Sister, daughter, teacher, Fulbright recipient, work-in-progress

Starbucks was empty. We took one out of the only three tables available due to social distancing. A meter apart across from a coffee table, masks on/off, we visited for a good hour and a half.

Josiane in COVID land

She likes to have a lot on her plate, does not miss any opportunity, and takes the challenge to balance everything. With the current uncertainty, life just got even more exciting. Since her co-worker at the non-profit got promoted, she’s enjoying double the work pressure. As a Fulbright recipient, she waits for official updates. She doesn’t want to start her graduate studies online. It’s an experience she wants to live.

When would she leave her job? What would the next 4 months look like? If she’s supposed to start on Aug 24 and has to be there two weeks prior, she must leave by Aug 10. Wait a minute; what if she needs to go through self-isolation for two weeks? Alright, she needs to land in the US by July 24.

Worst case scenario? First semester in Lebanon. With the seven-hour time difference, things will be very challenging. The worst of the worst-case scenarios (being Lebanese, you simulate the apocalyptic scenarios, too) would postpone or even cancel the whole thing. She pauses: “No… They already sent me all official documentation.”

She wasn’t ready for the scholarship

Yet she knew that she was Fulbright material.

She had the application open in her browser. Blank. For three years. The first time she started looking at it was when she was still at the Lebanese University after moving from the Lebanese American University due to financial reasons. Studying biology as pre-med was not her thing.

She always thought, “If you’re not happy, travel abroad.” That’s what some of her high school friends did. Then she decided she wouldn’t leave just because she was unhappy.

“I will leave for something meaningful. So, I kept delaying it. Fulbright scholars are super-smart, super accomplished, devoted, and self-confident. I was none of those.”

Nervous giggle. I asked: “Is it any different now?”

“I think I had a lot of different experiences that helped me understand who I am. I still don’t think I’m the most accomplished, but I’m proud of everything I’ve done.”

Lost in career choices

You are told to find your discipline, study it, find that stable job, and retire. Josiane was with the rest of us in the herd, but she could not find that one thing. Biology was not it; neither was medicine. She taught for two years. Her beautiful experience was emotionally and physically draining. She has the utmost respect for teachers, but she wants to be someone other than the teacher who taught the dad and the son and his son.

On teaching

A poster at her uni got her to teach English as a foreign language to a French school north of Beirut. With Teach for Lebanon, she taught for two years. She still remembers her first day when her students probably thought she was from Mars since they did not understand a word of what she was saying. All nine sections of one class had no clue. She experimented by changing the accent and slowing down. No matter what she did, they weren’t performing. She thought she was the problem.

Not really. Those grade 2-5 students (ages 8–12) liked her.

Of the 316 students, only 16 had parents who knew some English. Parents pushed French on their children because it had a higher coefficient on the report card, and math and science are taught in French.

So, she started an English program for parents. Every Tuesday for four and a half months, 40 moms would show up to study English. 22 of them graduated. They loved it, and Josiane, too.

When the moms started learning, it picked up at home, and that helped change the culture. Students started getting interested in the English language. Josiane would suggest the movie of the week. She felt that she achieved something when parents and students were writing movie summaries and reading independently.

During the parents’ graduation, Marie, who knew very little coming into the class, gave the speech in perfect English.

Marie reminded Josiane of her mom.

Dad

Her dad struggled with cancer for four years and passed away when she was 12. He worked abroad, and she did not feel he was around until later. She remembers bits and pieces with few vivid memories and hazy ones.

At six years old, he would ask her to teach him English. “Where should I go next? Iraq or Nigeria?” he would ask. She remembers him sick in his last two years. After one of his surgeries, he had to relearn how to walk again, and he’d spend quite a bit of time lying down. The little girl would climb into bed with him and watch movies. Zoro. Every day, for months. She has it memorized and cannot see it ever again.

Mom told Josiane and her younger sister that their father was sick. Josiane did not feel that he was going to die until he did. She remembers dreaming of him passing the day before. She leaped from watching movies in bed to him being gone. At one point, reality hit, and that little girl realized that she had lost her father.

