Tales of Strength and Resilience: Ep 5 with Nour Al Halabi

Tales of Strength and Resilience podcast explores the boundless dimensions of strength and resilience. Join the host, Muthoni Waigwa, on a transformative journey as we delve into the very essence of these profound qualities. We will unveil the multifaceted nature of strength and resilience in heartfelt conversations with extraordinary individuals.

Episode Five
Nour Al Halabi is a graduate with a degree in Anthropology from the American University of Beirut and has accumulated valuable teaching experience as a part-time instructor in the same field. Her passion for Visual Anthropology and Documentary Filmmaking has translated into crafting short documentary films and various storytelling initiatives. Her professional journey has been dedicated to nurturing young minds within educational settings and the realm of NGOs. Serving as the Freshman Year Experience Coordinator at AUB, Nour has stood by students in their transition into university life, offering guidance and insight to help them carve out their own career paths. Furthermore, her role as an Alumni in Residence at Baobab has not only expanded her connections but has also exposed her to a vast network of Mastercard Scholars, providing her with abundant opportunities for personal and professional growth.

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Transcript

Muthoni Waigwa:         Welcome to the Tales of Strength and Resilience podcast where we explore the boundless dimensions of strength and resilience. Join me, your host, Muthoni Waigwa, on a transformative journey as we delve into the very essence of these profound qualities. We will unveil the multifaceted nature of strength and resilience in heartfelt conversations with extraordinary individuals. We will empower and enlighten through these inspiring stories triumphing over adversity and discovering transformative lessons embedded within.

                                    Get ready for today's episode where untold stories of inner power and tenacity await us. Let's begin. Hi,, there. Thank you for choosing this podcast and for listening wherever you are in the world. During our childhood, we find inspiration in those close to us, particularly our parents, guardians and caregivers. Within us, a seed of influence is planted, which blossoms as we journey through life.

                                    In my early years, television and film captivated my attention, thus engaging in a conversation with a remarkable woman who also nurtured a fondness for cinema and storytelling during her early years is truly uplifting. Nour Al-Halabi is a graduate with a degree in anthropology from the American University of Beirut and has accumulated valuable teaching experience as a part-time instructor in the same field.

                                    Her passion for visual anthropology and documentary filmmaking has translated into crafting short documentary films and various storytelling initiatives. Her professional journey has been dedicated to nurturing young minds within educational settings and the realm of NGOs. Serving as the freshman year experience coordinator at the American University of Beirut, Nour has toured by her students in their transition into university life offering guidance and insight to help them carve out their own career paths. Let's listen. Welcome onto the show, Nour.

Nour Al-Halabi:             Hello, Muthoni.

Muthoni Waigwa:         Who is Nour and what are you learning about yourself at this moment in time?

Nour Al-Halabi:             Well, first of all, I'm really excited to be talking to you today, and I always ask myself honestly this question, "Who is Nour and what am I learning about myself every single day?" Because I think life and the journey of life is honestly about learning about yourself, about going out of your comfort zone, about experiencing new things, meeting new people, just seeking out new opportunities.

                                    So if I'd like to maybe define myself or at least try to put my thoughts into words, it would be that I'm a passionate, passionate storyteller and I think every decision I've made throughout my life as a child and growing up, it was just mainly for telling stories and for sharing them with people. So this is exactly what I learned about myself.

                                    It is through storytelling, through listening to other people's stories in my community, through engaging in opportunities and through my work, which I think we will be discussing throughout this conversation, I'm able to story tell, but I'm able to also listen to other stories. And this is what I learned from others. The power of storytelling is really, really magnificent and it's really what brought us here together today. So I think this is in a nutshell who I am, let's say, or who I'm trying to become.

Muthoni Waigwa:         Nour, it's so interesting when I get to connect with fellow storytellers because it just reminds me as well, we get to recognize that we're storytellers from a very young age. And for me as well, I knew that I wanted to be telling stories in whatever format that would be. And over the years, it has transitioned to producing content for broadcasters, NGOs as documentaries or even animations, and in this format right now, podcasting. What would you say that you learned as a young girl about being brave enough to share your story and making sure that you are able to hear other people's stories?

