Episode: 16 — "Double Shafra Single Heart" · Full Episode #16
Date: 11 February 2020
Language: Libyan Arabic, English code-switching
Audio: MP3
Nada Elfeituri (ندى الفيتوري) is a Libyan architect and urban designer. She spent her early childhood in Canada, where her father was completing a PhD. The family returned to Libya when she was 13. She barely spoke Arabic. She went on to study architecture at the University of Benghazi, graduating during the 2014 war. She later sought PTSD treatment in the UK — a decision made against her mother's wishes.
Nada grew up speaking English in Canada. When her family moved back to Libya, she could not keep up at school. She described not knowing the Arabic word for "homework" — instead, she described the object: "paper." She entered the Kuttab Banghazi Sghar writing contest as a way to force herself into the language. The displacement was not geographic. It was linguistic.
See: Returning to Arabic
By 2014, Benghazi had become what Nada called a ghost town. The university campus sat on or near frontlines. She completed her architecture thesis during active conflict — her project involved designing a building on a site that was being bombed. The thesis defence happened while the city was under fire.
Nada sought treatment for PTSD in the UK. Her mother opposed the decision — the stigma around mental health in Libyan culture made it difficult. Nada went anyway. This placed her in the same territory as Osama Alfitory (EP 10), who also challenged the cultural reflex of attributing trauma to supernatural causes rather than treating it clinically.
She described Bab Azizia — Gaddafi's former compound in Tripoli — as a dumping ground after the revolution. A site once synonymous with power had become a ruin filled with rubble. She saw it as a metaphor for how Libya handled its own history: demolition without replacement, absence without processing.
She described "paper" because she didn't know the word for "homework." (EP 16)