Cotton Candy and Revolutionary Rides: The Moth Radio Hour

In this hour, an unconventional church, a bike ride for rights, and burning up the dance floor. This episode is hosted by Moth Executive Producer, Sarah Austin Jenness. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Lutheran minister Nadia Bolz Weber starts her own church. Wallflower Audrey Pleasant teaches herself the slide and ends up in the spotlight. Bushra Al-Fusail begins a Yemeni revolution on two wheels. Podcast # 986

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:43Speaker 01

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Sarah Austin Janess. At The Moth, we come together to connect through personal stories. The Moth has over 500 public events a year where everyday people stand onstage to tell their true stories. In this episode, a bold bike ride in Yemen, shaking a tail feather in Harlem, and our first story by Lutheran pastor from Denver, Nadia Bolz Weber. Nadia told this in front of a sold-out crowd of 2,700 at a Moth mainstage in Oregon, where we partnered with Portland Literary Arts. Here's Nadia, live at The Moth.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  I'm not what you would call the biggest fan of church, which can be awkward since technically I'm a Lutheran pastor. My dislike of church, I came by honestly. I was raised in a really, very strict, conservative, Christian church where there was just a whole lot of rules and very little fun and no possibility of actually getting to be my whole self. And so, when I felt the call to go to seminary, I thought, you know what I want is to start

• 2:10Speaker 02

  a church from scratch, that could be very few rules, a whole lot of fun, and everyone gets to be themselves. So, in 2008, I founded a congregation called House for All Sinners and Saints.

• 2:28Speaker 02

  And the amazing thing about being able to start a church from scratch is you don't have to worry about being conventional, so you can just make shit up. So if the very first thing you want people to see when they enter in the church is a velvet painting of Elvis crying that says Elvis welcomes you to house for all sinners and saints, you can do that.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  And if you don't really want to do a blessing of the animals, but you want to do a blessing of the bicycles, you can do that. And if you want to take over the basement of a bar quarterly for an event called Beer and Hems, you can do that. And we did all those things, and that's what started to get the attention of my denomination.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  And I was so excited to get an email that said, "We want to invite you to give the keynote presentation at a pastors' conference. We really want you to share your expertise. The thing you need to know is I didn't graduate college till I was 36. I had never been an expert in anything. And when I went to seminary, I was so old that they called me a second-career student, which I thought was adorable because it implied I had a first career."

• 3:56Speaker 02

  Which I did not.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  But the difficult part of starting a church from scratch is that you have to start it from scratch. And so my denomination gave me a little funding to get going, but all they cared about was how many people came and how much money did you bring in? And it started to feel like every Sunday I was throwing my own birthday party and waiting to see who liked me enough to show up. And then I was like, "It's not supposed to be about me, it's supposed to be about God." And then I felt worse. And it was rough. Like, we would have like, maybe 50 people on a Sunday, but during the summer, the numbers just started getting really low.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  And we ended up not getting more than like 35 people on a Sunday during the summer. And so, the day before, I was going to Chicago to keynote that pastors' conference as an expert. I found myself, single-handedly, trying to get a cotton candy machine in the back of my Honda. And my back was hurting. And the reason is because I'd just come from Costco, and I had lifted all these cases of soda, and enough burgers to feed like 80 people, and an industrial bag of Doritos, and I'd put it all in my Honda. When I realized, "Hey, we've gotta try and get people back",

• 5:18Speaker 02

  I remembered that there's this really quaint tradition in the Lutheran Church called Rally Day. Rally Day is when you're trying to get all the families back for the start of Sunday School, after everyone's been traveling through the summer. And so you have like a little carnival for the kids. And we didn't have any kids, and we didn't have Sunday School, but I was like, "Fuck it, we're having Rally Day."

