[0:00]Hi everybody, this is Wafaa, the paintball project, is day 4. So far, it's been very challenging today because I got about five, six direct hits to my arm and stomach. Uh, but also uh uh I I feel my body is is is a little bit given up in terms of just trying to slow down. I'm not allowing it to slow down. Uh but I uh I'm uh still in in that survival mode trying to be strong uh the day was uh beside a lot of shooting, the day uh was quite in terms of event. Uh and I have my friend Meredith is visiting uh me today and uh we are going to talk to her for uh a few uh minutes. Hi, I'm uh sitting behind the screen here, which is splattered with yellow paint. Uh let's see. This is see, that's that's the screen here. We are trying to protect ourselves from from the direct side of the gun. Um and it's a really interesting feeling to to sort of have the understanding that at any point somebody could be aiming at you. Um my blood pressure has probably spiked an awful lot since being back here and there's this, well, there's a feeling that if I extend my arm a little bit or if I make a mistake, uh that anything could happen. So, uh, I don't know. We were talking earlier about how it feels to be on the the other end of a basically of a video game, but the difference is that that you're a real-life person, um and and bodily harm can happen. So, yeah, it's it's interesting to to think about the mentality of people who might be shooting and and what people are thinking in terms of how it's a game and how it crosses a line between being a game and actually being a real person on the receiving end. Oh, great. Uh so can can you see yourself uh uh staying here for a few days or uh Um all I can say is that I've been here for how many minutes? Five minutes. It's it's about five, six minutes when the gun is moving right now. And when you hear, I mean, when you hear the gun starting to move and when you are anticipating, you can't let your guard down at any time. There's a there's a feeling like at any moment something could be happening. The sound itself is I have a very visceral reaction to the sound. Uh I I've been asked this question, I'll ask it to you. Who do you think uh uh is shooting? I think I think we live in a culture right now where people people don't think an awful lot of of video-based games and I think people are so trained not to associate an action on a screen with an actual real-life causality. So I think people who are are gaming fanatics, or people who are bored, or who have stumbled on the website and are up late, are probably enjoying themselves. I think the real question for me is what are they thinking the next day? Uh one thing you uh when I ask you this uh uh early in the evening and I I told you, you said something about when this project slows down. I said I said it it slows down around dinner and around uh uh uh lunch. Can you say something about that? Well, I think what I had said, it's it's interesting to me because I wonder I wonder if if violence just becomes a way of filling your time. That if you have better things to do like, let's say you're hungry or you have work to do, or you have a friend coming over, you violence isn't what you're going to resort to, but violence is is sort of a last ditch option if you're bored and have time to kill. Okay, great. Anything else you wanted to say? I can't imagine doing this for for 30 days. I just can't imagine. Um I know we're going to have dinner in a few minutes. Would you like to have the dinner here or or outside this space? I think I think it should be your choice. Should be my choice? I mean, to my choice, I will have it here, but I wanted to, of course, I'm I'm very concerned and very protective of my visitor, because I don't want to them uh to be harm in any way either physically or mentally. So, I we we could we could determine that later. Okay. All right, guys. So that's great. That's Meredith uh Hope Clark, right? That's right. Uh I I think I got that right. Uh and I am going to get with you back in a few minutes to continue this video uh this diary. Uh now, it's I'm amazed. It's very quiet, like early in the day, and uh like uh uh it's it's amazing.
[5:08]That's the peak hour for this project. All right, I'll get with you back in a few minutes. Uh, Dr. Sean. Okay. Before before before I leave, we we I'm going to show you how we walk into the space. Uh what I what I'm doing here with my visitor, I I roll in this protective shield. You could you could see it just put it in front of them. Uh it's it's a rolling uh uh garment rack here. Uh and then just show you that in a second. And what I did, I uh it's a garment rack. You could roll it, and I uh put a plexiglass around it. And this is I use uh when when I'm uh sitting in my computer, because I don't want to get hit in the head. And also, I use when I go to sleep. Uh then uh I use it I use it as well when I have a visitor, and I have I want them to experience what I am experiencing. So, what we're going to do, we are going to roll this uh and take our visitor out of the space. Just so, and I what I'm going to do is to to have uh Meredith put her mask on. And this is a real paintball mask, that's professional one. Uh, I'll put mine on uh just to protect my eyes. I know uh people saying I'm uh insane by just protecting the eyes and not anything else. And then we are going to go. Meredith, if you want to uh grab the uh the tab, actually, not the side. Uh here, and then roll it with for me. Uh and then we're going to go out. Okay, guys, see? We're rolling this. And uh uh luckily, the gun is not pointing away. I could uh I could just show you what we're doing here, and I just going to show you how Meredith is uh taking that shield out, and here it is. Yeah, you could just leave it there. Uh, and here she is. All right, we survived.
[7:20]Uh we'll we'll talk we'll talk more in a second. All right, everybody. Uh Meredith decided to have her dinner behind the shield here, inside the project space. And um I said, fine. I was more concerning about her than she was, but she wants to experience it. So, uh, this is going to be interesting because I haven't eaten with another person in the space. So it's going to be really, really close. And I wanted to see if people are going to hit us during dinner. They had their dinner, right? But uh, uh, so how you feeling? Um, a little nervous. Little nervous. Okay. We'll we'll get um maybe we I'll keep this rolling to see if people if we could hear in the background if people are going to hit us while we're eating.
[8:16]Okay.
[8:28]Uh here's what we're having for dinner. We have a dolma plate. We have a falafel plate. The Middle Eastern uh place around the corner are very, very nice uh baba pita. They uh uh give us a free dessert, free soup, free drinks, and free delivery. Fantastic of them. And uh uh here's uh here's what we have. Uh probably it's going to be a little bit messy.
[9:03]Uh sorry about this. And I mean, that's what we get when you're under constant threat and trying to eat dinner. And it actually remind me of uh uh when I was back in Najaf during 1991 uh uh uh in January 1991 of the bombing. Uh when we had to eat all together in this small room, very, very cramped uh and uh under constant bombing. So far, no hit, but uh I think we'll we'll keep continuing rolling this just in case uh we get hit.
