What is a happy memory that you have together as siblings?
Melody: “I broke his hand!”
Bassam: “I was running after her in the corridor and then I suddenly slipped on the carpet and then she broke my hand and she was laughing and I was crying.”
Portraits
Refugee Children (Palestinians)
As seen in Burj Al Burajneh refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon
Bilal Haydar (Lebanese)
“Now very soon I am applying to Emirates Airlines, just to work in it, to have a tour around the world. I hate routine, thats why I want to. In this job I can be every week in a different country. I like to travel, I like to discover other cultures, to communicate with other nationalities and people.”
Shereen Ghali (Egyptian-Iranian-Armenian-Cypriot)
“I guess everyday has its sort of little bits of happiness in them. But I’m happy when I come home to my mom’s food after living alone for so long. So that’s a nice change.”
Zakariya and Hashem Ben Said (Libyans)
Zakariya (father): “My best memories are with my dad. He is dead now but I keep him always alive in my head because of those memories.”
* * * *
Hashem (son): “I want to be an astronaut.”
And what will you do as an astronaut?
Hashem: “Travel to space!”
(Note: Libya is an ethnically Arab-Berber country located in North Africa, generally closely associated with the Middle East)
Omar Hazzazi (Saudi)
“I want to work in an important job with a good income. And as a part time job I want to do videos on YouTube. I like doing videos. I know how to edit videos on Sony Vegas 13 and what else . . . Yeah, I started a gaming channel, I’m not sure if I’m going to continue it . . . I’m saving up for a vlogging camera, maybe I can do something. And I attempted to do some pranks two weeks ago. I had some pretty cool concepts.”
Sarah Khalil (Lebanese-Trinidadian-American)
“Well the best advice I’ve ever received was from my dad. It was such a grandiose kind of statement. I think it was even the day that I graduated high-school; it was one of those really cheesy moments. But he said that, ‘You are going to encounter a lot of problems in your life. And sometimes they might even be problems that neither your mother nor I nor anybody else has ever experienced before you, but the fact is that you’re going to have to confront them. And you’re going to have to do the best that you can. You can’t just give up and you can’t just always depend on other people. You’re going to have to be brave and go forth and live your life despite the fact that shit is hard,’ basically.”
Ehab (Egyptian-Lebanese) and Joanna (Lebanese) Mouawad
Ehab: “It’s awesome being Arabs and breaking stereotypes, like when we go to the West or other places and people are shocked when they meet us, because when we say we are from Lebanon and we are speaking English, or like we’re educated, and you know we’re not very different from people there and they’re kind of shocked; it’s very amusing.”
Joanna: “It’s very funny to see. We start talking to people and then we’re just talking, and then after that they ask us ‘oh where are you from,’ because they know we’re not from there and we say ‘Lebanon’ and automatically there reaction shifts to . . .”
Ehab: “‘What you’re normal people??!!'”
Joanna: “‘Oh really? Oh you’re from there? Okay.’ And its just, you know, they change completely when they know where we’re from.”
Ehab: “It’s an amusing experience every time.”
Muhammad Hariri (Lebanese)
“I see myself with a big, like a very big penthouse and probably . . . I don’t know. I really don’t know. It’s a really tough question because if you asked me 10 years ago where I’d be now, I would have never imagined I’d be here.”
Talat Awed (Egyptian)
“When I know that there are some people who always support and they are willing to do anything to make me happy and to be on my side always, that makes me happy because whatever I face in life, I know that there are people who will come and pick me up.”
Real Arabs of the Middle East 