CAROLINE BAZI

Lebanon - If you want to travel in Lebanon with a taxi driver you can trust, you can take the taxi of Zahra Marwa. You can ask her everything about the country; she will answer all of your questions, we did so. We became her customers and talked to her about her life story.

41-year-old skillful taxi driver Zahra Marwa told us that she proved that she is a strong woman. She loves living by doing sports activities and she was a very active student when she was a child. When women see her, they trust her because she is also a woman like them. “I am a woman. This is why women feel safer with me,” Zahra Marwa said.

“Everyone got used to seeing me”

Zahra Marwa looks after her family and her oldest son studied accounting. Her second son Nidal has studied physics at Lebanese University and her daughter is 10 years old and she wants to be an actress when she grows up.

“I couldn’t complete my high school education because I got married. I was 14 years old when I got married.  I couldn’t find a full-time job because I don’t have a high school diploma. I decided to be a taxi driver instead of feeling useless and being unemployed. Actually, I could drive and sometimes I drove someone somewhere. I drove my neighbors’ children to their schools. In this way, everyone got used to seeing me driving and I started to work as a taxi driver step by step.”

“I feel happy doing this job”

Zahra Marwa’s job is not only a job for her but a part of her life. “I feel happy doing this job. I don't see it as just a profession. I send my children to school thanks to this job and I feel happy knowing the children are safe with me. As a mother, I understand very well the feelings of women, who trust me to drive their children to school.”

The most challenging issue for Zahra Marwa is the increasing oil price, “The taxi fare changes according to the oil price. Fortunately, people know me and they know I don’t want to increase the taxi fare but this situation shakes the confidence.”

She works against child marriage

Zahra Marwa is also a member of an association named “Boutros Rose” working to end child marriage in the country. She told us she would never allow her daughter to get married at a young age. Zahra wanted to be a doctor when she was a child. But now she drives patients to doctors.