VOA Connect Episode 188, Kinship
Metadata
- VOA Connect Episode 188, Kinship
- August 20, 2021
- Category
- Content Type Program
- Language English
- Transcript/Script VOA – CONNECT EPISODE #188 AIR DATE: 08/20/21 TRANSCRIPT OPEN ((VO/NAT)) ((Banner)) Helping Out ((SOT)) ((Leslie Sturges, Bat Rehabilitator)) It’s hard to manipulate a tiny bat and a tiny meal worm with tweezers that are bigger than everybody. Hang on, girlie. Let me find your bug. Hold on. ((Animation Transition)) ((Banner)) Peeking In ((SOT)) ((Sally Davies, Photographer)) I think people enjoy looking in other people's homes. I do. And in New York, people tend to be not quite so open about their homes. You know, you can't go by and look in people's windows. You think you're nutty? You can look in there and see somebody who's nuttier. ((Animation Transition)) ((Banner)) Staying Safe ((SOT)) ((Satya Agarwal, Retired Electronic Production Operator, DRS Technologies)) When I knew about COVID, and I was told you cannot see each other. It was really hard, and I even cried when Pavan told me that you cannot come to see mom. And, so I said, “Why? What's so wrong?” ((Open Animation)) BLOCK A ((PKG)) THE BAT REHABILITATOR ((TRT: 04:48)) ((Topic Banner: Bat Rehab)) ((Reporter/Camera/Producer: Jeff Swicord)) ((Map: Mount Solon, Virginia)) ((Main character: 1 Female)) ((NATS/Music)) ((NATS: Leslie Sturges)) Here you go. Good job, buddy! ((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA)) I was always interested in nature’s underdogs. When I was a little kid, I did snakes and tadpoles and when I worked at the zoo, I was the spider keeper. Bats are sort of a natural outgrowth of that. They’re just fascinating animals. And I think, I really got interested in them in college when I started taking animal diversity and they were like, this is the second largest group of mammals and look how cool they are. And that really kicked off my interest. ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA)) To do wildlife rehabilitation of anything, it’s like a calling. You have to be pretty driven because you have sleepless nights and nobody pays you to do it. ((NATS: Leslie Sturges)) We toss lettuce off the deck down to them and they think it’s great fun. ((NATS)) ((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA)) So, this is how they are housed in these, they’re actually zippered dog crates. They eat a lot and they go to the bathroom a lot. So, she is right up there. So, you can see she’s very dark. She’s small. We want people to understand that bats are not evil or the harbinger of diseases. Let me just qualify that. So far, with North American bats that have been tested, nothing, there have been no positive hits for COVID. So, there is a lot of imagery associated with bats where they appear to be like, you know, a four-foot [1.22 meters] wingspan and giant canines and sometimes some flashing red eyes to top it all off and, that’s not that. We do school programs, libraries. So, we basically go out and tell everybody how awesome bats are. ((NATS)) ((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA)) So, every time he opens his mouth, you can hear the click. And that’s coming through the bat detector. They are the major night-time predator of flying insects. The really cool thing is to be out at night, and you can hear the bats even when you can’t see them. ((NATS)) ((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA)) If the bats weren’t out there eating them, that would just be this enormous biomass of insects that are just there eating plants. This one is a tricolored bat. There she is, hello! And they’re called tricolors because their fur is supposedly banded in three different places. I can only ever see two of the bands. See how it is dark at the base and gets lighter toward the tip. So, she was supposed to be a releasable bat, but it turned out that she had sustained some damage to her tail and to one of her thumbs. She won’t survive in the wild. Seems to, oh sorry, hang on. It’s hard to manipulate a tiny bat and a tiny meal worm with tweezers that are bigger than everybody. Hang on, girlie. Let me find your bug. Hold on. Here, she might be done. Like this is kind of new for her. Can we do that again or you’ve just had it? Are you just done? What’s the matter? Sorry, I didn’t mean to smack you in the head there. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. No, she might be done. Yeah, she is telling me she is done. Go on, sweetie. ((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA)) So, we don’t ever want to push them to a point where what is going on, you know, me trying to give her a mealworm and everything, is just so negative, she was starting to nip. And I don’t want to take her to that point because I want her to be happy about interacting with people. Not people writ large, with a handler so she can do education programs. ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((NATS: Leslie Sturges)) I’m just going to check under here. It would be unusual if anybody was under here. And they are not. ((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA)) So, we are in the flight cage. This is where they come to acclimate to flying if they’ve been in rehab. ((NATS: Leslie Sturges)) And nobody there. ((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA)) And there is actually insects that come in because we run a UV [ultra violet] light. And then they can practice on their own. They learn how to feed themselves and they learn how to do all the maneuvers they need. And then, there is a set of double doors right on the back side of the flight cage. We just open those at night when they are ready to go and close them at dawn. And our last release, which was just a few days ago, we had 18 leave the very first night that we opened the doors. Always the priority is release and get them back to the wild. ((NATS/MUSIC)) TEASE ((VO/NAT)) Coming up ((Banner)) Smile! ((SOT)) ((Laura Fuchs, Photographer)) I think, certainly people will continue to smile. And I think, of course, it is important that we continue to smile through these difficult times. BREAK ONE BUMP IN ((ANIM)) BLOCK B ((PKG)) APARTMENT PHOTOGRAPHER ((TRT: 5:26)) ((Topic Banner: Capturing Homes)) ((VOA Russian)) ((Reporter: Anna Nelson)) ((Camera: Maxim Avloshenko)) ((Editor: Natalia Latukhina)) ((Adapted by: Zdenko Novacki)) ((Map: New York City, New York)) ((Main character: 1 female)) ((NATS)) ((Sally Davies, Photographer)) I had very recently placed ((Courtesy: Sally Davies)) a big amount of photos ((Courtesy ends)) at the Museum of the City of New York on my outside, ((Courtesy: Sally Davies)) my street photography. I thought that was it. ((Courtesy ends)) I'm good now. And then one night, I woke up at four o’clock in the morning. Oh my God! In a hundred years, people will go to the museum and they will see all those photos of “Whoa, look what New York used to look like”, and ((Courtesy: Sally Davies)) no idea who lived inside those buildings. And I thought, “That's my next project. ((Courtesy ends)) I'm going to go back. I'm going to go into people's homes and I'm going to take their pictures with all their stuff.” And I started in ((Courtesy: Sally Davies)) about three days. ((Courtesy ends)) I think people enjoy looking in other people's homes. I do. And in New York, people tend to be not quite so open about their homes. You know, you can't go by and look in people's windows. You think you're nutty? You can look in there and see somebody who's nuttier. You think you have a lot of stuff? You can look in there, see somebody who has more stuff than you do. So, I tried with a few friends first. And I thought, “I'll go on social media. I'll put a call out anybody who wants to, you know, to do this.” But I never had to. Everybody had another friend, had another friend. And before you know it, people were sending me an email with a picture of their house, saying, “Could you please put me in the book?” you know. I got my thing, my bag, and I would go to people's house, and they would open the door and I'd be like, “Hi, let me look.” And I would walk in their house and just quickly. Some places, I was only for five minutes or 10 minutes. ((Courtesy: Sally Davies)) There's a woman in ((Courtesy ends)) the book named Marina. ((Courtesy: Sally Davies)) And she answered the door in this 50s Dior, vintage beautiful gown. And we walked into the living room, she had painted the whole living room pink to match the gown. That's why we have that beautiful photo of her. ((Courtesy ends)) Also, the woman, Suzanne Mallouk, ((Courtesy: Sally Davies)) in the book. She's the woman that was Jean-Michel Basquiat's girlfriend many years ago. She answered the door like that with the turban and this beautiful thing and it made the book very varied, right? I mean, some people were like that ((Courtesy ends)) and other people were just like me. Nothing. This is how I am. ((Courtesy: Sally Davies)) I shot about 125 people. ((Courtesy ends)) Bun came with me to every photograph and that was good. Maybe at the beginning, I was afraid, a little nervous. And I had my friends were going, “Are you out of your mind? You're going by yourself to this.”, you know. But after a few, I just wasn't nervous anymore. I thought, “This is not going to go bad.” The fellow that has the coffins, did you see that photo? ((Courtesy: Sally Davies)) He is legally blind and he was on the sixth-floor walk-up, really nice person. He has two coffins in his living room. One adult size that’s all tricked out so when you open it, it becomes a couch. Over here is a baby