• 5:53Speaker 02

  And so, I ended up setting everything up. I made cool flyers, I texted everyone in the congregation. I was so excited to get all these people back, to really get a lot of people. So, I put the sodas on ice, and I put out the napkins in the little like circle, and it was all fancy, and I got all the burgers ready. And I put out a collection basket for donations, because it costs like hundreds of dollars for all this stuff, and it's just easily recoupable with that many people. And so, I was doing so much work, and that I didn't actually go into the worship space until about two minutes before the service was supposed to start. And I'm walking up the stairs at this 100-year-old church building,

• 6:37Speaker 02

  and I'm so excited to see everyone. And I see the sun coming through the stained glass, and bouncing off the 26 people who came.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Twenty-six.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  Twenty fucking-six. And I didn't know what to do, so like I quickly pivoted, turned around, went downstairs like I'd forgotten something. But if I'd forgotten anything, it was definitely my goodwill towards humanity. And I went into the women's room and I knelt, literally, knelt on the peeling linoleum and was like, "Dear God, I hate all those people who didn't show up so much,

• 7:26Speaker 02

  that I'm having a hard time appreciating the people who did show up."

• 7:32Speaker 02

  And as you know, I have to start like a worship service in two minutes, so if you could like, you know, remove this resentment, like rip out my stony little heart and replace it with a human, fleshy, beating one again, I'd really appreciate that. Amen.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  So my desperate prayer helped enough for me to get going, get the service going, and then the prayers, the people were beautiful, and that helped too, because JP prayed, he was glad he got a job after six months of unemployment. And Clarice was like, "I've been off heroin for a year." And then someone else was praying for their aunt who had breast cancer. Just the realness of that helped as well. And so about twenty people stayed. And there was a group of my parishioners who were like grilling up all these burgers that we had for like eighty people. And they're like, "We should just take them down to Triangle Park to like feed some hungry people." And then this other group of my parishioners were making cotton candy and handing it to every single car that stopped at the stop sign by the church.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  They were having a blast. I was busy doing what I call the resentful cleanup, where you're trying to mask how disappointed you are. And I was like hastily trying to get everything cleaned up. And one of my parishioners, Stuart, looked at me and said, "Pastor Nadia, are you okay?" Now, the thing you need to know about Stuart is he has an official role at church as the minister of fabulousness, and...

• 9:01Speaker 02

  And he's like the church drag queen. And the reason is because, um... Is because like when we were doing our first stewardship campaign, which is like a fancy church word for fundraising, and Stuart's like, "Oh, I know. We're gonna sell T-shirts. And on the front, it's gonna say, 'This shit ain't free.'"

• 9:30Speaker 02

  And then on the back, it's gonna say, "So you better tie, bitches."

• 9:39Speaker 02

  If you don't have a church drag queen, I'm just saying, get busy recruiting one. But anyway, so Stuart goes, "Pastor Nadia, are you okay?" And I did that thing where you tell a half-truth. I was like, "Well, my back's really hurting." And, um, and he looks at his partner Jim and our friend Amy. He goes, "Jim, Amy, we're gonna pray for Pastor Nadia right now." And I thought, "The hell you are." But sometimes you have to submit to a blessing. I just remember the Colorado Sun and his big drag queen-y hands warming my black clergy shirt and them praying over me. And it sounds bonkers now, but I swear what happened is it felt like those muscle spasms in my back went from being like fists to being like open palms.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  And it like released. It was beautiful. And I thanked them. And then his partner Jim said, "Pastor Nadia, would it be nice to have some help cleaning up?" And I said, "Yeah, it really would. Thank you." And a couple seconds later, Jim goes, "Well, what do you want me to do with this?" And he held up a completely empty donation basket.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  Now I hated all the people who didn't come.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  And I hated all the people who did come.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  And also, I had to get out of there pretty quick because I had a very early flight in the morning because I had to go be an expert at a pastors conference.