Nour Al-Halabi:             That is very, very interesting and it's just amazing how storytelling can take different forms and different shapes, and I'm sure every person we meet in life has a story to tell and is himself or herself a storyteller in a way or another. So I'd like to take this opportunity maybe to reflect on my childhood a bit. And growing up in a family, I always listened to my mother and father, but especially my father because he had this a way of telling stories in a way.

                                    He just likes to be present in social settings. And it's similar to this kind of traditional setting where family sits and retells stories and we share experiences of maybe funny things that happened with us or not so much funny stuff. But listening to my dad while I was growing up, I always wanted to listen more in a way.

                                    I always wanted to engage more in the stories he tells, and I always wanted to memorize these stories to be able to tell them also to other people I meet. And I think my mother also had a love for cinema and she always filmed me while I was growing up in school and those sessions where at the end of the year where you do a dance or something. So she always carried this camera with her and filmed me wherever I went.

                                    So I felt like in a way, I fell in love with the camera and I started to hold it at a certain age and I zoomed on people's faces just so I get a sense of who they are or what's the story they have to tell. So I think combining those two skills, storytelling and also using the camera, I really fell in love with cinema and film and creating films. So I would say this really impacted how I see the world if you want. And it really influenced so many of my decisions later on.

Muthoni Waigwa:         That is such a beautiful story that you've shared and I truly appreciate it and it just shows the impact our parents have on us from a very young age. For you, you say that your father drew you in with his stories and your mother had such a passion for cinema that really embedded in you from that age.

                                    And for me as well as a young girl, I truly was drawn by TV and film. I would watch a cartoon or a film and just know that I want to be a part of that world. And I found a different avenue to get into filmmaking and producing content. So how did you get to this level that you're in where you have a degree in anthropology and you are producing documentaries?

Nour Al-Halabi:             Yes, exactly. I really believe our parents and our community really, really has an impact on who we become or at least who aspire to become in a way. My story, my journey is not very linear and I really would like to also maybe track it back to where it started. I really wanted to, as you said, go into the world of cinema and TV and film. So my undergraduate was that I had an undergraduate degree in television and filmmaking. And just in my last semester in my university year, we had the opportunity to create a short film and portray this short film to a jury member.

                                    And I think in this semester I really learned about my love for documentaries specifically, and I wanted something to talk about really the history of Lebanon and in a way or another, the resilience of the Lebanese people who passed through so many wars and so many challenges. So I really wanted to portray the Civil War in Lebanon in a way that is really talking about these two generations and for people who might not specifically know that Lebanon faced Civil War back when our parents were growing up in a way. And it really caused this generational gap between us and our parents.

                                    And we now do not live specifically the war in the sense that they did, but in a way the effects of the war lived on. And I wanted to create a film about that just to showcase how we cope with the trauma and so on. So I really, let's say pointed out my love for documentaries ever since I went on this journey to do this film because I was doing interviews with people from different parts of Lebanon and I really wanted to capture this struggle and this resilience that Lebanese had back then.

                                    So this is where I tapped into documentary and I thought I wanted to continue my master's in something that is more with the people, that is more engaging, that is more on hands-on and on the ground. So I got into anthropology and it was just the best decision I think I've ever made. But it came after so many failures. And I applied to so so many universities in Lebanon and abroad and nothing ever worked. It was like every single thing was failing in a way.

                                    Maybe now I know why, because maybe I'm meant to be in this program as a scholar, as a MasterCard Foundation scholar. I think this has really changed my way of thinking about so many things. So what I basically do now is I am an anthropologist, but I'm specifically a visual anthropologist, which means I tell stories and study people through film, through using the camera to portray those different stories.

                                    And I live with people for quite an amount of time to be able to do this research. I also on the side taught Introduction to Anthropology and I also work with scholars just to kind of empower them to find this right skills or skillset that they need to transition from their undergraduate to graduate degrees and sometimes also from freshmen to an undergraduate.