coffin, and when you open it, it's a liquor cabinet. ((Courtesy ends)) When I moved here in ’83, this neighborhood was all tenements. ((Courtesy: Sally Davies)) The first apartment I ever had, had a bathtub in the kitchen. And when you tell people that, they're like, “What?” You’re like, “Yeah, that was a thing.” And they were all exactly the same. It was the tenement buildings, right? ((Courtesy ends)) I discovered that you can never tell, ever, what is inside from what is outside. I would, you know, meet periodically famous people or people that were very wealthy. And, you know, you'd go to their place and the outside of the building would always, not always, but often be a complete dump. ((Courtesy: Sally Davies)) Then, you'd walk into these, like fantastic apartments. They don't want their building to look nice, especially in those days. You’d be robbed. You’d have people breaking in, you know. So, that was just fine. ((Courtesy ends)) One lady in the book, she had tiny, little room. Like her and her husband got this little ((Courtesy: Sally Davies)) apartment, Upper West Side, years ago, when they first were starting up. And over the years, they had some children and they needed more space. They looked around. They couldn't get a bigger apartment. So, apartment came up for rent in their building. They took it and they raised their family in two apartments. So, the kids spent their whole life in their pajamas going up and down. Like, they slept up and then living room was downstairs. How funny is that? This has all happened so quickly that we haven't really caught up. And I haven't, mentally, with the fact that we're already doing another printing and the first printing just came out three days ago and it sold out. I don't even know what to think about that. So, the timing was really like God arranged this, I think. It would not have been made. Because people will not, would never let me back in their house now. Not the way things still are. I don't know the word coincidence. It might appear to be a coincidence of the timing of all of this. I don't believe in coincidences. I don't know that things will ever be what they were before this. The project is sort of a love letter to what now is a time gone past. ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((PKG)) MASK SMILES ((TRT: 4:10)) ((Topic Banner: Capturing Smiles)) ((VOA Russian)) ((Reporter: Anna Nelson)) ((Camera: Vladimir Badikov)) ((Editor: Natalia Latukhina)) ((Adapted by: Zdenko Novacki)) ((Map: New York City, New York)) ((Main character: 1 female)) ((NATS)) ((Laura Fuchs, Photographer)) That's part of what excites me to go out now and be selective about which kind of mask. ((Courtesy: Laura Fuchs)) But I think what makes the photo great is the smile of the person. You know, ((Courtesy ends)) they could all be ((Courtesy: Laura Fuchs)) surgical masks ((Courtesy ends)) and I think ((Courtesy: Laura Fuchs)) what makes the photos interesting is the sincere smile. When COVID-19 ((Courtesy ends)) came to New York City, I guess that was mid-March, people started wearing masks and I noticed that there wasn't a lot of eye contact happening or engagement. And I thought to myself, “We can still see smiles.” I think I had an interaction with a stranger on the street and I smiled at them with my mask on, and I saw that they saw my smile and returned it, you know, and I saw in their eyes. And so, I started a project called Mask Smile, asking New Yorkers to smile with their masks on, ((Courtesy: Laura Fuchs)) through their masks, for me. And it's been a really, really rewarding series that I've been continuing to work on. I think I have hundreds and hundreds of Mask Smile ((Courtesy ends)) photos of New Yorkers compiled at this point. ((Laura Fuchs, Photographer)) I never know if you want me to look or not. ((Laura Fuchs, Photographer)) I believe that, you know, a genuine smile shows in your eyes more than anything else. And yeah, at this point, seeing all of the different smiles that I've compiled, you know, I can really see the sweetness in different photos and I'm so grateful to everyone who shared that genuine smile with me. ((Laura Fuchs, Photographer)) So, my friend here gave me a great Mask Smile. Stay positive, man, okay? I'll see you later. ((Courtesy: Laura Fuchs)) ((Courtesy ends)) So, when I go out with my camera for these short walks, I'm wearing a mask and I keep a six-foot [2m] distance and, you know, I approach someone usually with a wave so they can see that I'm trying to engage in conversation, and I ask them if they wouldn’t mind if I ((Courtesy: Laura Fuchs)) photograph them while smiling with their mask on. And oftentimes, people's response is, ((Courtesy ends)) you know, “Well, how will you see the smile? ((Courtesy: Laura Fuchs)) How are you going to