• 11:15Speaker 02

  It was probably midnight when the resentment and anger and self-loathing left my body enough to fall asleep.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  And two hours later, I was jolted awake with what I can only describe as a bitch slap from the Holy Spirit.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  I jolt up in my bed and I go,

• 11:41Speaker 02

  "Oh my God, I missed it." Like, I had back pain all day. And then after they prayed for me, I didn't for the rest of the day. And I didn't even notice. And I didn't notice what a blessing it was for people to pray for their pastor, who usually prays for them. And I didn't notice how amazing it is that hungry people got warm burgers. And that all these strangers inexplicably got free cotton candy at the stop sign. And I was so wrapped up in my expectations not being met that I missed everything that did happen. So the next day, the next afternoon, I'm in Chicago. And I'm going through this PowerPoint presentation for the pastors. And they're loving it. I'm like, "Blessing of the bicycles and the Elvis." And I tell them, like, every year on Reformation Day,

• 12:26Speaker 02

  we do a selling of indulgences bake sale. And they're laughing.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  And then I tell them how, at House for All Sinners and Saints, we have what's called an open table, which means everybody without exception is invited to receive bread and wine at communion. And how we had this young queer girl who spent a year in our community and having this open table. And she traveled to Michigan to visit her parents. And I get this phone call from her on a Sunday morning. And she's weeping. And I'm like, "Baby, what's going on?" She goes, "I'm at my parents' church. And they're doing communion. And I can't take it." And she was just, like, destroyed by it. And I talked to her for a bit. And I said, "Do you mind if I share our conversation with some folks at church tonight?" And she said, "That was fine." So I tell some of the people at church about Rachel.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  And without skipping a beat, Stuart goes, "We'll just have to take her communion to the airport when she gets home, I guess."

• 13:25Speaker 02

  And so, at 9 o'clock at night on a Tuesday, 10 of us show up to Denver International Airport with bread and wine and like a chauffeur sign that said, "Rachel Payter, child of God." Yeah. So I'm telling them this story, now they're crying. And I thought, "Well, if I think church should be a place for your whole self, I should tell them the whole story." And I took a deep breath and I said, "And last night, I cried myself to sleep because I felt like a failure." And I told them the whole thing. The cotton candy machine, the healing I didn't notice, the bitch slap from the Holy Spirit, the cotton candy, everything.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  And the coolest thing was at lunch later, they didn't treat me like an expert. They treated me like a sister and a colleague, and they regaled me with stories of their own failure. And it was so beautiful because we felt like connected. And what I've always wanted my whole life is to feel less alone. And it's great to be dazzled by people's virtues and for experts to just stun us with how amazing they are. But that never makes me feel less alone. I only feel less alone when people share their failings with me, their mistakes, their misconceptions, their jagged edges.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Because I think those jagged edges of our stories create enough texture on us that it allows us to have something other people can hold on to. Thank you.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  That was Nadia Bowles-Webber. Nadia is the founding pastor of House for All Saints and Sinners. She's the author of several bestselling memoirs and lives in Denver, where she says, "I continue to write about my personal failings for the benefit of my fellow spiritual misfits." She's pretty sure she hasn't consumed cotton candy since 2009. To see photos of Nadia and the congregation with that cotton candy on the first rally day, go to themoth.org.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  In a moment, lessons in parenting and riding on two wheels with women in Yemen, when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 16:08Speaker 03

  The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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• 19:14Speaker 01

  This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin Jenness. Our next story is from Audrey Pleasant, and she told it at a Moth Night that featured outstanding stories from our community engagement program. Here's Audrey.

• 19:35Speaker 06

  Tommy. Tommy Johnson.

• 19:40Speaker 06

  That was my humiliating. I mean, at the age of 13, how could you be so humiliated? Let me not get ahead of myself.

• 19:51Speaker 06

  You see, I was going to a church right across the street from me. That was at 141st Street in Harlem, between 7th and 8th Avenue. They had a center down there that we used to go down to dance. My dance step? Side to side shuffle.

• 20:13Speaker 06

  Side to side shuffle, regardless of what type of music it was.

• 20:19Speaker 06

  And I would go there and I'd sit on the side where the young ladies would sit that didn't get a chance to dance too much. And I would sit and sit. And this young man by the name of Tommy Johnson would come and ask me to dance. I'd get up and I'd follow him out to the dance floor like the moth to the flame. And we'd get out there, Tommy would do slides, turns, splits, bend over and shake a tail feather. And I would do my little favorite step, side, side, side.

