See Why This Roller Skating Girl Squad Is the First of Its Kind | Short Film Showcase
The thing that I love about Derby is I forget everything around me when I'm playing. Every one of us kind of have nicknames, so my nickname around there be as shiny tiny, because I'm tiny, I'm short, and I had this like bling. Users like shiny tiny, and my friend Karima from Egypt, we called her kitty majima because she's really good. I just love it, and this is something I think I would never stop.
One young man, when you know zero Egypt, sorry, my name is Hadith Qureshi, I'm from Yemen. I came to Lebanon a year and a half ago. I came here for a scholarship to have my studies in college in AUB. My friends are also like part of throw the Derby, who are like from Egypt, from Bahrain, from Tunis, and we are like a family here.
By the way, it was very weak as blockers; we shouldn't even move. It should be, I know, no, it's a good job. Yeah, it was something I didn't expect that I will have here in Beirut. I didn't expect that I have real Derby in my life. Now, if you feel felt down on your behind, just stand up and keep going.
When we had the first official game and we went to my lab Beirut, like a kind of the public field, and we were like doing actually against each other because there are no other teams to compete. I wouldn't say we're really that extremely professional, but we're improving in a crazy way, and by the end of the day, more people want to join.
That was the time when, like, you know, it hit us that this is the first team in Lebanon. We actually started the face roller derby team here in baby three two one coming. You're good, kitty! My; try to lean on me and you just simply don't care about me. You just like push yourself. Okay, I'm not trying to help you as well to go faster. Why do you need to tell me what side? Okay, say, okay again.
I have so many moments during my day that goes back and forth from BMN to here. It makes me actually live in a conflict within myself, like how I can be happy while my family are suffering. Being here at the beginning, especially like the first months, I was able to be in touch with them anytime. It was way easier, and it happened so fast. We didn't see it coming. It was just out of a sudden; my country returned to be in a war, and my family are being bombed. Our home is kind of close to the presidential house back in Yemen, and that was like one of the main targets.
Now that no electricity, no water, like jobs stopped, and the bombing is crazy, like the whole house would shake. My sister, she should have in another neighborhood, the one she's married, her house was destroyed. I used to listen to news a lot and like follow what's happening, but it's frightening. Even through Facebook, it was just frightening because all I hear is just bad stories, and I don't know what is happening at the moment or what just like my family are going through.
At the beginning, I would decide that I'm not going to practice because I'm just depressed. I'm saying, "Oh man, I don't want to see anyone." But then I see everyone is going on; be like, okay, I'll just go anyway. I'll just put my headphones on, and I would just put it and talk to anyone, just go skate and come back. You know, it's just like as a mission, and once I get there and I'm on skates, I just start laughing. I didn't notice that until after. I don't like it; it just happens. It makes me happy, makes me hyper; I fall and I laugh.
An important part of my life is my family. They've always been with me, support me to continue my education and to follow my dreams and goals. Especially in Yemen, not a lot of families are like that, especially for me as a girl. They wouldn't let girls go out much or to know that queer, she's going, what she's doing, with who, like no phone, no internet. Notice you're still young; you still do that which are you watching.
Our relationship is based on trust, so even for me, I don't want to do something wrong or bad because I'd rather have faced anything in my life rather than to break the trust that my dad and my mom gave me. I do things that I think not anyone else. I myself think that it is right. I feel it's me; I'm being myself.