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- [00:00]
Meg Bolton
As we approach the end of the year, I'm thinking about the next. Next year is the year I finally make my Spanish better than my 9 year olds. Rosetta Stone is the most trusted language learning program available on desktop or as an app, and it truly immerses you in the language that you want to learn. I can't wait to use Rosetta Stone and finally speak better than my 9 year old who's been learning Spanish in his own way. Rosetta Stone is the trusted expert for 30 years. With millions of users and 25 languages offered. Spanish, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Korean, I could go on fast language acquisition. Rosetta Stone immerses you in many ways. There are no English translations, so you can really learn to speak, listen and think in that language. Start the new year off with a resolution you can reach today. The Moth listeners can take advantage of this Rosetta Stones lifetime membership for 50% off, visit rosettastone.com moth that's 50% off unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your Life. Redeem your 50% off at rosettastone.com moth.
- [01:07]
Dan Kennedy
Today the Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist whether you're running, swimming or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10 available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum compared to previous generations. IPhone XS are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.
- [01:38]
Meg Bolton
This podcast is brought to you by stamps.com getting your mailing and shipping done can seem like a trade off. The Post Office takes too much time and a postage meter is too expensive. There's a better way with with stamps.com get official US postage for any letter or package using your own computer and printer. Save up to 80% compared to a postage meter and avoid trips to the Post Office. Right now, listeners of the Moth Podcast get a special offer including free postage. Go to stamps.com, click on the microphone and type in Moth. Support for the Moth Podcast comes from American experience on PBS. Based on a true story, five of the most powerful words in media. America's true stories are the inspiration for American Experience, whose award winning documentaries bring to life the people and events that have shaped America's past and present. Watch this season's films like Clansville USA Tuesday nights on PBS or catch up anytime online@americanexperience.org themoth welcome to the Moth Podcast.
- [02:42]
Ryan Knighton
I'M Dan Kennedy. Of course, it's, it's old news now that Groundhog Day has happened. I think the verdict is that, I don't know. One groundhog thought one thing, did one thing, the other one did the other thing. I think they cancelled each other out. But we do know the weather's going to be getting progressively warmer. That's the one thing. This week we have a brand new episode of the Moth Radio Hour right here on the podcast three stories for you, One from Ryan Knighton, which is the most amazing snake story ever, adding to our currently narrow category of snake stories here at the Moth. But this one is my favorite by far. Amy Biancoli is going to tell a story and Sasha Chanoff will also tell a story. Here's the Moth Radio Hour.
- [03:43]
Meg Bolton
From prx.
- [03:43]
Amy Biancoli
This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bolton, and in this hour we'll bring you three stories told live on stage. The storytellers have no notes. They simply share their stories as they remember them. A woman attempts to learn the etiquette of widowhood. A pair of humanitarian rescue workers have to make a life or death decision. And our first story from Ryan Knighton. When Ryan was 18, he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that starts with night blindness and tunnel vision and in most cases leads to total blindness. Ryan told this story in Denver, Colorado. And at our main stage events, we like to introduce our storytellers by asking each one the same question. Our host for the evening, Brian Finkelstein, introduced Ryan like this.
- [04:28]
Dan Kennedy
So when I asked this guy if he could bump into anyone tonight, who would it be and why, his answer was Stevie Wonder.
- [04:37]
Sasha Chanoff
Because it would be funny to watch.
- [04:38]
Dan Kennedy
Two blind guys bumping into each other.
- [04:42]
Sasha Chanoff
Big round of applause for Ryan Knighton. Come on. So when I was 18 and the doctor told me I was going to go blind very slowly, the thing he didn't mention is that it was going to be super boring. I mean, like you might know, but there isn't much to look at. And that boredom, probably more than anything, really terrified me. And the first person I actually ever heard who had the same eye disease as I do was a guy on the radio. And this was two months after I was diagnosed and he was being interviewed and they said, well, what do you do all day? And he said, I sleep. So a few years after that, I decided that I wasn't going to go this way. So I started doing research and I wanted to travel the world to educate my senses. Sort of broaden their horizons. And I wanted to travel with what I thought was a fairly simple question, which is if I could go anywhere just to touch something, what would I go touch? Like what is the Eiffel Tower of smell? And that's how in my research I came across this little festival in a town called Sweetwater, Texas, where every year they hold the world's biggest rattlesnake roundup. I know every March over three days, the people in this town go out to the surrounding cattle acreages and they cull the diamondback herds and they gather up on average over those three days, one and a half tons of rattlesnakes. And why they tell you this in weight, I don't know because I don't know what a ton and a half of rattlesnakes looks like. But imagine what a ton and a half of rattlesnakes sounds like. I figure this is the Grand Canyon of sound and the only downside is a ton and a half of rattlesnakes. So I decide I'm going to go with my brother Michael because he was the only person ridiculous enough to go with me. And in part that's because Michael spells his name M Y K O L like he's that kind of guy. And so we fly down to Texas and we drive from Abilene to Sweetwater, past Buck's, all you can eat brisket and Skeets all you can eat brisket. And don't get me wrong, we were utterly terrified of what we were going to find. But we were also so happy because there were cowboys everywhere.