• 21:00Speaker 06

  Regardless of what he did, I would side, side, side. That was my movements. Well, Tommy did this so much and I got tired of it. I mean, I really got tired of it. And I went home one night after being humiliated. And I laid on my bed crying and thinking about Tommy and his splits and his turns and his bend over and shaking tail feather. I thought about doing a step. I said, "I could do this. I could do this."

• 21:39Speaker 06

  I got up off that bed, got my belt out of the closet, put it on the doorknob, tighten it up, close that door, and I started doing me some slides. Almost tripped over my own foot, but I still did my slides. And I bent over and I shook a tail feather. I even did a little twirling. Then I did the half split. I couldn't do the whole split, of course, but the half split would suffice me. And I kept this up for a whole month. I mean, I would eat. I was stopping to eat, yes. I'd stop and go to school. I had to go to school because my mother wasn't gonna have that.

• 22:21Speaker 06

  And I'd come back home, do my homework, have my dinner, go to my room, and I'd do my little dancing. I'd practice and practice and practice. And one night, the, uh, the door, the closet door came open, I bumped my head, but I just shook that off and kept right on dancing. And I even practiced doing a headstand. I bumped my head again on the floor, shook that off, and tried it again till I got it. Like I said, I did that for a whole month till I felt I had it together. And then, one night, one Friday night, at six o'clock, I got dressed,

• 23:06Speaker 06

  and I went down to the center. And I sat in my same little spot. Now, I don't know who Tommy was dancing with while I was gone, but I guess he was dancing with somebody. But I sat in my same spot, waiting, just waiting for him to come over and ask me to dance. Through the phone, here comes Mr. Tommy Johnson.

• 23:32Speaker 06

  And I got up, and I followed him out to the dance floor. Now, when you get out there on the dance floor, if you're really doing something spectacular, a crowd will gather around you. Now, that crowd is there to help you stay inside the circle, to let the person that's doing the fantastic dancing do their thing. And if you're not dancing so good and you try to get out that circle, you can't go nowhere. You got to stay inside that circle and endure the humiliation. Well, Tommy had asked me to dance again, and I was inside the circle. And he was doing his splits. He was doing his turns, his slides.

• 24:15Speaker 06

  I mean, he had it going on. He was sliding all over the place. And then bending over and shaking a tail feather. And I let him go right ahead. Go ahead, slide some more. Do the split. Shake a tail feather. And he even galloped like he was riding a pony.

• 24:32Speaker 06

  I said, "Yeah, go right ahead, go right ahead." And I got tired of looking at him doing all his slides and everything. And I slid up to his face, and he stood there with his mouth wide open.

• 24:45Speaker 06

  Looking at me all wide-eyed, all bug-eyed. And I showed him what I could do. I showed him my slides. And I mean, I slide. You could think I was James Brown. I was sliding so good. And I showed him how I could bend over and shake a tail feather. And I went and did me a half-split, which I could do. Did it pretty good, too. And he just stood there looking at me with his mouth wide open, all buggy-eyed like he was...

• 25:15Speaker 06

  He tried to walk out the circle.

• 25:20Speaker 06

  But they wouldn't let him out. They came in tighter and enforced it. And that made me more determined to do my slides. My shake-a-tail feather. And I even did like the pony, too. Showed him I knew what I could do. And then, when I tired of him, I slid up to his face again and...

• 25:42Speaker 06

  Do him a kiss. Let him know that, hey... You ain't got it all like that. I got me a little bit of it, too. And I walked out of that circle. Now, I can go back to the center for a while.

• 25:58Speaker 06

  And I didn't know what happened to Tommy Johnson. But anyway, one day I was walking down 125th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenue, the Apollo Theater was down there. And then, across the street, there was a store called The Record Shack. And they were playing some music, I mean, they were throwing down. And it was one of James Brown's records, too. And I just, something just came over me, and I started dancing. Next thing I knew, I had a crowd of people around me, and I just showed off even more so. And this man stepped out of the audience, and he said, "You know what, miss? You should be at the Apollo Theater." I looked at that man like he was crazy. He said, "I'm serious." He said, "Here." He said, "Come here at this time and on stage."

