Welcome to the Cylamen Story blog, your regular source of strength and inspiration .
It is always important to take time off and spend time with family and friends. Sunday’s we have a tradition of a family lunch without fail.
This photo of my family and friends enjoying a Sunday lunch in Marjeyoun, Lebanon was taken at least a decade before I was born, and our family tradition lives on.
I’m very humbled to have been interviewed by Simon Reeve in this short doco-style interview.
The Colours of Australia.
A young woman dances in the hills outside Beirut in Lebanon, the country of her birth. A moment’s interlude from trauma and chaos.
It is 1979. Civil war had been tearing Lebanon apart for 4 years. It would rage until 1990, costing the lives of 100,000 people.
Her name is Chadia.
Her Mum severely injured by shrapnel after a bomb explosion, her sister shot in the leg by a neighbourhood sniper.
The war impacted everyone.
In a year or so, Chadia would flee, finding her way to Houston, Texas, working several jobs, hoping for permanent citizenship. However, an abusive marriage forced another big move, this time to Australia. She would soon fall in love in Brisbane with Martin Chalmers, who’d left Zimbabwe, another country beset by upheaval and trauma. That was 1986.
They are still happily together, working in their own business, Chadia Chalmers Realty, with 2 great children, on the Gold Coast.
Chadia has written a wonderful book, Cyclamen, a story of resilience, perseverance and hope.
She represents all the things I love about our marvellous multicultural mix here in Australia.
An interview compiled over 2 chats, with a wardrobe change in between!
November 27, 2021 was a memorable day for my book launch. It was a full house at Logan Art Gallery. Thank you all for the help, support and love shown in making this a successful launch for Cyclamen: a journey of hope. For anybody who wasn’t able to be there, I hope to have more launches soon, and will post this on this website, on Instagram and Facebook. Again, thank you to everybody for being so supportive. I really hope you enjoy Cyclamen: a journey of hope. For more information and how to get a copy, visit: Buy the Novel – Welcome to Cyclamen Story
In Marjeyoun, the cyclamen is called Skukaa and when I was still an infant, my mother, Raifa, began calling me ‘Em Skukaa’ (Mother of Cyclamen) because I was so drawn to the cyclamen plants around our home. One of my family’s fondest memories of me as an infant was from when I had just begun to walk and, as though driven by a compulsion within my soul, I would toddle my way over to collect cyclamen flowers from the fields and woods surrounding our home.
I would then hold these flowers like a baby, with great care and adoration. Unlike most toddlers, I wasn’t interested in chocolates, sweets, treats, dolls or toys—it was the cyclamen that made my heart content.