- [07:48]
Michael
Every.
- [07:49]
Sasha Chanoff
And we love cowboys. We love everything cowboy. I mean the older, the leatherier the better. And my brother's telling me that there's turquoise bolo ties dotting the landscape. I mean I roll down my window and I can smell horse sweat and scrub grass. And I'm nine years old at my grandparents farm and sometimes I'm telling you, a smell is like a feeding. So we get to this little stadium where they hold the festival in a little bit of a rodeo. And I'm hanging onto my brother's elbow and he's guiding me in and we get inside the door and he freezes in terror. And he says, I don't mean to exaggerate, but it's all snake. Which is a cruel thing to say to a blind person because what a stadium of snake looks like, I mean, I have no clue. So I said to him, you have to give me something to look at. And he says okay, well 10ft in front of us there's an old man and currently he's shaking a rattlesnake at a baby. And the other rattlesnake, he's not shaking that one. Now, I knew this was a bad idea, but this was a really bad idea. But, you know, sometimes the best experiences don't invite you. So we pressed on. We went down the stairs to the floor of this stadium and they had this shanty town of curios and kiosks. And I touched, I felt every manner of thing related to rattlesnakes that you could never imagine. They had rattlesnake skin chaps. There was a belt buckle that had a glassy eyed head mounted on it for the fashion demented. And then there was this turtle shell that they. Somebody had playfully mounted a rattlesnake head on one side and a rattle on the other like it was some rejected creature from the movie Beetlejuice. And then I heard things. I heard this woman say, how many do I have to catch to make a pair of strappy pumps? Because I ain't leaving until I get my strappy pumps and rattles going by everybody. To calm myself, I began to collect phrases you don't want to hear at the rattlesnake roundup. But I heard number one. Oh, shit. I know. I mean, I don't care if you dropped your beef podcast brisket. You don't say that to anybody at any moment at a rattlesnake roundup for any reason. Number two, back up, back up, back up. And number three, my personal favorite. Yeah, that's how fast it can happen. So I said to my brother, I can't do this. We have to leave. He's like, let's just go to the back. We'll register for the hunt at the table and then we'll leave. Because we were going to go on the hunt the next day. We were going to catch our own rattlesnake. So I could feel a snake. I've never felt one. And maybe hear one up close, because that's a good idea. So we walk towards the back. We're walking towards this fountain, and as we get near it, I realize this is not a fountain. Those are snakes. This is the transfer pen. It's a wooden plywood pen about waist high, about the size of a swimming pool. And at any moment there might be 3, 5, 700 snakes in there. I mean, you remember that tomb from Raiders of the Lost Ark? It's that. So I walk up to it and they can sense my heat and it alarms them and they get really freaking Loud. And so I stood back and they got really quiet. So I leaned forward and they got loud. And I waltzed back and they got quiet. And I played a pile of rattlesnakes like a prehistoric theremin. They told me years ago the world was going to disappear on me. And it just got really big. So the next day, my brother and I go out on the hunt. We drive out to this 9,000 acre ranch with our guy Jeb, who's got a big silver beard. And my brother said he had jaw stains around his mouth. And there's eight other people with us. And we're going to go on the hunt. So we get to the side of the road and we have our requisite tools to catch our snake. We have a snake hook, which is a golf club, but they cut the head off it and they weld an Allen wrench from Ikea because it doubles as your bookcase building tool and life saving device. We had a garbage can with a very, very tight link lid and a hand mirror. And standing there on the side of the road, Jeb gave us our only instructions. And he began this way. He said, they are everywhere. You will keep your eyes down at all times. You're thinking what I was thinking. My brother leaned over to me, he said, you are so screwed. Jeb said, they will be in the tall, dead grass. They will be in fallen piles of lumber. They will be in piles of rocks. When you find your snake, you want to approach it with your boot up. When you find your snake, you wave your hook at it because you want to provoke it. It will strike at your boot. It is vulnerable. You put your hook down on the neck, you pick it up, you put it in your garbage can, which was going