• 26:43Speaker 06

  I took the paper and I said, "Well..." I couldn't lose it. My mate gained something. And on that day, and at that precise time, I went to the Apollo Theater. And they had a group of performers up there called The Coasters. And the lead singer was Speedo. He would come down to interact with the audience. He would take the mic and he would put it to somebody. He said, "Whoa." And then he put the mic to somebody's mouth and they said nothing. He went to the next person, "Whoa." He got nothing. He came to me. He said, "Whoa." I said, "Wow."

• 27:25Speaker 06

  He jumped back and looked at me and grabbed my hand and he pulled me up on the stage. And that's the first time in my life I had ever seen anybody do the twist on one leg while they got the other leg extended in front of them. Well, I couldn't do that. So I did the best thing I could do. I turned around and showed him my posterior, jumping up one at a time.

• 27:53Speaker 06

  And he took off his shirt. But when he went to take off his pants, I screamed and I ran off the stage. I got up and got back to my seat. This usher came down with a flashlight and he was shining in my face. I said, "Oh, gosh, did I do something wrong?" He said, "Miss, come here." And I got up and I went to him. He said, "The manager wants to see you." And I thought to myself, "I'm gonna get put out of the theater. They're gonna put me out. They're really gonna put me out." And I paid to come in here.

• 28:26Speaker 06

  But I went up to the manager, brave, very brave. He said, "Are you working anywhere, miss?" I said, "No, sir." Now here I am, I'm 13 years old. And he said, "Would you like to appear here on the stage with The Coasters for the rest of the week?"

• 28:46Speaker 06

  Would I? Yes. He said you'll get paid Friday, just like they do. I said, "Thank you." He said, "You wouldn't have to go up on the stage every show, but be here every day." And I was through the phone, I was there every day. I went up on the stage some of the time. And one time I was up there on the stage, and who made an appearance but James Brown himself? I said, "Wow, then I really did something then." I did my slide. And I could, I had trained myself so well that I could do the slide, make it in a figure eight. He looked at me, he said, "Wow, Little Mama."

• 29:27Speaker 06

  That became my stage name, Little Mama. And from there, I went to the Carver Ballroom,

• 29:40Speaker 06

  the Renaissance Ballroom, the Audubon Ballroom, the Baby Grand, Smalls Paradise. And I did my slide. And my bend over and shake a tail fella. I even did the fly.

• 30:00Speaker 06

  And I stopped doing my little, um, side to side. That was off the hook, no more doing that. I no more doing that. But you see,

• 30:13Speaker 06

  I never knew what happened to Tommy Johnson. But deep down in my heart, I thanked him for humiliating me the way he did. Because it made me more determined. And I mean, I was determined to show him that I was not gonna be a little step, step, step, step, step. I was gonna show him something. And I showed him. And I showed the ones that held me back in that circle that I could do something. Hold him back, and let me do my thing. Wow, Mom got a brand new bag.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  That was Audrey Pleasant. Audrey is a poet from the Bronx, and she wants you to know she can still shake a tail feather. You can find out more about our community engagement workshops, where we craft and develop stories with veterans, nurses, and neighborhood groups, by going to themoth.org. While you're there, you'll also see a photo of Audrey in her star-studded gown onstage at The Moth. In a moment, a story of riding on two wheels with women in Yemen, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

• 31:52Speaker 04

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• 33:54Speaker 01

  This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin Jenness. Bushra Al Fousail tells our final story in this hour. It takes place in 2015 in Sanaa, 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. You said you were the golden sheep at one point. I just love that phrase. What kind of a kid were you?

• 34:26Speaker 05

  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 cut. So I was ask, I always asked my mom, why the hell the girls are not going with their fathers? So that was my start as a golden sheep kid.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  And how was that received by your mom and your dad?

