Soumaya

Soumaya at a market in Mexico
I strive to be a renaissance woman.

I am equally passionate about the arts (music, literature, film) and about science and technology. I love sharing what I am learning with the people around me.

01

Music that shaped me

02

Reading

the bindings
  • absolute favourite
  • first "grown up" book
  • italian literature
  • history
  • 20th-c british female authors
  • mothers and daughters
  • crossing social boundaries
Reading on a train in Japan
03

Movies & TV

A fascination with East and West Germany

The Lives of Others
East Berlin, 1984. A Stasi officer assigned to spy on a playwright grows disillusioned with the regime.
Good Bye Lenin!
East Berlin, 1990. After his socialist mother wakes from a coma, a son hides the fall of the Wall from her to protect her health.

A love of musicals

The Sound of Music
Salzburg, 1938. A novice becomes governess to a widowed captain’s seven children as Austria faces the Nazi annexation.
Fiddler on the Roof
Anatevka, 1905. A Jewish milkman tries to uphold tradition as his daughters marry for love and pogroms threaten the village.

A pull toward personal and moral dilemmas

The Americans
Washington, the 1980s. Two Soviet KGB agents pose as an ordinary American married couple at the height of the Cold War.
A Separation
Tehran, 2011. A couple’s separation entangles two families in a moral and legal dispute.

Quirky fast-talkers

Ally McBeal
Boston, the late 1990s. A young lawyer joins a firm where she works alongside her ex, juggling cases and her personal life.
Gilmore Girls
Stars Hollow, Connecticut. A single mother and her teenage daughter navigate life in a small New England town.

Girlhood against the current

Derry Girls
Derry, the 1990s. Four schoolgirls and one English cousin grow up while the Troubles wind down around them.
Mustang
A Turkish village, the 2010s. After an innocent game with boys causes a scandal, five orphaned sisters are confined at home while their family arranges their marriages.
The Florida Project
Kissimmee, Florida. A six-year-old and her young mother live week to week in a motel in the shadow of Disney World.
04

Snapshots

N
On Santa Monica pier
California · 2019
At a painting class
New York · 2019
On a hike
Acadia · 2020
At a loch
Highlands · 2022
On the Burren coast in Ireland
Ireland · 2026
Over a souk
Marrakech · 2018
In the desert
Tunisia · 2024
Among stone statues
Japan · 2025
Yoga teacher training
Ubud · 2022
A class in Paris
Paris · 2008
Reading by the sea
Nicaragua · 2024
At the top of a mountain
Cape Town · 2024
05

Side quests

My first side quest
Playing the oud on stage as a child, a girl beside her holding the score

My parents enrolled me in the conservatoire at age 7. For the next 11 years my after-school hours and weekends became consumed with Andalusian and Tunisian music, reading solfège, learning maqamet, singing mouwachahat and practicing the oud and the mawazins. I earned my teaching degree in 2006 after a grueling week of written and 1:1 oral exams and it was one of my happiest days. And if you're wondering what my favorite maqam is, it's Nahawand, which has a western equivalent (Do minor).

Unfired pottery on the studio shelf
Pottery

I got sucked into the TV show The Great Pottery Throw Down and the rest is history.

Receiving the 200-hour yoga teacher training certificate in Ubud
Yoga teacher training

I've been practicing yoga since 2013 and kept hurting myself (the tragedy of flat feet) so I decided to use the first month of my non-compete to learn alignment properly. The teacher training program taught me that and more. We had meditation classes, anatomy classes and loads of yoga from acrobatic to hatha yoga, a fantastic experience.

Five potted plants on the wooden floor at home
Plant mom

I started buying and raising plants in 2018 and haven't looked back since, and I am now a proud mom of 10, surviving New York's harsh winters and cruel summers together.

Riding a chestnut horse in the arena
Horse riding

Preparing for a future Epic Kyrgyzstan trip.