through a lot of steps way too fast as far as I was concerned. And no mention of the hand mirror. Like, I don't know what to do with this thing. Like, scare it with its own image. And this woman says, I read somewhere that if you have your pants outside your boots, they can strike at your ankle and they'll hook their fangs on the pant leg. And then you're dancing around with a damn snake hanging off your pants. Is that true? And Jeb says, I say, that'd be about so. Good luck. So we're off. So I'm hanging onto my brother's elbow and we are taking large, soft astronaut steps into a desert full of snakes. And my brother says to me, I am so scared. It was this moment we discovered the strange audio fact of the world. You probably aren't aware of this, but. But tall, dead scrubgrass in the wind. Sounds exactly like a rattlesnake. A little breeze would blow, and we'd whip around and beat the crap out of the earth for no reason. And so we find a big pile of rocks, and my brother says, there's one in there. I know. He kept whispering. I don't know why. Like they would hear us sneaking up on them otherwise. So he's poking around in the rocks with his Allen wrench when I get tapped on the shoulder. I turn around. It's a guy drinking beer at 8:30 in the morning. I came to think of him as Mr. Coors. And Mr. Coors is standing there. He says, hey, can I ask you something? Are you blind? And I said, yep. And he said, no, I mean, like, are you blind blind? I said, and I'm Canadian. And he goes, goddamn, you're the bravest son of a bitch I ever met. Bonnie, bring the children. He really is blind. Whole family comes over for a photo shoot because we are about. I am about the most interesting thing anybody is finding in this desert today. So we make our way about a quarter mile down the road, and there's this old shack and old car bodies, piles of lumber. And we know there are snakes here, so we storm it like Normandy, because everybody wants one, and we're not finding anything. So I round the corner of the shack with Bonnie and Mr. Coors. And as I round the corner, I hear her say to him, hank, get it? And he says, I ain't get it. You get it. And she says, well, I don't have the damn hook, Hank. And that's when I hear the snake light up right in front of me. Then I heard the most terrifying sound I think I've ever heard in this world. It went silent, and I don't know where to go. And later I learned it went silent because it was busy leaping up and trying to take Bonnie's face off. She screamed, and my brother screamed. It's for real. Jeb's boys are calling him Daddy. It's a big one. Then I heard this amazing thing. This snake turns and books it under the shack, and its tail is hitting the wooden floorboards. And it sounds like a kid dragging a stick on a fence. And it stays there. And these guys worked a while trying to figure out a way to get it come back out. And I stood there for a bit, and I just became so disgusted with myself. I mean, this sound, this like, stick dragging on a fence. I know the sound of a stick and here's this creature that has evolved over millennia and it only can say one thing, which is, leave me alone. So I turned away. I couldn't watch this. And exactly, you know what I mean? I'm walking away and the crowd is parting and I hear some other familiar sounds. I hear, oh, shit. And back up, back up, back up. And you know they're thinking, yeah, that's how fast it can happen. So my brother and I go back to the rodeo and we discovered, well, there's a power you can have. It's a magical power. If you say to somebody, you're blind and you're from Canada, you can do anything. I judged the rattlesnake cook. I rode mechanical bulls. People gave me their guns and let me shoot. They just pulled my shoulders and aimed me. And then there was the Sweetwater Miss Snake Charmer Beauty page. Women in white paper hazmat suits with big hair answering questions about world peace while they skin a rattlesnake. And when they're done, they take their bloody hand and they press it to the white wall behind them. And they sign their name Carrie with a heart over the eye. Blind guy from Canada is in the beauty pageant. And I am holding my first snake and I am skinning it. And when I'm done, the guy who's helping me put something in my hand. It's small, about the size of a chestnut. And then it beats. And I felt, I didn't know I felt what life is, which is it comes from just this little thing, this twitch. And it's just a moment where you think it stopped and then it just keeps trying. And when I was done, I put my bloody palm to the wall. And I am not worried about boredom because the world is just that horrifying and strange and loud. Thanks.
