Speaker 1: So I'm here today with Aria and an Aria. She
Speaker 1: lives at the Eden House over there in Kenya and
Speaker 1: is the chair of the management board at trans Rescue
Speaker 1: and has over forty years of trans rights activism. And
Speaker 1: they're going to explain today a little bit of what
Speaker 1: trans Rescue is, what Eden Houses, and the threats and
Speaker 1: attacks that they've been facing in the last couple of
Speaker 1: days here and so preaps and you could explain what
Speaker 1: Eden House is. And I think I really liked in
Speaker 1: the website where you explain the difference between like a
Speaker 1: heidie hole and a haven. So if you could get
Speaker 1: into that, that that would be wonderful. Sure, um uh Eden
Speaker 1: House is a uh, there's a trans haven in in Kenya.
Speaker 1: It's our primary mission is that we helped trans people
Speaker 1: escape from dangerous places. That implies that we help them
Speaker 1: go somewhere, because of course they have to have a
Speaker 1: safe place to go too, which means we often end
Speaker 1: up renting an apartment short term or doing something like
Speaker 1: that while they get established in their new place. The
Speaker 1: problem and of course that that was getting expensive in
Speaker 1: Kenya where we can move a lot of people because
Speaker 1: some areas of Kenya are quite dangerous but the major
Speaker 1: cities are not quite so dangerous, so we move people
Speaker 1: into the major cities. But we were trying to be
Speaker 1: efficient and save money, and uh, we thought about making
Speaker 1: a kind of temporary doss house or a place with
Speaker 1: bunk beds to the ceiling and what happen. But we
Speaker 1: realized that would still cost his money and it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a very positive experience or affirming experience for the
Speaker 1: folks living in it. And we realized for that we
Speaker 1: could instead do a trans haven. That is a place
Speaker 1: where a person could come and if they chose never leave,
Speaker 1: live there the rest of the life if they want. So,
Speaker 1: when someone comes to Eden House and expect to receive
Speaker 1: help to find some income producing activity, and as time
Speaker 1: goes on, they will eventually be expected to contribute to
Speaker 1: the running of the house. Our plan is we just
Speaker 1: started a month ago, but our plan is by about
Speaker 1: the end of the year to have the house no
Speaker 1: longer be requiring funds from us, and then we can
Speaker 1: do it again. Yeah, we have space freight people. When
Speaker 1: we get up to eight and it doesn't look like
Speaker 1: it's going to bleed us dry, we can do it again.
Speaker 1: And we can and in the end, we end up
Speaker 1: with something that I think many trans people in any
Speaker 1: country would love to have, because that's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: that's something as long as I've been around, there have
Speaker 1: been many discussions of building such places. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: a very admirable project. And I know Gary and I
Speaker 1: just used to be Tenacious Unicorn Ranch. I've been before,
Speaker 1: and it's really powerful to see like how empowering those
Speaker 1: spaces are and how they can help people. So I
Speaker 1: can see that you set up in Kenya. Was there
Speaker 1: a reason that you picked Kenya? It was that it
Speaker 1: was was a very large trans community there or something
Speaker 1: that led you to uh, frankly, in in such places,
Speaker 1: people often have um uh there is the old queer Uh.
Speaker 1: I know somebody who knows somebody a lot system and
Speaker 1: people have kind of webs of trust and as a result,
Speaker 1: where we get people coming from to ask us to
Speaker 1: move them, it is very irregular. Uh. There are some
Speaker 1: countries we never hear from, and we certainly know there
Speaker 1: are queer people there. We know the conditions are bad
Speaker 1: and would you know, and we'd be happy to move people,
Speaker 1: but we don't have a lot of penetration. And others
Speaker 1: like Kenya. We're in the network and people are telling
Speaker 1: giving each other are uh contact info. UM. Also, we
Speaker 1: have some capabilities we had built up kind of center there,
Speaker 1: so we decided to focus on Kenya. Kenya is relatively
Speaker 1: easy to get into as for as visas and so on,
Speaker 1: and so UM it's a place we can send people
Speaker 1: when they when we might have trouble getting them into
Speaker 1: uh say Europe or the United States. Um, we can
Speaker 1: with and so we're perfectly happy to end up with
Speaker 1: lots of folks. Would like to make the place attractive
Speaker 1: enough that it's also a place that we even have
Speaker 1: people coming who aren't particularly in immediate danger. We'd be
Speaker 1: We're working from a philosophy of abundance that we want
Speaker 1: to grow and we have a rule of we don't
Speaker 1: want to make a place that we wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: live ourselves. And honestly, Eden House is a nice place.
