IRUSA staff member Lina Hashem turns the tables on hosts B.C. Dodge & R. Mordant Mahon and interviews them for the first birthday of “What a Relief!” — IRUSA’s official podcast.
Can you believe it? It’s been one year now since hosts B.C. Dodge and R. Mordant Mahon got this thing started—one year since they interviewed their first guest about his overwhelming experience greeting Syrian refugees on Greece’s shore.
In that year, they’ve talked with everyone from IRUSA staff to other NGO leaders to artists, activists and imams. They’ve discussed situations from Myanmar to Syria and lots of work here at home as well. They’ve cried and they’ve laughed, and they sure sound like they’re having a great time.
So to mark the podcast’s first birthday, guest staff member Lina Hashem turned the tables on them for a change and asked them all about it.
First of all, it turns out that they actually are having a good time. But they’re also working with some pretty lofty goals to make the world a better place.
“I feel like I’m actually doing good in the world with this, and some of my proudest work has been with this podcast,” Mordant says.
B.C. says, “We want to bring hope. … We only have one blue marble to float through space on, and if we’re going to do it together, we need to figure out how to get along.”
Mordant is proud that the podcast isn’t just a report on IRUSA’s work, but instead it explores a wide range of current issues and puts a human face on them.
“As different as we are—and there are some vast differences here … we’re so much the same,” Mordant says. “I was struck the first time hanging out at IRUSA in Alexandria going up to the marketing department, watching people talk about nerd movies, football, things like that, I’m like really? … Oh, you guys are just like me. …
“Of course, in your brain you know this … but until you actually experience it, you don’t really know.
“So that also leads me to believe that the way we handle disaster and stress, and things that people here in the United States and overseas in Syria, how they’re handling it is also how I would handle this. So there’s that camaraderie, that commonality. And that’s taught me that—working with IRUSA.”
Tune in and hear about some of the hosts’ favorite episodes, and find out whether they’re are ever going to attempt a 24-hour podcast again.
And make sure you listen until the end for a good laugh at the hosts’ expense.