                                    And this is what I do basically in my role as a coordinator for the freshman program at the American University of Beirut. So in a way it all makes sense when you look at it now, but when you're taking those decisions like, "What am I going to study? Or "What am I going to tap into?" It's always messy and it always has to have failure in a way. Because without that failure you could not proceed and you could not know exactly what do you want in life and who you are and who you want to become.

Muthoni Waigwa:         I totally agree with you. This life is full of messy situations where you find yourself in them and you're wondering, "Will I be able to get from point A to point B?" And I really appreciate how you've mentioned that your journey was not linear. And for me as well, you just take me down memory lane where when I did my undergraduate degree, I didn't study film, it was actually in international business, and I just told myself, "Let me be open to the opportunities that come my way and eventually I'll find myself in filmmaking."

                                    And one of the things that I came across when I entered into the filmmaking world is that failure is something that you have to get used to quickly. In production, creating these stories, interacting with the different people that you're interviewing, and you realize, you know what? Failure is part of the process and it's okay to fail. And I just remember moments where you've booked someone for an interview for your documentary and you're on set on location and you're ready to go.

                                    And unfortunately the person is so uncomfortable, they can't express themselves. So you have to scratch that person off your shortlist and you're just like, "Will I get the shot of the day?" So how have you navigated failure and what does strength mean to you? Because strength helps us to navigate moments where we are feeling and helps us to keep pushing forward. So is it okay to fail? What does failure mean to you? And where does strength play in all of this?

Nour Al-Halabi:             Yeah. It is okay to fail. I think it is necessary to fail in a way. And as you mentioned, thank you for mentioning also your own experience in that because I think failure is a shared thing we all experience, but we rarely talk about. We always try to highlight our success, we try to highlight the good moments that we want to remember, but it's really, really necessary for us to be true about our failures and to be in a way accepting for that failure.

                                    Because if we don't accept the failure we face, I think we might get stuck just right there and it's not where we want to be. For me, failure was in many incidents in my journey and specifically in my work as an anthropologist because anthropology requires you to just go out there, meet new people that might not necessarily have the same values that you have or the same lifestyle or the same life experiences as you do. But in a way you have to adapt to this new situation.

                                    You have to carry out yourself out of your comfort zone and just try to understand those people. So there's a saying in anthropology that I really love. It's just, "Anthropology is not trying to change the world, it's trying to understand people. It's trying to understand the world better." And I think by understanding the world better, we understand also that failure is part of this world.

                                    And sometimes in many cases in my interviews or in my just casual sets, conversation, we really don't... I don't really have the information that I want, let's say, or that I'm looking for, but in the process I find information that I really need to hear in a way or I really need to know about. So I think failure is realizing that there are so many opportunities out of your set rules or set values.

                                    It's trying to just be flexible about life situation and understand that things might not go the way you want to and this is okay and this is necessary. Because this will get you into the strength you need. And for me, I really love a quote by Susan Jeffers and it's a book where she says, "Feel the fear and do it anyway." So strength is never the absence of fear. It's always when you feel the fear, but you decide to jump into stuff, you decide to just acknowledge that this fear is real and not let it consume you in a way.

                                    For me personally, strength is about also embracing vulnerability and being in touch with our emotions and being true to them because it's not just about gathering whatever strength and resilience we have. It's also about those moments before you get up on stage where you have the stage fright and you want just to say presentation or something.

                                    So in those little tiny moments, for me this is strength because you're acknowledging that, "I'm vulnerable, I am really scared and it's fine because I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to go up on stage." For me, also, cooking is something that I really enjoy, but I'm also really scared of because I don't really know the ABC of cooking. But I try to cook anyway because it's just a matter of failing. And I won't tell you how many things I failed in with respect to cooking, but it's always a great way to learn about yourself. And failure teaches you that specifically.

Muthoni Waigwa:         You've mentioned cooking and how many times you failed at a recipe. And for me, just this week, I was like, "You know what? Let me try a recipe with coconut flour." And I was so ready to go. So I pour in the water and the elements into the coconut flour, and I'm wondering, 'Why is it absorbing so much water?" Here's the thing, I didn't research before the recipe that coconut flour absorbs so much water and you need to use a lesser quantity than normal flour. And I just looked at what I was making.