- [22:02]
Amy Biancoli
That was Ryan Knight. Ryan has written several books about his experience adapting to blindness. The most recent is entitled Come on Dispatches from a dad in the Dark. One of the ways we find stories is through our pitch line. If you go to our website and click on Tell a story, it takes you on a step by step how to so you can record your two minute pitch. We realize two minutes isn't a long time, so just give us the highlights of your story. We might call you back to learn more or we might use it on the radio like this pitch.
- [22:42]
Sheikha
In 1989, when I was 12 years old, my father and I left communist Bulgaria and we traveled to rome, Italy on two week visas. @ the airport, we requested a political asylum status from the Italian authorities. When we were granted the status to remain in Italy. Then we had to spend some time in an orphanage. And then after that, we went to the Roman Central train station, where we made that place our home. For the next eight days, we slept on makeshift beds, on luggage carts and suitcases, and also in the waiting room on the seats. There we pretended like we were going somewhere, but we had no tickets. We had to hide from the cops every day. Eventually, we found shelter in a Catholic monastery, where actually we got a room to sleep in, and monks there suggested I also become a monk. But I refused gently, and even though the offer included an automatic Italian citizenship, we refused and chose to emigrate to the United States. And several months after that, we ended up in San Francisco, where we began a new life. Thank you.
- [24:02]
Amy Biancoli
If you have a story you'd like to pitch, go to themoth.org and don't forget to tell us where you're located, because we might just be producing a show in your area. Coming up, a family's life is forever changed after two detectives knock on their front door.
- [24:36]
Jem Ibrahimov
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange. PRX.org.
- [24:49]
Amy Biancoli
From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bolz, and our next story comes from Amy Biancoli. Amy told this story at an evening we produced in partnership with public radio station WAMC in Albany, New York. The theme of the night was Lost and Found.
- [25:12]
Michael
It was a few minutes before 10am in late September 2011 when I heard the doorbell ring. I was in the attic where I sometimes worked on movie reviews. At the time, I was working as a film critic, and I had been procrastinating on this one review. So when I heard the door, I was annoyed. But I went downstairs and went up to the front door and went up on my tiptoes and peered through the glass. And as soon as I saw them, I knew. Because we all know from the movies what it means to see two cops at your door. It means that something horrific has happened to someone you love. But I let them in. It was a man and a woman. They were kind. I remember that. I don't remember who said what. They must have asked me my name. I must have told them. They must have asked me if I was married to Chris Ringwald. I must have said yes. And they told me to sit down. And they said that a man had been found at the base of a hospital parking garage a mile from my home. And I said, did he jump? And they said yes. And I said, is he dead? And they said yes. And in that moment, learning of my husband's suicide, I felt my whole world shear away from me. I felt cleaved. Into that day. I did the toughest thing I've ever had to do. I told our three children. Our oldest was 17 at the time, and on a gap year in Ecuador. Our younger daughter was a sophomore at Albany high. She was 15. And our youngest, our boy, was 11. He was in sixth grade. And that first night, my two kids and I didn't want to be apart. So we lay on the living room floor in sleeping bags and watched Battlestar Galactica, the new one, the really good one, the reboot. And we turned it off after a little bit and tried to sleep. Mainly, I just lay there thinking about all that I had lost. My husband of 20 years, who I was with him, who I would be with him. Our future together, all our dreams, some of them really mundane. We had always talked about becoming old farts together and walking the neighborhood holding hands. And that was gone, too. And yet I knew I had to have a future. Even though we weren't going to be buying that convertible after our youngest went off to college. I just didn't know what that future would be. I couldn't curl up into a ball. There had to be a next morning that I would get up, and then a next and then a next. But what was the next? The week unfolded the way these weeks do, in a whirlwind of loving people coming by with casseroles and plates of ziti and meetings with funeral directors. The funeral, the wake. And at one point, one of the funeral directors came up to me with a question that caught me off guard. He wanted to know what I wanted done with my husband's wedding ring. Did I want to take it home, or did I want it cremated and buried with him? And I thank you, but I want that ring. I love that ring. That ring was me on his hand for two decades. That hand held our vows, and it was a beautiful hand. He was a writer, but he had worked for years before that in carpentry and construction. And he had these big, thickly muscled hands, and it was a big ring on a big finger, and it had warped to his finger. And I loved the warp. The warp was our life together. So I brought it home, and I decided I didn't want to stuff it into a drawer in the dark. Instead, I put it on a chain