getting these gifts from? I know mom is not providing us with these.” She said, “Get out of my business. You should never ask me where I'm getting them from.” But I decided, tomorrow I'll ask Camilla where she gets the gifts from.
So, the following morning in class, because she was glowing, she was having this nice perfume lotion, I asked Camilla, “Where are you getting these items from?” She said, “You know what? I have a boyfriend.” I said, “What?” “Yeah, he's a married man. He loves me very much. You see this lotion? He gave it to me yesterday. We also had French fries and fish. He's such a lovely man.” I said, “But you know, my mom told me never to get gifts from men. Any man who gives you gifts does not have your best interest at heart.” She said, “That's childish. Don't believe in what they're saying, Jane. These guys can give you gifts and there's nothing wrong with it.” I said, “Okay.”
My mom says, “Even the pastor told us we should not get the gifts.” In the evening, as I was walking back home, I saw my sister standing with another married man, and they were chatting and chatting. I decided, this is the wrong thing. I told myself, I will go to this married man and tell him off, he should leave my sister alone. So, one time, as I was in the market doing some shopping for groceries, I bumped into this man. I was sweating, but I had decided, I'll talk to him anyway. I was sweating, I was shivering. I didn't know how to start. But anyway, I went to him and said, “Leave my sister alone. Stop giving my sister gifts. She is still in school and she's the age of your daughters. Why are you giving her gifts? My mom says, this is wrong. Please leave my sister alone. Let her continue in class” and I ran off. [audience laughter]
So, I ran home, shivering. I didn't know what you would do. So, I took off and went home. I went into the kitchen, and lighted fire and started cooking for the family. As I was preparing food, my sister Alice comes in. I looked at her, she was very annoyed. She put down her bag, came to the kitchen and slapped me very hard on the face. What have I done? I felt so bad. I felt so sad. She said, “Leave my boyfriend out of it. Why were you talking to him about my affair with him? It's my life. Leave me alone. I have decided he is my boyfriend and I'm going to continue I having an affair with him. Get out of this business.” I said, “Okay, okay. I will never talk to you about it.” I turned my back. I decided I will never have this conversation with Alice or even my friend Camilla.
So, we continued. Within that same year, Camilla was pregnant and she dropped out of school. The following year, my sister was 15 years at that age, at that time, and she also got pregnant and dropped out of school. I continued with school, went to college. Before I could finish my university degree, Camilla passed away. I only heard that she had passed away because of HIV related complications. That was sad. I finished university. Before I started working, my own sister succumbed to HIV complications. I had lost two very dear friends, people whom I called heroes had passed on.
I remember the day that my sister was buried. As the coffin was being lowered into the grave, I looked at it and I told myself it should not have ended this way. What is it that I did not do right? But I also remembered what my aunt had said. It's a waste of time educating girls. They get pregnant. So, this had actually happened to my sister. It had happened to Camilla. They had fulfilled what my aunt had said. But I told myself I committed my it will not happen to me. And not only me, it will not happen to girls of this age. From that day, I committed myself to working with adolescent girls, giving them information, telling them the truth, so that they do not fall into what Camilla and my sister Alice fell into.
Because these are girls with potential. These are bright girls, they have a future and if only I can work with them, then they can have a better future. They come with issues like, “Oh, you know, if I have sex when I'm swimming, I'll not get pregnant. Or, if I bathe with hot water after having sex, I'll not get pregnant.” They have all kinds of myths and beliefs about-- But I look them into the eye and I tell them, “Anybody who tells you you will not get pregnant because of drinking hot tea after having sex doesn't have the best of your interest at heart.”
I will be tough with them. I will love them, but I will be innate with them. I will not turn my back on them. I'll be neat with them, work with them, so that they can succeed in life. And that is my commitment.
[cheers and applause]
Sarah: [00:51:08] That was Jane Otai. Jane has kept her vow that her sister and best friend would not die in vain. For more than 12 years, Jane has counseled girls in Nairobi about what's possible in life if they delay pregnancies and early marriages. She prides herself on being strict but kind.
And with that, we've reached the end of this episode of The Moth Radio Hour about women and girls around the world. Thanks for listening, and we hope you'll join us next time.
[Uncanny Valley by The Drift]
Jay: [00:51:47] Your host this hour was Sarah Austin Jenness. Sarah directed the stories in the show along with Jennifer Hixson. The rest of The Moth’s directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman and Meg Bowles. Production support from Timothy Lou Ly.
The Moth would like to thank the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for their support of The Moth community program, as well as Andrew Quinn and Rachael Strecher from the Aspen Institute.
Moth Stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Shelley Phillips, Balkan Beat Box, Nino Rota, Steve Blair, Jean Michel and Kill the Dog, and A Perfect Circle. You can find links to all the music we use at our website.
The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison, with Viki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.