“It was an interesting time!” she says sarcastically. Interesting was the word she used. Maybe it’s too convoluted of emotion for her to describe plainly.

She’s 25 now, double the age of the little girl who lost her father. Time does not really heal; it helps you manage better. The first couple of years were difficult. She had gotten used to him. She wanted to blame someone for what happened, so she blamed her mom.

You first decide that this person is gone. Then, you decide to keep him with you in whichever way you choose. You talk to him. You bring back the little happier memories. Movies. Putting chiclets in Pepsi. Acting silly. The laughs. FunTime pizza on Sundays with the whole family. Watergate Park for an all-day outing. Arguing with mom about suntanning his stitches.

They turned her childhood pizza place to a poker establishment :-( !

And the extended family

During her father’s illness and after, the relationship with her paternal side of the family was not the best. New revelations popped up when she started putting the little pieces of the puzzle together.

The pieces she found helped shape her.

Her paternal grandmother passed away with little mending. She still loves her grandfather, whom she accidentally sees in the village. Nine of her dad’s cousins are not in her life. People are who they are by what they hear and see. You can’t change everything about everyone. You choose your own family. Pick friends who will become like family as the ones by blood. She believes in carefully picking her battles. Some things are better resolved by holding your peace.

Getting to the Fulbright

She loves getting things done with little to no budget. It was time. She started looking for something related to projects and creativity. After deliberate research, she found what fits her best and what she would love — development, the people side of development. She landed a program she found at Syracuse University.

Fulbright might be her ticket to it. Let the games begin!

She got everything together for the application. She still waited until the day before the deadline to write her essay — in a coffee house in Jbeil.

A month later, she was called for an interview. She was super nervous during the 15 minutes; her voice cracked when she spoke of herself but got confident when talking about other people and projects she did. She told them that all she wanted was to apply. She wanted to click that submit button, and now she’s content. To continue the process, and while working as an executive assistant, she would study for the TOEFL and GRE exams on her lunch breaks.

She received her nomination by email while having lunch with friends. Yay!

On issues

She is resilient on long-term, bigger-than-herself goals and impatient with getting things done. She executes well. She executes fast. She is patient with people. The more she talks to them, the more hope she sees.

“They tell us that you cannot change nor save the world. Well. Maybe we can’t, but we can always try.”

She wants to support people to have better lives. Lebanon will always be a better place if people fight for its ideals.

“What we’re striving for is something so big and beautiful.”

Josiane will get her graduate degree in development and come back to Lebanon or the region. She wants to play a central role between international agencies and the ground level.

“There needs to be a shift in the narrative as to how development is done.”

Bring all players around the table and let them find a shared space to operate, especially people who disagree with you. The middle brings about sustainable change. In the Lebanese case, invite the politicians to the table, make them part of the discussion, and hold them accountable.

Everyone has a racist uncle. You disagree with him, yet you get where he’s coming from and love him. It’s the same with countrymen. It could be your neighbor, your friend, your teacher. You want to show them that you care for them. There’s so much healing that needed to occur and never happened. If you’re going to go forward, that healing has to happen. Include everyone. Otherwise, they’d return and turn the table again in a few decades.

She’s ready

Josiane will soon be on her way to start yet another page. She’s more experienced, less stubborn, and has an immense inner peace.

“I am a much better person than 4 years ago. I still have a long way to go. I’m a work-in-progress!”

Everyone has their own challenges. She had hers. They lost everything. She’s almost totally open about everything that happened to her. It’s better to talk about things as she hopes someone will learn from her experience. She still has a lot to define. In the meantime, her one constant is that

she likes the orange gummy bears.

This 8-year-old girl has come a long way since watching Zoro with her ailing father. She’s destined to serve people. She will be the change.

And the mom? What about the mom?

Josiane’s LinkedIn . Instagram . Facebook

Favorite Starbucks drink: Tall Caramel Frappuccino, decaf, extra cream.