and hung the chain on a hook on the back of my bedroom closet door. And that felt right to have it present because he was so present to me. I was so madly in love with him right from the beginning. We knew from the first date. Four months after that first date, we got engaged. He didn't have the engagement ring with him when he proposed, but he went down to Manhattan, took the train, went and saw a jeweler named Bobby Satin, of all things. We used to laugh about it, took his name out of the movies, Bobby, Bobby Satin. And came back up by train. Actually got off in Hudson and we had dinner there. And before he gave me the ring, he explained that the central stone was not a diamond. He said there were these little smaller stones that were diamonds that were flanking the central stone. But he said, I decided you're not a diamond. I decided you're a ruby because rubies are rarer. And that was the start of our life together. Six months later we were married. And for the whole time I was with him. He was the most extraordinary, charismatic, brilliant, interesting, giant hearted man. And he was also the sanest, until he wasn't. He left his job, became anxious, the anxiety led to insomnia, which led to worsening anxiety and depression, and it all spiraled away into suicidality. And after six months, I lost him. And having lost him, there I was with these rings on my hand that I didn't know what to do with. I didn't know how long to wear them because there was nobody to tell me. When you lose your spouse, no one comes up to you and says, welcome to widowhood. Here's the guidebook. There's no guidebook. There's no etiquette. There are no rules. All we have are musty old expectations, cliches based in large part on movies and literature. We have the idea of the old ladies in black sackcloth dresses murmuring over their rosary beads and maybe banging themselves in the foreheads with Bibles. And I'm Catholic. I own rosary beads and I own Bibles. But I wasn't doing that. Instead, I was hauling myself through every day, schlepping my kids, caring for them, writing, doing my best, laughing with my friends when I was able to, and all the while grieving my husband like crazy. And as I was doing those things, I had these rings on my hand that implied that he was alive and I didn't know how long to wear them. And people would say, well, do what feels right. But I didn't know what felt right. Nothing felt right. How could anything feel right? I'd found these two online support groups for young widows and I went on and I checked and sure enough, sure enough, there were whole conversations about this. Some widows and widowers said they removed the ring right away as soon as their spouse died. Some people said they melted them down into a new piece of jewelry. Some said they wore them on a chain around their necks. And some said, it's been five years or whatever and I still feel married, I'm still wearing the rings, I'll always feel married. And I did feel married the first couple of weeks, you just do. But as the weeks turned into months and the reality of my husband's absence set in, it became more and more painful. And when I say painful, I mean it literally. That's one of the things nobody tells you about widowhood, is that you'll feel a head to toe literal body ache. The loss of intimacy, both physical and emotional, the touch deprivation. It all makes you want to lie in bed at night wanting to be held by the person who's not there. And that hurt. And what made it hurt even more was the fact that it disagreed with the rings on my hand. The disconnect was too much. So finally, after about it was about four months after my husband died, I took the train down to Manhattan to see a movie. Because periodically studios would make me go down there. Mostly I saw movies up here in Albany, but now and then there'd be a movie that they really didn't want to screen for me up here. Sometimes it was because the movie wasn't very good. In this case it was a film called the Gray. It was a thriller starring Liam Neeson and a bunch of computer generated wolves behaving in very non wolf like ways. And I thought it was pretty silly. Other critics, but in any case, I was down there at this screening chatting with a colleague. I don't remember who he was or who he wrote for, but in the course of this professional chitchat, it occurred to me that if he saw the rings on my hand, he would assume that I was married, that I had a living, breathing spouse somewhere. And I did not. And this was not me worried about dating. That's not what this was about. It was just the pain of knowing that my husband wasn't there. And my hand said something different. So I went home and I talked to the kids. I wanted to make sure it was okay with them. And it was. They totally got it. I went and I bought a very nice gold chain. And as I remove the rings from my hand, my hand felt lighter and naked and really weird. And it hurt. But it was an honest pain. It was a pain I knew I had to learn to live with. And I did. I learned over two years. Then about three months ago or so, I don't know what impulse made me do this. Just a random impulse. Curiosity. I sat down on my bed with my rings and put them back on my hand and I held it out and it was an alien hand. It wasn't my hand any longer. With those rings on my hand, it looked like a hand from another life and another me. Too much time had passed, and so I removed the rings, put them back on the chain, and hung them on the hook on the back of my bedroom closet door with my late husband's.