• 34:56Speaker 05

  Well, that was the norm, like, the boys goes with the fathers and the daughters goes with the with the mothers and clean and make sure they have food and cook and clean and take care of the house. But the boys would go outside with the fathers and, you know, have fun. So, but I was, uh, I always like to go out with my father. I was, uh, what they call it. Uh, daughter, father, girl. What's that phrase?

• 35:21Speaker 01

  And so, when this happened, did they, could they have seen it coming? Was this within your character to step out in this way?

• 35:29Speaker 05

  Oh, yes. My mom, she always used to freak out every time I bring any sentence towards, uh, women's rights.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  So, was this the first war you have, you had lived through?

• 35:41Speaker 05

  Unfortunately, not. Through the history of Yemen, we always had civil war. But, um, this was the first time we had airstrikes.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  And was it, uh, just a dangerous landscape?

• 35:56Speaker 05

  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, are safe and which ones is not. So, everybody was locking their cell inside the houses, so the streets were empty.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  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 Fousal.

• 36:33Speaker 05

  One of the nights in 2015, in Sanah, 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 beds and I heard a huge explosion. And I saw my dad standing on my bedroom's door screaming, telling me to go to the basement. I run to the basement and I saw my mom and my two siblings. There was no electricity and there was no internet.

• 37:16Speaker 05

  An hour later, the internet was back. So I went to my Facebook and I see Saudi coalition started to bomb Yemen.

• 37:28Speaker 05

  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.

• 37:43Speaker 05

  So me and my parents decided to stay at home and try to keep safe.

• 37:50Speaker 05

  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.

• 38:03Speaker 05

  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.

• 38:39Speaker 05

  So I decided to go to the black market and to buy a gallon, which cost me that day from eighty to hundred, it used to cost fifteen to five dollars.

• 38:52Speaker 05

  So so happy I get 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.

• 39:20Speaker 05

  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 look at the other side, I started to see women are 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.

• 39:54Speaker 05

  And it remind me about why I can't bike anymore. So Yemen is one of the most patriarchal countries in the Middle East. And 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 or why I couldn't continue to bike. So I started to talk with my friends. What about we start to bike?

• 40:31Speaker 05

  And then I decided just to create a Facebook page called Yemeni Women Bike, just to see what people are gonna react about it and to create a platform that I could just suggest about women biking in this crisis.

• 40:48Speaker 05

  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.

• 41:07Speaker 05

  And I was like, okay, if I'm gonna bike, I'm gonna bike in these three days.

• 41:13Speaker 05

  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 gonna attend this campaign. So I started to call friends and friends. Family and everybody, neighbors, who's gonna lend me their bikes? So me and my friends, we gathered around five bikes, which is amazing.

• 41:55Speaker 05

  So, um, I remember that night, I was so nervous. Because, um, 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.

• 42:15Speaker 05

  So, but I was like, I have to do it.

• 42:19Speaker 05

  Uh, so that morning came at 6:00 AM, I woke up, I wrote in my Facebook, it's a revolutionary 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.

• 42:44Speaker 05

  And then I chose this huge highway in Yemen. And, um, 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, uh, destroyed, because there was, before they bombed that street. So there is rock there and there, and, um, 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 gonna show up, it's just gonna be me.

• 43:26Speaker 05

  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 eleven girls.

• 44:08Speaker 05

  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. Uh, 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, uh, I started to feel the breeze into my scarf, into my abaya, and I went back, I felt like, let her moment, they're just biking.

• 44:50Speaker 05

  And, uh, 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. They were 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.

• 45:23Speaker 05

  So, uh, 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 the door, and 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.

• 46:09Speaker 05

  And I started to receive all these phone calls and messages. "What have I done? Where is my dad? Why is they're 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 gonna 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.

• 46:48Speaker 05

  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 I saw my mom is trying to get on the bike, trying to balance. And 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 is very, was very, very cute.

• 47:29Speaker 05

  And then my sister came, and she was telling me, "Look," at her Facebook.

