Every Thursday Since 1998
Two men in Adelaide have played the same board game every Thursday for twenty-seven years, through divorces, a cancer diagnosis and one move interstate. They finally talk about why.
We Met in the Camp at Choucha
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Show notes
A friendship that started in a tent
Amira, from Libya, and Hawa, from Eritrea, met in the Choucha camp on the Tunisian border in 2011. They were fifteen and sixteen. One now lives in Marseille, the other in Tunis, and they speak every day. Lucas recorded them together in Tunis during Hawa's first visit in three years, and the conversation is tender, practical and often very funny.
- The first week at Choucha and how the friendship actually started
- Sharing one phone, one blanket and one plan
- The separate journeys, and the two years without contact
- Finding each other again through a cousin's Facebook post
- What they do for each other now, across the sea
Recorded in Arabic and French, with translation in the transcript.
Transcript
Welcome back to Still Friends After All This. I am Lucas Ferreira Prado. Most of the friendships on this show started at school, or at work, or at a hardware store. This one started in a tent. Amira was fifteen and from Libya. Hawa was sixteen and from Eritrea. They met in the Choucha refugee camp on the Tunisian border in 2011, shared a phone, a blanket and a plan, and then lost each other completely for two years. One of them lives in Marseille now and the other in Tunis, and they talk every single day. I sat with them in Tunis during Hawa's first visit in three years and asked them how a friendship like this is built and what it costs to keep. They laughed far more than I expected. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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