Speaker 1: It was the personal home of of a rather wealthy family.
Speaker 1: It's looks nice. Sorry, would you maybe like to describe
Speaker 1: for us at your experience at the house what it's
Speaker 1: like and how places like this are important so that
Speaker 1: people can understand. Maybe if you could start with how
Speaker 1: you became aware of the Eden House and that that
Speaker 1: this was an option that was available to you. Okay,
Speaker 1: so um I met um um we got in touch
Speaker 1: with Anne Ali this uh this year, yes, Aliceia around
Speaker 1: February generally, if I'm not wrong, so um we if
Speaker 1: that was before Eden was formed. So we really had
Speaker 1: a long discussion on us moving from where we are
Speaker 1: were at the coast and things were really really brutal
Speaker 1: at the coast side of Kenya, like we were going
Speaker 1: a lot of stress, even lost to one of our friends,
Speaker 1: and um, yeah, it wasn't really good. It was really bad.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we had a discussion about moving to um
Speaker 1: to Eden House and that it was a working progress.
Speaker 1: So we took some time working on that. So eventually
Speaker 1: it happened and so we came to Eden House and
Speaker 1: it's a very beautiful place. I would agree with that.
Speaker 1: Um yeah. And yeah, and also flew all the way
Speaker 1: to hear because we were new here and there were
Speaker 1: some things that we needed done. And yeah, we are
Speaker 1: three of us currently in Eden House. Um I got
Speaker 1: in touch with Anne and the rest of the team.
Speaker 1: There was dooris on board. Actually she's the person who
Speaker 1: was like you know, responsible for the Malindi team. And yeah,
Speaker 1: the two sisters that I have like okay, they're my
Speaker 1: sisters because we've been through a lot of help together.
Speaker 1: So yeah, um, we come all away from Malindi. Also
Speaker 1: we are here together and so far. Um when we
Speaker 1: got here, Um, the place it's very beautiful, but just
Speaker 1: needed a little you know here and their decoration and
Speaker 1: you know, clarifications and modifying and you know, precusuals were
Speaker 1: by you know, putting on security lights and the security wires. Yeah,
Speaker 1: still somethings need to be upgraded, but you know, um,
Speaker 1: we still need to resource for a lot so that
Speaker 1: we can have something's being done by So far, so good.
Speaker 1: Everything is good. I'd interject that we're trying to foster
Speaker 1: a spirit of self sufficiency and so we've been Um,
Speaker 1: we've got everybody to make the furniture. The furniture in
Speaker 1: the house has been made by the residents. And we're
Speaker 1: starting some various sort of fundraising, you know, our income activities.
Speaker 1: We're we've made a chicken coop and we're in the
Speaker 1: process of getting chickens, getting chickens and and uh sewing machine.