• 47:37Speaker 05

  I started to look to the photo, and then there is this Yemeni girl who posted a picture while biking in Yemen, underneath it saying, "In solidarity with Yemeni women 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 women bike." I was extremely, extremely happy, and I felt like, "I'm not that crazy girl."

• 48:22Speaker 05

  And I showed my parents, like, "See, your daughter is not crazy. We have the right to bike."

• 48:30Speaker 05

  And it's true that this had been since five years. And unfortunately, the war is still going on.

• 48:41Speaker 05

  And the Yemeni rebels are stronger. And there is no rights for women in Yemen. And it's true that we were just eleven girls, including myself, we were biking. But it felt a moment of freedom. And thank you.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  That was Bushra Al Fousal. Bushra lives in New York now. She spends her time organizing in the Yemeni American community. She works in property management and she's still taking photographs. Here's Bushra again. Do you think women are still biking?

• 49:26Speaker 05

  No, unfortunately not. As I said, they're controlling more the city, controlling more the country, and women are being more scared.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  So do you think that the bike riding was worth it?

• 49:38Speaker 05

  Yes, definitely, yes. Because the amount of Yemeni women that I get support after the campaign and that they know this is possible, but not under the rebels, definitely not. But they know as soon as they, they're not controlling the city, this is an option for them to bike. But right now, as long as they're there, unfortunately, we can't. It's like Taliban in Afghanistan.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  But you think the mothers and the daughters remember this day and know that at some point it could happen again?

• 50:17Speaker 05

  Definitely. That's one mission that I'm gonna do and remind the people that one day, under, you know, controlling these rebels and under the airstrikes of Saudi coalition, that we were able to do it under three days of truce. But, but one day, you never know.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  You just sound like such a badass because it doesn't sound as dangerous as I think it actually was. Do you just have nerves of steel or what, like how dangerous was this?

• 50:49Speaker 05

  Well, it was so dangerous, thinking about it today. But at the moment, I, I didn't think about it because I was afraid of I'm gonna stop myself from doing it. I was panicking. I was really panicking because I was responsible for the girls who was gonna come in. And there was a big, huge, like, possibility that we'll be shot, we will be beaten, we will be kidnapped. And this is what I'm seeing today from the, from the rebels that they're controlling Sana'a. This is what they do for women, especially outspoken women like me or anybody tried to challenge them. So definitely doing this, I was...

• 51:32Speaker 05

  Like I was risking my life and risking other people, but we didn't have anything to lose at that point. Like either we're gonna die from airstrikes or from these people. So I decided at least, you know, doing whatever I want to have, that's my right. And when you think this is your right, you're not that afraid. Like you're willing to challenge whatever it needs to go out and, and you just do it.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  It's incredible, incredible, incredible. And can you describe some of the beautiful photographs, the photographs related to this historic event?

• 52:10Speaker 05

  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 habayas are just flying at the back of their bike. So I never, I never imagined that I would see that at all. So seeing that, I felt like I was in a dream.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  Bushra Al Fousal.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  You can see Bushra's photographs from this historic day at themoth.org.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Do you have a story to tell us? You can pitch us your story by recording it right on our site. You can pitch us online at themoth.org, where you can also share these stories or others from the Moth Archive and buy tickets to Moth storytelling events in your area through our website, themoth.org. There are Moth events year round. You can find a show near you and come on out and tell a story. The Moth can be found on all major social media platforms.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  That's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us next time.

• 53:53Speaker 03

  This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Sarah Austin Jenness, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show, along with Catherine Burns. Co-producer is Vicky Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. The Moth's leadership team includes Gina Duncan, Christina Norman, Marina Kluch, Jennifer Hickson, Jordan Cardinale, Caledonia Cairns, Kate Tellus, Suzanne Rust, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Patricia Urenia. Moth Stories Are True is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour is from Epidemic Sound. Podcast music, production

• 54:33Speaker 03

  support from Davey Sumner. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Reese Dennis. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, which we hope you'll do, and to learn more about The Moth, go to our website, themoth.org.