Nour Al-Halabi:             Wow.

Muthoni Waigwa:         I was just like, "It ain't happening." And I had to throw it away. So I totally understand where failure is one of those things where we will face constantly and it's up to us to just do it anyway. Regardless of whether we get it right or wrong, it's just part of the process for us to learn more about ourselves, to learn more about others as well.

                                    And also it builds our muscles for resilience, being able to navigate through difficult situations or challenges and helping us to become better versions of ourselves. So if you're able to, share a challenge that you overcame where you knew indeed, "I truly pulled out of my toolbox resilience."

Nour Al-Halabi:             Wow. So many incidents where I feel like people are resilient or I am resilient. And I like to just pinpoint that resilience for me is not a heroic act in a way. It's more of the daily tasks we carry out where we are actually on the other side of fear, like you said, just knowing that about this recipe is resilience in itself because it taught you how to react the next time.

                                    And it taught you about failure, it taught you about yourself even more. So I feel like when I say resilience, it's more of really the minor everyday tasks we just carry out despite failure and despite the fear of failure. But I'd like to maybe really share an experience that I personally went into. And it was basically while I was growing up, that I really thought gave me the courage and gave me the strength to fight back many, many other incidents that I faced.

                                    And this was when I knew I had Scoliosis as a kid, which is basically a bend in the spinal cord. And it's not a very, very serious condition and depends from one person to another, it's different. But it's basically when you have a bend in your spinal cord and you have to wear a specific kind of, how do you say, a specific machine on your body that helps your spinal cord stay straight in a way. But this machine, you have to wear it for 23 hours a day.

                                    And as a kid, I remember it was a struggle, how can I manage to put this on my back 23 hours a day? But here's the thing, when I was really at the end of the therapy, I wanted to take it off, but taking it off was harder than actually putting it on. So I think the lesson here is that you can basically manage whatever life throws at you if you really put your mind into it, and if you really have the discipline for it.

                                    I had to go through also bullying from people at school because of that, but also learning how to respond to this bullying and learning how to accept that maybe sometimes people don't know about this condition, they don't have the awareness about that.

                                    So this all gives you resilience in a way and strength to fight back. And it gives you also the courage and the motivation to help other people who are going through the same thing as you are. And it also helps you cherish your body in a way and the potential it has and it helps you also get into your mindset and be wired differently.

Muthoni Waigwa:         Thank you so much for sharing that experience that you went through. And it's interesting that you mentioned that removing the machine was harder than putting it on. And at times we go through such tough challenges that when we get to the other side of it, we are so scared to step into the unknown that we prefer to step back into the familiar, step back into our comfort zones.

                                    So just tying a thread with this, you are the freshman year experience coordinator. So the freshman individual could be male or female, comes to you and they are so scared about this new chapter of their lives and they would prefer to just go back to their comfort zone, go back to just how with the way life used to be before they came into university. How would you encourage them to know that the unknown is actually good for them because it will draw out everything that's within them?

Nour Al-Halabi:             This is such an interesting way to put it because I think, yeah, exactly. When I removed the machine, it was very scary because I was really getting out of the comfort zone I had already got used to. And it was like jumping into a new chapter. So especially when freshmen students come into the university, everything is new to them, everything. The school is different.

                                    And most times the country is different, the friends are different. So there's nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing in their comfort zone. So in many cases we create some sort of online self-paced videos for them to basically get the soft skills that they need for them to be able to transition. But the videos are not enough on their own. You have to sit with them and you have to basically encourage them just to take one step at a time.

                                    I think this is really important because the unknown is a big thing, right? It's really scary and it's just uncertain in so many ways. And just trying to basically put pinpoints for us to work on step-by-step. Like, now you're going to register your courses. Now, let's go, let's say go with your friend to a coffee shop where you can just chit-chat and be in the moment of it. And when you do this step-by-step kind of routine, things become much less complicated in a way.