Speaker 1: And one of our residents is a talented artists we're
Speaker 1: going to set her up to have a place to
Speaker 1: sell her artwork. Ah, that's the kind of things we're doing,
Speaker 1: thank you, um all. Yeah, I'm really curious kind of
Speaker 1: on a day to day basis, what are the things
Speaker 1: that you and the other people who are at the
Speaker 1: Eden House do in order to like protect yourself, like
Speaker 1: when you're going about town, when you're doing errands. Um,
Speaker 1: is there like a degree of operational security that you
Speaker 1: have to keep in mind? Yeah, Actually, we have a
Speaker 1: rule whereby we don't go anywhere without letting each other know,
Speaker 1: especially if we're going to a long distance UM. Putting
Speaker 1: in mind, we are very new into this area, so
Speaker 1: we don't know a lot of places. So currently we
Speaker 1: are just in the house trying to get to understand
Speaker 1: a few things. Actually we've been doing um um the
Speaker 1: repairing we have. We have a chicken coope at the back.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a small um as a small place
Speaker 1: whereby we needed to fix some things. So we've been
Speaker 1: working on that so that we have the places ready
Speaker 1: for the chicken when they're ready to come in. And
Speaker 1: also for me have been um going around to see
Speaker 1: at least allocate some few places where by you know,
Speaker 1: we can feel safe, like the hospitals. I've been trying
Speaker 1: to get in touch with people like around here. I
Speaker 1: haven't been easy, but at least now I can say
Speaker 1: I can go to an hospital that at least it's
Speaker 1: kind of familiar with me. Um. Yeah. We also have
Speaker 1: a place where we buy what are these things that
Speaker 1: the house supplies and all that stuff. We're really trying
Speaker 1: as much as possible to like minimize our moving around
Speaker 1: from places to places to draw attention. So we're just
Speaker 1: trying to go with time and see how people will
Speaker 1: accept us existing to these community. So we don't want
Speaker 1: to bring any attentions whereby people who start asking questions
Speaker 1: like you know, what's happening there? What's not happening there? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I noticed as well that the house you to belong
Speaker 1: to a politician. It's right, so I has some measures
Speaker 1: of external phasicals and purity as well, Yeah, which is good.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can talk about I know, Kenya is a
Speaker 1: big country and it differs vastly depending on where you
Speaker 1: are and who you're with. How is the climate towards
Speaker 1: trans folks. I haven't been in Kenya for probably ten
Speaker 1: fifteen years. How how is the climate towards trans people,
Speaker 1: have things. Have it become like a big topic like
Speaker 1: a culture war thing recently or is it sort of
Speaker 1: can you explain, but I guess what it's like. You're saying,
Speaker 1: it seems like it can be a risk just to
Speaker 1: go outside, which is pretty sad. Yeah, yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: That is to go outside, you know, um here and Kenya,
Speaker 1: um in different sites of kind of like at the
Speaker 1: cost Okay, taking example, at the cost side from where
Speaker 1: I come from, it's, um, it's really bad for the
Speaker 1: trans community because now they're they're very transphobic and homophobic people,
Speaker 1: Like most of the transphobic and homophobic people come at
Speaker 1: the coast side, because um, these are people that tend
Speaker 1: to keep their culture and religious like you know, more
Speaker 1: of more of a key thing in in someone's life,
Speaker 1: more of like they use they use the Quran and
Speaker 1: the Bible to presus to crititize the trans people and
Speaker 1: the gay community. So being in that area, it's very
Speaker 1: very bad and very very risky for trans community. Comparing
Speaker 1: to the other side of Kenya, I wouldn't say it's
Speaker 1: not risky, but um, their level of understanding of the
Speaker 1: trans community and the gay community it's um, it's more
Speaker 1: of an it's more of an away that they're kind
Speaker 1: of confused, not true awhere to understand. But it depends
Speaker 1: with also the air that you are, you might find
Speaker 1: you end up. For example, now we're eating houses like
Speaker 1: for the few for the man that we've been here.
Speaker 1: The feedback that I can say I have from the
Speaker 1: community around here is they're like more of people that
Speaker 1: are come and more of people who are you are
Speaker 1: more of used to their own personal things. They don't like,
Speaker 1: you know, put their nose into the to the things
Speaker 1: that they're not involved with, if you get what I mean. UM,
Speaker 1: In other towns um having new people, people who like
Speaker 1: you want to know why they're there and do you
Speaker 1: know all that stuff. But in this town that we have,
Speaker 1: we are in eating house. It's it's kind of safe
Speaker 1: in a way that people are not putting their nose
Speaker 1: in into us, like more of wanting to know about
Speaker 1: us rather than they're welcoming us. Moreover, you know, the
Speaker 1: landlord is kind of friendly. I would say that the
Speaker 1: cubander cuband it's more of a small grocery shops. So
Speaker 1: the cubanders around here at the small grocersy show that
Speaker 1: the people who are selling the you know, the groceries
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, they're friendly. I haven't. Um, I
Speaker 1: haven't in card or you know, engaged or seeing any
Speaker 1: transphobic or homophobic reaction towards demand that I've been here.
Speaker 1: Most of the people here are much of welcoming, like
Speaker 1: I would say that, and uh, yeah, it's really different
Speaker 1: from where I come from. Trust me, from the town
Speaker 1: that I come from. You can't walk with makeup or
Speaker 1: with anything that makes you look garish or anything that
Speaker 1: makes you look resemble to a transgender or maybe gay
Speaker 1: or something. It will be a bad thing for you
Speaker 1: in the day. Yeah, a little bit of the geography
Speaker 1: of Kenya. Remember that uh on tenuous coast up in
Speaker 1: the north. Uh is the border with small Yea and Um,
Speaker 1: so the culture natural and mixes over the order and um.
