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This American Life

849: The Narrator

This American Life

This American Life

Society & Culture, News, Politics, Arts

4.688.8K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2024

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Banias is an 8-year-old kid living in Gaza. And she has a story to tell — many stories, in fact.

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  • Prologue: While on the phone with reporter Maram Hamaid in Gaza, producer Chana Joffe-Walt gets interrupted by Maram’s daughter––Banias, eight, who grabs the phone from her mother and starts telling us about her life. The narrator arrives. (8 minutes)
  • Part One: Banias, an 8-year-old in Gaza, tells us about her life––her friends, the games she plays, the things she cares about. Everything but the war going on around her. (25 minutes)
  • Part Two: Banias talks about the war. (20 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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Transcript

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0:00.0

From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life.

0:04.8

I'm Hannah Jaffe Walt sitting in for Ira Glass.

0:07.9

This all started with a phone call, a call that eventually led to this episode.

0:12.7

So that's where I'm going to start.

0:14.7

I was talking to a journalist in Gaza on the phone.

0:17.4

Hello?

0:18.1

Hi, this is Hannah.

0:19.4

Hi.

0:20.3

How are you? This was back in April. I'd been speaking

0:23.7

to people in Gaza for months by then, but nobody where Maram was in the middle area, Derbala.

0:29.9

Maram Humade. She's a reporter for Al Jazeera English. We were chatting. I was asking some

0:36.2

pretty basic questions about what she was experiencing, what she was seeing, what the day had been like.

0:41.3

She got interrupted.

0:42.7

It was, yeah, you know, a little bit calm day in there, Balah.

0:47.6

You know, like...

0:48.3

So, Banyas is listening.

0:51.2

I need to introduce Banias to you.

0:53.6

Hi, Vena.

0:54.3

Hi.

0:55.5

How are you?

0:57.5

I'm fine. Thank you.

0:59.6

Good. Marama and I kept talking or trying to.

...

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