- [36:16]
Amy Biancoli
Amy Biancoli is an arts writer for the Times Union in Albany, New York, and the author of three books. The latest is a memoir of the year following her husband's death. You can find out more about Amy and all the storytellers in this hour by visiting our website, themoth.org coming up, a humanitarian rescue worker is forced to decide whether he'll break the rules and risk jeopardizing his mission in order to save more lives.
- [37:07]
Jem Ibrahimov
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by prx.
- [37:17]
Amy Biancoli
This is the Moth Radio Hour from prx. I'm Meg Boles and our last story comes from Sasha Chanoff. Sasha is the co founder and executive director of refugepoint, an organization with the mission to protect the world's most vulnerable refugees. He joined us at the Paramount Theater in Boston, Massachusetts, for an evening we produced in partnership with public radio station wbur. Here's Sasha Chanoff live at the mall.
- [37:50]
Dan Kennedy
I'm looking out a hotel suite window in the capital of Congo in the middle of Africa. There are bullet marks on the buildings out there because war is raging. But it's nighttime and quiet. There's a nasty cockroach infestation in the kitchen and a putrid smell in the air. I've turned the TV volume up loudly because the Congolese government has bugged our room. I turn and face Sheikha. She's a woman from Kenya with the brown skin of the coastal people and thick black hair and intense dark eyes. Tears are welling in her eyes and she's pleading with me. Sasha, we have to take these people along with the rest. If we don't, they'll die here and their blood will be on our hands. Please, you have to trust me. I'm facing a terrible decision and I'm afraid no matter what I do, people are going to be killed. A month earlier in Kenya, my boss, David, at the International Organization for Migration where we worked, called me into his office. He handed me a list with 112 names on it and told me he was sending me into the Congo on a rescue mission. The job was to evacuate 112 massacre survivors. He warned me really explicitly that under no circumstances could I include anybody else on that list. If I did, we would fail to get anyone out and they would all die. David knew because he'd spent the past six months in the Congo evacuating people. I'd met one teenage girl that he pulled out. She had these nervous eyes and she told me that the killing started when the President of Congo went on TV and said that all people of the Tutsi tribe are the enemy and need to be hunted down and exterminated. This was an extension of the Rwandan genocide in ways. This teenage girl went into hiding that day, but had to eventually come out to look for food. And as she was sneaking around town, she saw a mob chase down and catch another woman. And they put a tire over her body, pinning her arms to her side, and doused her in gasoline and set her on fire. They were killing people in terrible ways because Tutsis were seen as the scapegoats for the Congo's problems. This teenage girl had lost her own parents, but she had four brothers who were still alive, and they were on the list that David handed me. David also warned me about Sheikha. She'd been on every previous mission with him, but he told me that I couldn't trust her, that she always tried to include additional people, and I had to stop her from doing that. Sheikha and I flew into the Congo and we rented a car and a driver and went to the safe compound where the 112 were gathered. These big black gates swung open as our car drove into this 2 acre compound with 10 foot walls and jagged shards of glass topping the walls. There were guards with AK47s slung at their sides, standing around a one brick story building. A one story building was in the middle and a large tent off to the side and latrines on another side. Somebody saw Sheikha and all of a sudden there was a mob around our car and they were pushing it up and down and chanting her name. And I remember David telling me that people are going to go crazy with relief when they see you because they think they're going to die there. And when they see you, they'll know there's another flight. But it felt really scary and out of control for Me, because there were way more people than the 112 on our list. We set a table up on the top of a little hill and the crowd gathered below, and I called people up one at a time and I took their name and their birth date and their photo and I told them we'd be flying them out in a few days time. I had to give this information to the Congolese immigration officials. I got really excited when I saw the four brothers of that teenage girl come up. When we were done and trying to leave, a guy who was working in the compound said, before you leave, you have to go into that tent over there and look at the people who just came in. And I thought, I don't want to see anybody else. We can't take them, so why even look? But my feet were walking towards the tent as I was thinking that. And I stepped inside and it was like time stopped. It was really hot in that tent. And I remember the sweat trickling down the small of my back. But what struck me was how completely quiet it was, which seemed impossible because there were 32 widows and orphans standing and sitting in that tent. The guy who brought us in leaned into me and said, they were in a prison camp for 16 months where most of their family members were executed. We don't know how they survived. They all looked traumatized and emaciated and they had these hollow stares like there was nothing behind their eyes. Sheikha leaned down to a little girl holding a doll and said, let me see your doll. And all of a sudden the doll's eyes popped open and its tongue lolled out of its mouth. And we realized it was an infant child that looked more dead than alive. I went over to a 13 year old boy and said, what's your name? And another, smaller boy grabbed his hand and said, he doesn't talk anymore. I talk for him. That 13 year