Speaker 1: This is also an area where lots of folks are
Speaker 1: coming over because of the political instability and Somalia, and
Speaker 1: it's an area of al Shabab terrorist activity. So so
Speaker 1: that makes particularly the north part of the coast rather
Speaker 1: dangerous place. Yeah, just if people are interested, I know,
Speaker 1: like the State Department sort of has it do not
Speaker 1: travel like north of Lama pretty much. So like people
Speaker 1: can sit on the map, but ageah, there are certain
Speaker 1: areas where risk would be higher. And fortunately talking of that,
Speaker 1: like it it hasn't. There have been some attacks, right
Speaker 1: threats against edenhouse in the last couple of days. So
Speaker 1: if either of you would like to explain exactly what
Speaker 1: happened as far as you're comfortable, I think that would
Speaker 1: be great. Yeah, let me explain, because I think I'm
Speaker 1: the right passaic in that. So, um there, there, there there, Okay,
Speaker 1: this happened when amalz around here. Actually we had an
Speaker 1: attack and one of the windows people people breaked into
Speaker 1: their house, not inside the house, but inside the compound
Speaker 1: and they tried getting in the house. But yeah, thank
Speaker 1: god the place has secured doors and windows. But they
Speaker 1: took off one of the glass from the window and
Speaker 1: they tried to like they had a stick that was
Speaker 1: was was holding um yeah, a magnet on the end.
Speaker 1: So they were trying to use the stick with the
Speaker 1: magnet to pull out the keys so that they can
Speaker 1: have and clear entrance into the house. But thank god,
Speaker 1: we had removed the keys to where we used to
Speaker 1: we normally used to put and kept it to somewhere else.
Speaker 1: So the keys that we are aware they were targeting,
Speaker 1: there were only the keys to the meter box and
Speaker 1: the fridge, so they took those and yeah, I presume
Speaker 1: they later realized that they wouldn't go through with those
Speaker 1: because we're not the right kids. So the next thing,
Speaker 1: we wake up in the morning, the magnet was down
Speaker 1: on the floor and we noticed that the window had
Speaker 1: the piece of glass missing. So that was the first
Speaker 1: incident that happened. So we reported that to um, to
Speaker 1: the to the landlord. And previous day before that happened,
Speaker 1: those neighborhood came by and they said that someone tried
Speaker 1: to break into their apartment and they were kind of
Speaker 1: curious because they never knew if people moved into this
Speaker 1: house or they just wanted to check in what was
Speaker 1: going on. And we can we kind of get into like,
Speaker 1: you know, know each other, and that they kind of
Speaker 1: gave us a warning and that's why we removed the kids.
Speaker 1: And the day when they came, they couldn't get in.
Speaker 1: So yeah, after I left, now this is a recent incident.
Speaker 1: That then then the next they came back and found
Speaker 1: a couple of broken windows in the morning, like they
Speaker 1: tried to price some windows out and ended up breaking
Speaker 1: the glass and gave up. But but yeah, that's so.
Speaker 1: At the time, I think we all just thought of
Speaker 1: this as ordinary, you know, theft activity. But it's later incident,
Speaker 1: it's pretty unclear, but this maybe more targeted attack. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and perhaps it's silly of me to even ask this,
Speaker 1: but could you speak of it on what kind of
Speaker 1: help you can expect from law enforcement? If any, um,
Speaker 1: I would say, if any, I would say, like, you
Speaker 1: see the place where we are staying, from the law enforcement,
Speaker 1: I would expect that they put some like you know,
Speaker 1: the they have a name that they put that that
Speaker 1: that the lights that normally the government's supposed to supply,
Speaker 1: like you know, the what's what did they call that?
Speaker 1: These lights they normally have to support from Yes, street lights.
