The Heart

In 2024 Ashtar Theatre started a new project: letters to Gaza. 

During the Leo Season Birthday extravaganza, KP, Tarneem and Ahmad all created audio art in what they called "Mermaid Palace: the Cairo Office" aka: the very spacious air bnb KP rented where they each had a room and a desk to create at. When Tarneem sat down to write a letter to her home, this work of poetry emerged in only a couple of hours. We didn't edit a single word. 

It’s been 6 months since she left her home in the north of Gaza. Every day she watches the news and prays for her family, her friends, her people. She waits for the world to wake up. She waits to see her pain reflected and acknowledged. Heartbroken and determined she wonders, “are we not even entitled to nostalgia?”

The letter was written and recorded by Tarneem Jaber, age 19. Music and sound design directed by Ahmad Jaber.

HELP AHMAD ENROLL IN UNIVERSITY: He found a university in Turkey that will accept his credits and let him continue from where he left off. We need 7k more to make enough for tuition! GET THIS YOUNG MAN INTO SCHOOL HERE.

This episode was named months ago: a prayer, a wish shared by one Tarneem Jaber and one Kaitlin Prest. "THE GENOCIDE IS A MEMORY, NOT AN ANNIVERSARY". The genocide has gotten even more terrifying as we mark an entire year of slaughter, terror and complacency. Attacks are now zeroing in on the North of Gaza: the home of Ahmad Tarneem and Hamza. Every day, sometimes every hour they try to call their mother and oldest brother (and his wife, who just had a baby) who are still there, with no way to escape. 

At the same time, we reflect on an entire year of collaboration, awakening and care. Ahmad Jaber celebrates a birthday that only reminds him of a year of his youth he has lost. In the penultimate episode of the series, KP, Ahmad, Tarneem and the rest of the team take stock of the past, the future and the way we and the world will never be the same. 

Help Ahmad Jaber enroll in University HERE. THE UPDATE: it is half way through the semester, he was accepted at a University in Turkey that will allow him to continue from where he left off! He cannot enroll unless we can make enough for tuition: 7k remaining!

Artist and business owner Doreen Toutikian, founder of Beirut Design Week (and many other beautiful things that she’s had to leave in her past due to war) sits down with KP on February 23rd 2024 and performs monologue #10: Taima Okasha. She reflects on growing up hiding from bombs, the “Palestinian exception” anti-Palestinian racism in the arts and her fears of what might happen to her own home, Lebanon, if Israel is not stopped. 

Six months and many voice memos later, some of the fears Doreen expressed in her interview start to occur as Israel attacks Lebanon. 

"This is some black mirror shit. We've never seen anything like this." says Doreen. 

Support Doreen's newest venture Omgyno!

Help the Jaber Trifecta finish med school!

Audio artist and organizer Aliya Pabani takes Gaza Monologue #19 and binaural in-ear microphones (be sure to listen for the 3-dimensional effect: listen in headphones and you will walk with her) to a Toronto branch of the largest worldwide financier of weapons used by Israel. 

“Before, you could count how many buildings they destroyed. Now, you count how many buildings they didn’t destroy” — Tarneem Jaber

Tarneem Jaber (19 yrs old)  was starting her first week of med school on October 7th. Her brother Ahmad  (21 yrs old) was in his third year of dental school with only two remaining. Hamza, the oldest (24 yrs old), was supposed to graduate this June: He was a volunteer at Al-Shifa until it was obliterated.

The three siblings survived the destruction of their home, food shortages, a long journey to the border, and finding an apartment to rent in Cairo, Egypt. Only a few weeks later they were doing an interview on zoom with a Canadian for a feminist podcast they’d never heard of, telling the story of what they lived and what goes on for the loved ones they left behind.

Each of the Jaber siblings chooses a monologue to read: Hamza reads #30: Yasmeen Abu Amer. Ahmad reads #8: Ehab Elayan. Tarneem reads #13: Reema El Sadi. "We relate to every single word in this monologue," Tarneem says.

"But this war, is worse than anything we lived before."

Support them to complete their mother's parting wish: to finish their education. Thrust into complete independence and faced with international student fees and paying over again for years they already completed, these three brilliant students need your help to fix problems they never should have had to face. Please follow our link: https://gofund.me/854be259

Comedian Alaa Shahada talks about artist life in Jenin, West Bank. We hear a radiomagic excerpt of his one-man show "The Horse of Jenin". He talks about his dreams for the future of Palestine and performs Gaza Monologue #22 Mahmud Abu Shaa’ban. 

Alaa is a graduate of the Nobel prize nominated Freedom Theatre acting and the co-founder of the Palestine Comedy Club.