old had been brutalized so badly, he just stopped speaking. Sheikha and I left. And that night in the hotel room, she was holding the list of widows and orphans and begging me to take them. I held the list of 112 and I said, we can't. But I wondered, can I live with myself if we leave these widows and orphans here and they're killed? No, I didn't think so. But could I live with myself if we tried to take them and we failed to get everybody out and they all died? No. And then I thought about who Sheikha was. She had like this clear moral orientation. She did what was right in her heart and wasn't concerned about personal gain or recognition. And then I wondered, who am I? My great grandmother had come to the US as a refugee fleeing antisemitism in Russia, and she was a widow who raised four orphans or four children on her own. I'd been working with refugees since graduating from college six years earlier, but nothing had prepared me for this. And then Sheikha said, words that changed me. Sasha, we're humanitarians. We're here on the ground now. If we don't do this, these people will be forgotten and they'll die here. This is up to us. It's our decision. And in that moment, I trusted her. So I called David, and he got really angry when we told him what we wanted to do. He said, listen, I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen. You have to tell the Congolese immigration authorities, and then they're going to include their own people on your list. And then at the last minute, maybe even on the plane, they'll pull your people off and you won't get anybody out. You can't do this. And I said, david, I get it, but we have to try. And he was quiet. And then I heard him say, okay, then here's what you have to do. This is a US Rescue mission, so get the US Ambassador's approval and try it. We got the US Ambassador's approval. And then on the last night, as the sun was setting, we went to see the head of Congolese immigration, a stocky man with beady eyes who already told us how much he hated Tutsis. When we told him we were taking the widows and orphans, he said that he had seven additional people we had to take. And we said, that's fine. And then he pulled out this whole new list and said he also wanted to take all these other people. And we said, we can't. And we argued with him and we even tried to bribe him. But as we were leaving, all he said was, I'm in charge here. I say who leaves and who stays. We'll just see what happens tomorrow. Those words terrified me. Back in the hotel, we realized we had another big problem. We had too many people for our flight. But then we thought that the children all looked so emaciated that we could change the birth dates and make all the four and three year olds less than two. And in that way, we'd free up enough seats. So I spent the night doing that. And at 3am as I tried to close my eyes, I couldn't sleep. I was so wired with exhaustion and fear and the uncertainty of it All I thought, have we just condemned everyone to death with this decision? A few hours later, I went and got four buses, and I had four armed guards per bus. And I went to the safe compound, and we started loading everybody on. And the people who weren't coming started yelling. And one man grabbed me, and he pulled my face close to his, and he said, sasha, you have to take me with you. Look at my face. I'm a Tutsi. I'll be killed here. But we couldn't take him or so many others. And their cries faded into the distance as our buses pulled out. And now my heart jumped in my throat because this was the most dangerous part of the entire mission. The Congolese government had told us that they would let us do this, but unofficially, they didn't want us to succeed. And I worried that maybe a mob would attack our bus or maybe gunmen would start shooting from around a corner. Hundreds of thousands of people had lost their lives already, and no one would notice a few more. An hour later, we finally pulled into the airport, and we stopped 50ft away from the plane. And I thought, there's the plane. Let's just get everybody on that plane. Congolese immigration police hustled me and Sheikha off the buses. And then they started checking people, using the documentation we had given. And as the widows and orphans came down, they stopped them. And I had this terrible thought, oh, my God, these people are witnesses to terrible atrocities. And the Congolese immigration police aren't going to let them leave because they don't want them talking about what they've seen. I thought, everything that David said is coming true right now. And I felt so helpless. And I looked around for Sheikha, and she was talking to the head of Congolese immigration and waving her arms. And the seconds ticked by. And then they let them off the bus and they boarded the plane. And we all boarded the plane. And I stepped on last, and the cabin had turned into a furnace because the plane had been sitting on the tarmac for a couple of hours, and it was so packed with people. There were so many children sitting on laps of adults. The door shut behind me, and I felt the plane engines rumble to life, and cool air came into the cabin. And we started down the Runway, and we lifted off the ground. I'd imagined that in that moment, people would erupt into cheers of joy because they were finally safe. But when I looked, everyone was crying for the people we had left behind. It was at once the most joyous and heartbreaking moment. And in that moment, I thought about Sheikha pleading with me in the hotel and I was so thankful. We couldn't get everyone out but we got those on our list out and those widows and orphans and they were the worst off. I looked at the tiny infant and There was a 13 year old boy and there were the four brothers who are going to be reuniting with their teenage sister soon. And as their eyes met mine I felt this incredible sense of connection and shared humanity sink into the deepest core of who I am. And that feeling has motivated and inspired me ever since.