Speaker 1: So the place you're staying, there's no street lights. So
Speaker 1: if if if, if if a police was to ask
Speaker 1: me or you know, any security measures that were to
Speaker 1: be put, like I would say that they put the
Speaker 1: street lights. Those would help at least there will be
Speaker 1: more lights for like you know, that should scare people away,
Speaker 1: even if those people are thieves or anything. You see, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was That's what I would say, Okay, yeah, and
Speaker 1: then the two people were hurt in the most recent
Speaker 1: sort of activate. Yes, yes, this was the day before yesterday. Okay,
Speaker 1: are they doing okay, yeah, they're fine actually, and one
Speaker 1: of them I help myself, yes, and one of them
Speaker 1: I have my arm injured, but not really deep. The
Speaker 1: other one is asleep. She had a really bad injured
Speaker 1: back stabbed and you know at the arm also catched
Speaker 1: uh eight teachers at the back really bad. Yeah. Sorry, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not good at all. Okay, so that that's not great.
Speaker 1: Have you since we attack is like an ongoing aggression
Speaker 1: against you, And it seems like someone's targeting the in house, right, um,
Speaker 1: if you ask me, I would say it's more of
Speaker 1: targeting the eating house, because, um, I don't understand why
Speaker 1: we would only be the only person, like the only
Speaker 1: people experiencing the same, the same incident over and over
Speaker 1: like the next the next houses. They don't complain in
Speaker 1: such incidents like you know, like this guy literally if um,
Speaker 1: I'm just picturing the fact that we had to go
Speaker 1: out and you know, turn on the machine and we
Speaker 1: saw this guy and he just bumped into us with
Speaker 1: a knife. And catching us all. So I'm just picturing
Speaker 1: if this guy was waiting for, like I'm just seeing it,
Speaker 1: he was waiting for more people to come so that
Speaker 1: they can attack coming inside the house. Why was even
Speaker 1: standing there in the first place? Because we found him
Speaker 1: there and he was like he came through me because
Speaker 1: I was the one who was in the front. So
Speaker 1: I just keep asking myself, like, why was he standing there?
Speaker 1: What was he waiting for? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, And I
Speaker 1: point out to get there. To get there, he had
Speaker 1: to climb a high stone wall top with razor wire
Speaker 1: and get into position without triggering the motion detectors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, not impossible to do, but it was.
Speaker 1: But they keep coming back. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm sure
Speaker 1: people listening will be upset by this. Is there a
Speaker 1: way that people can like express the solidarity or support
Speaker 1: you financially? Yes, we need funds to keep running the house,
Speaker 1: and in fact, the guy escaped through a hole that
Speaker 1: was left only because we ran out of razor wire.
Speaker 1: We need funds to keep the project going. We need
Speaker 1: funds to also to support our primary work. We're continuing
Speaker 1: to get people out of places like Saudi Arabia. We
Speaker 1: have people we have people who are kind of who
Speaker 1: are in mid travel right now, and we have other
Speaker 1: people in the high de holes in dangerous countries, and
Speaker 1: we want to move all those people, and we'd like
Speaker 1: to start right now. We're not even taking new folks
Speaker 1: on because we just have such a backlog. Will very
Speaker 1: much like to fix that situation. UM, So for all
Speaker 1: these reasons you know, we're doing. We're happy with what
Speaker 1: we're doing, but but we do need funds at the moment.
Speaker 1: Let's get into that a little bit. You're the we
Speaker 1: here is trans Rescue, right, yeah, yes, Trans Rescue is
Speaker 1: a nonprofit and you're based in Europe and you move
Speaker 1: trans people out of dangerous situations. That's correct. We're based
Speaker 1: in Um, we're based in the Netherlands. We're a a sticking,
Speaker 1: which is the in the US that would be a
Speaker 1: five oh one C three. We're in a n B
Speaker 1: I qualified sticking, which basically is a five O one
Speaker 1: C three. Okay, And you were telling us before we
Speaker 1: started the call that you think it costs you about
Speaker 1: twenty euros to move each person. Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That's the average. Um. The average is probably slightly going
Speaker 1: down because of course to move somebody into eden House
Speaker 1: from the coast might be as cheap as uh eighty
Speaker 1: bucks to send them a ticket and then a few
Speaker 1: hundred dollars of settling them in eden House. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, getting people out of Saudi oftentimes means not
Speaker 1: only flying of them, but sometimes flying our own personnel
Speaker 1: in and out on um often kind of crazy roots.
Speaker 1: So a person might find themselves a long way from
Speaker 1: either Saudi or where they're finally going to end up.