see the smile with the mask on?” And I let them know, “It’s all in your eyes. I can see your smile.” ((Courtesy ends)) Appreciate the energy that I'm trying to ((Courtesy: Laura Fuchs)) inject New York with. And I guess my hope is that they continue to smile at other people, and kind of spread this, like, you know, our own positive energy virus, you know. ((Courtesy ends)) ((NATS)) ((Laura Fuchs, Photographer)) On one of the first days that I was photographing Mask Smile, I was getting rejected left and right. I think it was like, out of 20 people that I asked, I got, you know, 18 noes. I see this female bus driver, beautiful bus driver, and I think, “Okay, one more try before I finish for the day.” And I say, “Hi, miss. Do you mind if I take your picture? I'm doing this project, blah blah blah blah blah.” And she goes, “Of course.” She smiles at me. ((Courtesy: Laura Fuchs)) She's gorgeous, beautiful smile. And I say, “Okay, quickly,” as the bus is like, raising up, you know, “How do I send you your picture?” And she gives me her email address and she says, “lovelife”, followed by a couple of numbers @gmail.com. ((Courtesy ends)) And I just thought, that spoke so strongly to me. ((Courtesy: Laura Fuchs)) Traffic cops, construction workers, FedEx, FreshDirect, Uber Eats delivery people, guys on bikes, every single New Yorker. Everyone is going ((Courtesy ends)) through different things. It's been, as a photographer and someone who documents New York City and is a street photographer, it’s been certainly a very interesting ((Courtesy: Laura Fuchs)) experience to go from trying to raise New York spirits with these Mask Smile photos to now the protests for Black Lives Matter. ((Courtesy ends)) ((Laura Fuchs, Photographer) It's crazy how it changes. It really is. ((Laura Fuchs, Photographer)) I feel connected. I feel connected to strangers. I feel connected to my city. And I think it's just naturally and the subject matter has changed, you know. I think, certainly ((Courtesy: Laura Fuchs)) people will continue to smile. And I think, of course, it is important that we continue to smile through these difficult times. ((Courtesy ends)) ((NATS)) TEASE ((VO/NAT)) Coming up ((Banner)) Out on Their Own ((SOT)) ((Devin Cook, Co-Owner, Blackbird Salon)) Our standards or expectations, I should say, were set really low. We were kind of like, “Okay, let's just survive the first year.” Right? And then once we get out of COVID, we can talk a little bit about growth or like even just the conversation of success. BREAK TWO BUMP IN ((ANIM)) BLOCK C ((PKG)) COVID HAIR SALON BUSINESS ((TRT: 03:16)) ((Topic Banner: Building a Business)) ((VOA Ukrainian)) ((Reporter: Luliia Larmolenko)) ((Camera: Kostyantyn Golubchyk)) ((Adapted by: Zdenko Novacki)) ((Map: Washington, D.C.)) ((Main characters: 2 female)) ((NATS)) ((Justine Carlisle, Co-Owner, Blackbird Salon)) We would go to work from 11:00 to 8:00, do hair behind the chair, serve our clients, and then we would go home and from like 8:00 until midnight, we would be doing paperwork online. We would be like looking for a location. ((NATS)) ((Devin Cook, Co-Owner, Blackbird Salon)) When we decided to open a salon, I felt a little shy about not knowing what to do or how to open a business. And I felt like what this experience has taught me is just to ask questions. And now, I feel like I really don’t leave a meeting until I really understand exactly what is expected of me or exactly what’s next. ((NATS)) ((Justine Carlisle, Co-Owner, Blackbird Salon)) One of the most rewarding things every day is to be able to have a team full of women at this point who come here and feel empowered. I feel like our main goal with the culture of Blackbird starts with the staff. If you come into a building and you feel positive like happy energy, it's just going to flow off of each other with the clients. ((NATS)) ((Devin Cook, Co-Owner, Blackbird Salon)) There wasn't a lot of women that we worked alongside other than each other. We always had each other. But when we think about like our contractors or our lawyer or landlords, people that we would talk to advise, it was always men. And I think that the conversation of like women supporting women, people are like, “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.” Maybe, industries that we think are more feminine are actually still being run by men. ((NATS)) ((Justine Carlisle, Co-Owner, Blackbird Salon)) The biggest takeaway is that every single day is different. You know, we would come here and not know what to expect. And I think I started living by not being able to plan too far ahead anymore because you really never know if your doors will be closed for a while. So, I think no regrets, just trying to figure out every day like what to do better? ((NATS)) ((Devin