EASE ANY GUILT YOU FEEL ABOUT WHERE YOUR TAX DOLLARS GO BY SUPPORTING SOME BRILLIANT KIDS TO FINISH THEIR EDUCATION.

Ali Dajani grew up in Jordan and studied in Canada, where he met KP, the friend that sits down with him in his Amsterdam home to read Gaza Monologue #1: the story of Ahmad El Ruzzi. Ali's paternal grandfather left Jerusalem in 1948. "What happened in 1948?" our radio friend asks. They both laugh. She apologizes for her ignorance. He begins to explain. 

Discussions of whether the cute-ass canals and oh-my-god-there’s-a-boat’s will become his permanent home frame the recording of the first monologue in Ashtar Theatre’s play: 

Ahmad El Ruzzi from Al Wehda street, who was 17 years old when he wrote the story of his experience of power outages, trust issues and karma.

PLEASE DONATE TO OUR FRIENDS FROM GAZA WHO LOST EVERYTHING AND I MEAN EVERYTHING. If you can afford it: consider donating a thousand dollars and giving up 2 - 5 fancy dinners or 10 take-out meals for you and your boo — if 150 people donate 1k each, these young people don’t have to wait and watch donations trickle in over the course of the next few months. Afford them the security of knowing they have some power over their future. 

"It's kind of corny, but I think about this quote from Che Guevara: "the true revolutionary is guided by feelings of great love." Aliya Pabani, artist, organizer and collaborator. 

A glimpse into the friends and friends of friends that share their stories in our upcoming series: an adaptation of the Gaza Monologues by Ashtar Theatre (Ramallah). A group of artists, activists and students from Palestine and beyond read the famed monologues from 2010. Speaking words written by teenagers experiencing war in Gaza over a decade ago, we reflect on what's happening today.

“We relate with every single word in this monologue. [But] this is bigger than any war we’ve lived before.” Tarneem Jaber. 

Please give generously to the young people from Gaza who shared their stories in the series: empower them to reclaim their dreams HERE. 

Music: : Marj Ibn Amer - Muqata’a 

In this update-isode, we follow KP's whereabouts and goings-on since the Processing Palestine episode and the events that led to the genesis of our upcoming series: GREAT LOVE: The Gaza Monologues Revisited. 

Responding to Ashtar Theatre’s global call to share testimonies from young Gazans first performed in 2010, the series features a chain of personal connections from New York to Toronto to Jordan to Athens to Beirut to Nazareth to Jenin and most importantly: to Gaza. Connections that were forged in a moment of grief and at the same time share some dark-as-hell comedy, appreciation for the sublime, a little too much wine and the most important kind of love: the kind that makes you care about people far away that you haven't met yet. 

PLZ PLZ PLZ DONATE TO THE MERMAID JABER  SCHOLARSHIP FUND PLZ PLZ PLZ  [this is kp and she is on her knees begging you with tears in her eyes mkay] AKA the GO FUND ME we made: https://gofund.me/159b10af

Music Credits: 

Simya - Muqata’a [Kamil Manqus] 

Mayss Invites Xlmxhkfi (in The Ruins Of A Tender Hearts)

Mayssa Jallad - Markaz Azraq (December 6)

KP says sweet nothings about the great love of her life: SOUND. 

A shared moment and meditation: recorded at 4AM in Athens Greece with the window open as the rain fell, gazing at the Athenian mountains aka: former home of the Gods. Use this episode like you would a meditation app: come back to it when you need a moment of peace. Take out the meditation pillow. Play it when you’re taking psychedelic drugs. Use it to relax during your break at work. Play it with a group of friends on a road trip. Play while you take a bath. Half ambient music, half guided meditation, half transcendental experience across the space-time continuum. 

Don't forget to DONATE to Mermaid Palace <3 We need your dollars to keep making feminist sound art!

In this episode: 

Zeus [from KP: this was not staged. the moment I mentioned his name, he threw a thunderbolt and I happened to be recording. I share the moment AS IS.]

The apartment of the badass artist and feminist Doreen Toutikian (check out her work! For pix of her gorgeous pad: follow KP on insta @kaitlinprest). 

An audience in LA singing with KP:  the premiere of this performance, originally commissioned by the On Air Festival 2019. (thanks Scott and Jemma!). 

An audience in Milan singing with KP:  the reason she was in Europe! (thank you to the friends who came all the way to Milan to see the piece: Juj, Ali, Rosa, Ariel and Doreen. Thank you Sarah, Martina and Andrea from Chora Media, and to the opera singers who practiced in the conservatory as KP walked in to do her sound check).

Send us a recording of you singing along at [email protected]!