Speaker 1: And as a result, and then so yeah, we end
Speaker 1: up having to spend a lot on plane tickets and
Speaker 1: then we also sometimes this takes months, we play paperwork games. Um,
Speaker 1: we are not people smugglers, but but we certainly are
Speaker 1: helping people get to a country where they can actually
Speaker 1: claim asylum for the most part, which means, um, you know,
Speaker 1: and successfully claim asylum, and that often means manipulating edge
Speaker 1: cases in the international travel system. Yeah, yeah, that makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. I can see whether would be
Speaker 1: expensive and complicated. Yes, so it's great that people can
Speaker 1: donate to you. That is there anything like I noticed
Speaker 1: you were asking before for some mutual aid help with
Speaker 1: your pr Is that something you still need? Look at
Speaker 1: the things people can do. Maybe they don't have the
Speaker 1: means today. We were a small organization, We're not very large,
Speaker 1: and we actually are just cranking up our pr operation.
Speaker 1: Um we could use a press list, we could use
Speaker 1: we could also use amplification from organizations with more kind
Speaker 1: of online cloud. We're basically a little group of people
Speaker 1: and for two years we operated as an informal group
Speaker 1: of of activists. We realized that was probably not ideal
Speaker 1: for this very serious work we're doing, and so last
Speaker 1: December we reorganized as a proper sticting But yeah, help
Speaker 1: with boosting our signal at the moment would be very useful.
Speaker 1: Anyone who can, you know, can spread the word of
Speaker 1: what's happened at you now, so we would be very
Speaker 1: much appreciative. Yeah, well we can definitely do that. Hopefully
Speaker 1: effects come to It's just so people can find you.
Speaker 1: It's Trans under School Rescue on Twitter, it's Trans Underscore
Speaker 1: Rescue on trigs, or it's trans Rescued or dot org
Speaker 1: on the web. I will share that fundraise. I think,
Speaker 1: when when this comes out, are you how things been
Speaker 1: for you the last couple of days? Like I must
Speaker 1: be pretty rough, I imagine not not feeling safe at
Speaker 1: the house. Yeah. Actually, actually the advice that we got
Speaker 1: from the landlord and the neighbor. There's a neighbor here,
Speaker 1: a lady. She came by and I have a number.
Speaker 1: Called her the day we had the incident, and she
Speaker 1: came in the morning when they had a talk. So
Speaker 1: she suggested that we shouldn't be going out late night
Speaker 1: and by time we make sure that all the doors
Speaker 1: are locked and yes, and stay safe inside in case
Speaker 1: of anything. She asked me to call her, and also
Speaker 1: the landlord asked me if in case of anything, if
Speaker 1: I hear any movement or any suspicious thing happening outside
Speaker 1: the gates, I just give them a call. It's good.
Speaker 1: It's good that people are sticking up here in your communite.
Speaker 1: Is really good to hear. Yeah, really good. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we appreciate that. And on their behalf, what y'all are
Speaker 1: doing is very important and more. You know, sorry that
Speaker 1: you're encountering this kind of resistance, but we hope we
Speaker 1: can help at least get the message out about what
Speaker 1: you were doing. It. Unless appreciate it. Thank you, it's
Speaker 1: much appreciated. Um. I regret that we spent most of
Speaker 1: the time on security I'm I'm more I'm excited about
Speaker 1: uh many of the positive things we're doing. We're you know,
Speaker 1: we're trying to set up, uh a place where trans
Speaker 1: people can live their lives and thrive and and have
Speaker 1: you know, normal lives. Uh. Yeah, let's talk about that.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about like, how many people do you have
Speaker 1: at the eating house right now? If you're comfortable sharing that? Sure,
Speaker 1: we just opened, so we've got three people. We've got
Speaker 1: one more person who UM went back to settle kind
Speaker 1: of settle his affairs and we'll be moving in UM
Speaker 1: and we have of UM and we've got space for
Speaker 1: eight at the moment um. We've had a couple of
Speaker 1: other people in choir but but haven't like aren't there yet.
Speaker 1: We're kind of excited by the space we've got because
Speaker 1: there's actually room around us to grow. So we're expecting
Speaker 1: to get to get bigger. Um. Yeah, I hope you do.
