Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [95]
“Maybe something to think about,” I say.
While she seems to understand, I won’t really know if I have gotten through to her until I see her next story.
Toward the end of our talk, she looks up at me pleadingly. “I worked so hard on this—”
I stop her. “I know how hard you work. And I really appreciate that. This isn’t at all about how hard you work. This is just part of learning how to do this work better. It’s a continual process. We are all constantly learning. But I am well aware of how hard you work.”
And we are through. She thanks me and leaves. I feel limp with relief and happy that I have managed to get through the entire conversation without once raising my voice or getting angry. Progress for both of us!
The next time Najma turns in a story on AIDS, it addresses the bias against victims of the disease and the misperceptions about how it is spread. It is full of factual information and accurate statistics and contains no preaching whatsoever. I very nearly kiss her.
A TINY BESPECTACLED WOMAN shows up in my office one morning, unannounced. She wears a hijab, but her face is uncovered. This is Adhara. “I want to be a translator,” she says.
I sigh. She and half the country. Everyone who speaks even a few words of English thinks they can be a translator, and they all show up at the paper sooner or later.
I politely inform her that we are not hiring translators—though we desperately need them—as Faris won’t give me the money to pay one.
“But I need practice,” she says. “I will work as a volunteer. My translation is very bad.”
Hardly an advertisement for her skills, but I’m impressed with her honesty. Most would-be translators consider themselves quite brilliant, despite the fact that they can’t put together a job application that isn’t riddled with errors. Still, I worry that shoddy translations will only create more work for me. I send her away.
She is back in my office the next day. “Please,” she says. “Let me translate something! I must learn!” She stands stubbornly on my gray carpet, refusing to be dismissed.
I believe in rewarding persistence. I relent and let her translate part of the Q & A for Jabr. She’s right; she’s not a good translator. But at least I can figure out what she means, and as we are not paying her, I can’t complain. I allow her to stay.
When I get to the office the next morning, Adhara is waiting. She comes again the next day and the day after that. Her translation slowly gets better. I assign her the Panorama page, which contains translated editorials from Arabic papers. This used to be al-Matari’s responsibility, but he has constantly been out sick. Adhara, on the other hand, never misses a day.
One afternoon, she walks into my office holding a flash drive aloft.
“Zuhra asked me to write a back-page story. She said you needed one,” she says. “And I did it!” There is triumph in her voice.
“Fantastic!” I take the disk. I am desperate for a back-page story.
It’s a piece about the conflicting views of the Internet in Yemen. It is crudely written, contains no real news, and is mostly made up of huge blocks of quotations with no transitions. But my standards are not what they once were. I decide to run it anyway. Together, Adhara and I rework the structure and impose some segues. She is immensely pleased. She follows this first story with a piece on a new course that trains women to paint on glass and sell their art. It needs massive work, but I sit her down and explain what to do. Now that the paper is on a schedule, I have time for training. It’s thrilling to be able to watch and aid Adhara’s diligent and measurable progress.
She begins to tail Zuhra, who takes her on reporting expeditions to the Old City and shows her how to conduct interviews. My women welcome little Adhara into their fold, thrilled to see their ranks expand. I tease my men by telling them that soon we will have an all-female staff—this seems to motivate them more than anything else.
By the end of my year, I will have to officially hire Adhara. There is nothing else to do. She won’t stop showing