Cook, Co-Owner, Blackbird Salon)) Our standards or expectations, I should say, were set really low. We were kind of like, “Okay, let's just survive the first year.” Right? And then once we get out of COVID, we can talk a little bit about growth or like even just the conversation of success. I don't really think that existed in our first year due to the climate. I think it was just genuinely about survival and paying our rent. And I think I'm really fortunate to say that I feel like in the last year, we have seen success and we are so grateful for like the kind of culture and environment that we've been able to create even during these times because it wasn’t expected. ((NATS)) ((Devin Cook, Co-Owner, Blackbird Salon)) I feel really grateful that we share this space with so many people that are just as passionate. I think when we were building it and we didn't know what Blackbird was going to look like or what it was going to be, it was really hard for us to imagine like people being on this team with us because how do you explain something that doesn't exist? How do you get people inspired about something that doesn't exist yet? To see people also excited about it and also connected to it, I feel really grateful. ((NATS)) ((PKG)) CONNECT WITH SATYA ((TRT: 3:13)) ((Banner: Connect with Satya Agarwal)) ((Reporter/Camera: Lisa Vohra)) ((Map: Gaithersburg, Maryland)) ((Main character: 1 female)) ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((Satya Agarwal, Retired Electronic Production Operator, DRS Technologies)) When I knew about COVID, and I was told you cannot see each other. It was really hard, and I even cried when Pavan told me that you cannot come to see mom. And, so I said, “Why? What's so wrong?” He said, “because of the COVID, you have to, we have to make the distance.” I said, “I never thought like that.” I cried that day, but then I say, “No, it’s okay. For our safety, we have to do that.” ((Satya Agarwal, Retired Electronic Production Operator, DRS Technologies)) Isolation period, it was really, not feeling good about that. It was fearful that I cannot see everybody. How can I manage? How I am going to manage being inside all the time. But, slowly, slowly, I started and I made my routine. I joined my exercise class on the Zoom luckily. And I started, I was going out for a walk all the time. That’s first thing. And I will wear my mask but even I have to do my grocery stuff, my little chores. So, I will go. I was not that scared. ((Satya Agarwal, Retired Electronic Production Operator, DRS Technologies)) I was frustrated because even if I go see my family, I have to see them outside, six feet [2m] apart. I could not even touch them. I could not even hug them. So, it was very different. I never thought like that and sometimes I say, “What is that?” It made me feel so bad. ((Satya Agarwal, Retired Electronic Production Operator, DRS Technologies)) I got my vaccination in February, 2021, and I don’t remember the date. The second vaccination I got on February 24. And after that, I was more relaxed. ((Satya Agarwal, Retired Electronic Production Operator, DRS Technologies)) Oh, it felt so good. I could see my kids, my friends. When I first hugged my kids, oh my God, it was, my, I was full of pleasure. It gave me so much happiness that I can come close to them now. And I can mingle with them. I can mingle with my friends. So, we could play. I like to play cards. I could go play cards together even if I was wearing mask. So, I felt, it was really amazing feeling to see my family and my friends. ((NATS/MUSIC)) CLOSING BUMPER ((ANIM)) voanews.com/connect NEXT WEEK / GOOD BYE ((VO/NAT)) ((Banner)) In coming weeks….. Home is Where the Herd is ((SOT)) ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((Joyce Crawford, Farmer)) I feed them grain at least once a week, call them all in and look at them. Make sure, you know, they don't have bad feet or no injuries. ((Joyce Crawford, Farmer)) Come on, girls! They're all going to come right off that mountain there. Come on, girls! ((Joyce Crawford, Farmer)) I can go out and bang the chain on the gate. And that's their cue and here they come. Where’s my pretty girls? I know! Come on. They have different temperaments. Just like people, some of them are a little more headstrong than others. ((NATS)) ((Joyce Crawford, Farmer)) I’m the only one out here that gets to have an attitude. If they got a bad attitude, they gotta go, because I don’t have time for that. ((NATS/MUSIC)) CLOSING BUMPER ((ANIM)) voanews.com/connect BREAK THREE BUMP IN ((ANIM)) SHOW ENDS
- NewsML Media Topics Arts, Culture, Entertainment and Media
- Program Name VOA Connect
- Network VOA
- Expiration Date September 19, 2021 16:33 EDT
- Embargo Date September 16, 2021 17:40 EDT
- Brand / Language Service Voice of America - English