Speaker 1: And how many people have trying to rescue been able
Speaker 1: to help, like as an organization overall one way or
Speaker 1: the other, We've we've moved about two dozen people. Of that,
Speaker 1: roughly a half have been the serious kind of get
Speaker 1: people out of Saudi Arabia type moves. The others have
Speaker 1: been folks that we helped in sort of less dramatic ways. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a it's a very meaningful contribution to a lot
Speaker 1: of people's lives. That is great. Yeah, I get you know,
Speaker 1: it's great. Uh, each one person lives locally, and it's
Speaker 1: great to kind of occasionally have him over for dinner
Speaker 1: or you know, I know that we got him out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that must be really nice. And I think, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: important not to just center like hatred but also about success. Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that. And it's cool that, like you have
Speaker 1: plans to grow. I've seen that you have agricultural areas around,
Speaker 1: so you're thinking of like growing some food around the house. Actually,
Speaker 1: we have brought some fools. We have some vegetables like spinach, cabbage, tomatoes,
Speaker 1: green paper. Yes, did they did? The gardens survived the flood?
Speaker 1: Uh we actually I was about to tell you that.
Speaker 1: Actually when the water was coming in the old old
Speaker 1: the spinach went and lied down, and we were kind
Speaker 1: of worried. But when it stopped, when the water stopped
Speaker 1: flowing down, the sound came out. They kind of started
Speaker 1: going straight, So I was much worried about that. But
Speaker 1: it's kind of freaking out because they all went down
Speaker 1: and we were like, they did we have a drainage
Speaker 1: problem in front of the house and the recently there
Speaker 1: was a trrential rain. Things I did is hard to
Speaker 1: kill things I did not know about Kenya. It hails there,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I did not expect. I did not like
Speaker 1: sort of imagine hail, but but it hailed several times
Speaker 1: while I was there and everybody was cold. Yeah, while
Speaker 1: I was walking around the T shirt. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can answer the best weather and Kenya for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And looking at these pictures, it is great to see
Speaker 1: you guys are making your own furniture and doing all
Speaker 1: these things and really enjoying your time there as well
Speaker 1: as obviously we don't want to just focus on the threat.
Speaker 1: So hopefully you can go back to that. Hopefully people
Speaker 1: can support you. Are is anywhere online people can find you.
Speaker 1: Do you have a Instagram or Twitter or anything like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do have a Treta account. My tutor handle is
Speaker 1: at rams hyphen aria. How do you can you spell
Speaker 1: that out for us? At MS? Okay, then high fen
Speaker 1: lower hyphen underscore, Yeah, yeah, underscore a then are I guess? Okay? Great? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's for yourself? And is it if you just
Speaker 1: trans Rescue it's there a personal one. Anything else you'd
Speaker 1: like to my mail if someone wants to contact me,
Speaker 1: is Annie A N N I E at trans Rescue
Speaker 1: dot org. Okay, yeah, hopefully. And we have a contact
Speaker 1: form on the website as well if people are interested
Speaker 1: in talking with us. Yeah, okay great. Is there anything
Speaker 1: else you'd like to get to before we finish up here? Yes?
Speaker 1: At on Fridays we have a m we have office hours.
Speaker 1: So if you're in a country like the UK or
Speaker 1: the US and you would just like some advice or
Speaker 1: to explore your options, that's another service we offer is that, Well,
Speaker 1: are happy to talk with you on video about that.
Speaker 1: When would those be there? It's six pm Central European summertime, okay,
Speaker 1: which I think works out to midday in the US
Speaker 1: some parts of the US. And your fingers primarily in English. Uh,
Speaker 1: those are primarily in English. If you speak Arabic and
Speaker 1: or Farsi or Urdu, contact us. We can arrange to
Speaker 1: have somebody who speaks those languages talk with you. We
Speaker 1: maintain a telegram group trans rescue and if you get
Speaker 1: on there you can use machine translation and talk with
Speaker 1: us very well. And we have Arabic speakers the Mama
Speaker 1: or that amazing. Yeah, hopefully people can take advount to
Speaker 1: that if they need it. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: your time, Like our platform is here for you. If
Speaker 1: you want to share anything else, If anything else happens,
Speaker 1: please let us know. And we really appreciate you taking
Speaker 1: the time. Are you hopefully thank you yeah, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Al Right, Okay, goodbye everyone, thank
Speaker 1: you bye, good very much. Thank you. It could Happen
Speaker 1: here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone
Speaker 1: media dot com or check us out on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.