                                    And whenever they just enter university, before they enter, the fear is very high. But when they enter and they start some of their courses and they start meeting some of their friends, things just become easier, let's say. But without the support system, we all are scared people in a way or another. We really want support. We really want to feel like we belong in a way. And just feeling this belonging feeling, it takes time. And we really need to allow ourselves this time to grow and allow ourselves to be uncomfortable in situations because this is what's going to make things easier later on.

Muthoni Waigwa:         You mentioned earlier that the Lebanese people are resilient and they have overcome leaps and bounds of challenges. And I want to tie that with this question. What are your hopes for you as a Lebanese woman in the industry of filmmaking? And what are your hopes as well for the Lebanese people?

Nour Al-Halabi:             This is really amazing to think of how many Lebanese women in the past years have become in a way or another, filmmakers, storytellers, entrepreneurs, content creators, you name it. They have really stepped into their already existing potential. But having those so many stories around us in Lebanon happening gives you basically the courage and gives you the will to tell those stories in a way or another.

                                    So my hope for myself as a Lebanese filmmaker living in Lebanon is never to stop telling stories, never to stop just getting out there, meeting people, asking, "How can I be of help?" Asking, "How can my medium be of help for their stories as well, for other people's stories?" And this is something I'd really like to pinpoint as that I've done a podcast episode with a fisher woman in Beirut, and through her I could see Beirut and Lebanon through a whole different lens.

                                    And the episode in a way or another touches on resilience, but it also touches on those daily lives in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon and also the Lebanese. Because fishing is all about just casting your net and waiting and having this energy to stay there to catch fish. But for many of Lebanese people who fish, fishing is not just an act of recreation or something they do in their free time, it's basically how they survive their everyday life.

                                    So just looking into this area of Beirut, you can see the resilience of the Lebanese people who actually go there and wait for their fish, for their everyday food to feed their families and so on. So I think my wish for myself as a filmmaker and for other filmmakers who are women, is to never stop telling stories. We have so much to tell and the struggle and the challenges are there.

                                    We cannot blindfold ourselves from what's happening in the world and in Lebanon, but we can be, at least try and be of help in a way or another. And storytelling can put those stories out there, can show the world the true image of Lebanon, and not just the one portrayed in the media about the war and everything, but about really the beauty of surviving in a way, the everyday struggle, the beauty of finding comfort in such a messy place, if you want. I like to call it a beautiful mess in a way, because it really teaches you a lot about yourself. It really teaches you a lot about other people as well.

Muthoni Waigwa:         I think for me, what you've shared just goes to show the power of storytelling. With one story the entire world can know that a group of people, a resilient or a person has a really great capacity of strength. And I think it's something that we cannot downplay anymore. And it's important that we share our stories and truly share them in an authentic way.

                                    And also that these stories can have longevity that future generations can plug in and know that Nour at this point in time was resilient. At this point in time, she had this conversation with someone, and truly it sparks within them the desire to be strong and resilient. And with that in mind, what would be your closing remarks for this conversation?

Nour Al-Halabi:             Well, Muthoni, thank you so much for having this conversation with me. I really enjoyed talking to you and also being inspired from what you do and being inspired by also the other people you've met and had conversations with. So I think my last word for myself and also for everyone listening, is to never stop discovering, never stop learning about yourself. Never stop getting out of your comfort zone.

                                    Never stop sharing your story. But also most importantly, believe in your story in a way. As cliche as this sounds, and we hear it a lot, believe in yourself, believe in your capabilities, but this is so, so crucial to believe also in your failure in a way. To just try to bounce back from it, to try to accept it and try to embrace this vulnerability that we have as humans and translate that in the stories in how we carry ourselves every day. And also, of course, never stop being human because this is what a combines us all. This is what brings us together.

Muthoni Waigwa:         I invite you to carry the lessons learned in this podcast into your own lives, embracing your inner strength and nurturing resilience in the face of adversity. Let's forge a future where we support one another and celebrate the triumphs shaping our journeys. Thank you for listening and stay tuned for more inspiring episodes that will continue to ignite the flame of strength and resilience within you. Until next time, I'm your host, Muthoni Waigwa, bidding you farewell, but not goodbye.