- [50:53]
Amy Biancoli
After Sasha Chanoff's experience in the Congo, he went on to help resettle the Sudanese Lost Boys from Kakuma Camp in Kenya to the United States. While working in Kakuma Camp, he met many orphaned Sudanese Lost Girls who'd been overlooked by the resettlement effort. He started his organization, Refuge Point to help those girls and other refugees who were falling through the cracks and had never made it onto anyone's list for support or protection. To see a picture of Sasha at Kakuma camp, go to themoth.org.
- [51:27]
Dan Kennedy
You can.
- [51:27]
Amy Biancoli
Find all the stories you heard in this hour at the iTunes store or on our website. We where you can also find out more about our storytellers. And remember, we have the Moth app available for both iOS and Android. That's all for this hour. Thanks so much for listening and we hope you'll join us again next time for the Moth Radio Hour.
- [51:56]
Jem Ibrahimov
Your host this hour was Meg Bold. Meg also directed the stories in the show. The rest of the Moths directorial staff includes Kathryn Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin, Janess and Jennifer Hickson with production support from Whitney Jones. Moth events are recorded by Argo Studios in New York City supervised by Paul Ruest. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from John Zorn and Gotan Project. Links to all our music are on our website. The pitch in this hour came from Jem Ibrahimov. The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts with help from Vicki Merrick. This hour was produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts and the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur foundation, committed to building a more just and verdant and peaceful world. As a little reward for your attention to our credits, here's a one minute Moth story recorded at our annual Moth Ball and told by Shannon Cason in Detroit.
- [53:04]
I
In the 90s I was a positive teenager. Good grades and comic books. I was even into good hip hop. When Tribe Called Quest was coming to Detroit. I had to get tickets. So me and my best friend, we were in the car on the way to the concert. We stopped to get gas and it's a Detroiter, man sticks a gun in the handgun and says break yourself. And that was a hip hop term that was popular in the 90s during robberies. So we were already broke. So we passed over the $11 that we had and he looks at it and he's like, you gotta do better than this. Pull down your pants. And what that was was drug dealers would keep drugs or money in their underwear. And I wasn't gonna argue with the guy about being a positive kid. I just pulled down my pants and the gun goes off. Thank God he missed. I like to think something in my underwear scared him.
- [54:08]
Jem Ibrahimov
That was Shannon Cason the Marth Radio Hours Presented by the public radio exchange prx.org for more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website themoth.org.
- [54:23]
Ryan Knighton
There we go, the Moth Radio Hour right here on the podcast. Hope you guys liked that episode. Man, I've just pretty much been over here still freaking out about snakes. Some news for our listeners in New Hampshire. The Moth main stage is returning to portsmouth on Saturday, March 21. For tickets and for a list of all of our upcoming tour stops, just Visit the site themoth.org Dan Kennedy is.
- [54:49]
Meg Bolton
Author of the books Loser Goes First, Rock on An American Spirit. He's a regular host and performer with the Moth when he's not on Twitter.
- [54:58]
Ryan Knighton
Thanks to all of you for listening. We hope you have a story worthy week. Moth events are recorded by Argo Studios in New York City supervised by by Paul Ruest Podcast audio production by Whitney Jones. The Moth Podcast and the Radio Hour are presented by prx, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public@prx.org.