[Music] (Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, meet a musician creating beats and community for Tucson refugees.

(Phocas) Tucson Refugee Beats makes me get better and better in life.

(Tom) Creating a healthier urban environment with desert plants.

(Alex) It is a generalist, pollinator plant, so it's going to attract all different kinds of native bees, butterflies, flies.

(Tom) And meet a husband and wife team who are providing a new outlook for cancer survivors.

(Silvia) Every woman who has breast cancer and then surgery or treatments has multiple levels of trauma.

This is an opportunity to change the narrative around your surgery.

[Music] Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

First up, meet Emmanuel.

Originally from Rwanda, he now calls Tucson home.

And his journey with the refugee beats began with something as simple as buying a guitar from Goodwill.

And that sparked a vision to create a space for young refugees to find courage, self-confidence and hope.

[ WIND BLOWING ] (Phocas) I had a dream of being in America when I was still young.

You know, I let me tell you this, you're gonna laugh.

I used to watch movies about America, Eddie Murphy movie, Coming to America, you know?

It's very funny.

Whenever I watch a movie, I actually want to learn something from it.

And then there's a lot exposed about America.

In the news as well.

You become who you want to become in America.

If you work hard, you get the results.

You know, we lack those kinds of opportunities in Africa because there's so many limitations.

But here, there is no limit.

You can just push yourself to wherever you want to be so, that's what really inspired me to come to America yeah, Land of Opportunity.

♪ AFRICAN MUSIC ♪ AFRICAN MUSIC (Richard) The Refugee's has too many talents.

A lot of them, they don't know where they can show their talents, how they can be included in different teams here.

For example, there are some who play football, there are some who play music like us.

(Emmanuel) When I went to Goodwill one day, I found one old guitar.

I bought it.

I met one friend.

He played it.

It was so amazing.

I said, why can't I buy another one?

Then, you teach someone how to play it.

Then, we go continue.

He said, "why not, bring it."

Those boys, I called them.

One started learning how to play guitar.

Then, they said, "we need the drums."

(Phocas) Tucson Refugee Beats it makes me get better and better in life.

when it comes to music, I compose a song, or I sing a song with the other members; It just renewing my life.

(Ineza) My current role?

I'm learning how to play the piano.

And, I also write poetry, and I perform.

Through the band, I'm able to express myself.

Most of the music is music that's based from Africa, and it helps me connect back to my roots.

So, I don't feel like I'm in a foreign place, and I don't know how to touch back to home.

When I join the band, and when we play music together it reminds me of home.

I really enjoy it.

(Phocas) When you look at what special young people learn from here, and that's why, I actually had to join because I've got two members that are in here.

They are my daughter Ineza and my son Daniel.

They come and learn to be together, producing, learning music, playing music.

We need to impact these young people to do the best they can in their lives.

(Emmanuel) I started telling them now, "You are in high school.

You don't have to stop going to school to do music only."

I told them, "You have to pass the exam first, then, warm you to music."

Our album is done.

We have 45 songs now.

Now, we are recording videos.

As much as Tucson Refugee Beats helps empower the youth, it also builds confidence.

Like, in instances where we perform, and there's a large crowd, some people usually have stage fright, and they find it difficult to stand in front of a crowd.

But, when you're doing what you love, it's not that difficult to stand and smile, and let people applaud you for the talent that you have.

I expected to see a place where I can just grow as much as I can, you know, also seeing my children, you know, go as far as I want with education, you know, do whatever excel in life.

That's my expectation for America.

[ CHEERING ] (Tom) Thousands of native and drought tolerant plants can be grown in the Sonoran Desert.

So in our ongoing desert plant series, we show you some that horticulturists recommend that can thrive in your landscape and create a healthier urban environment.

So now meet the turpentine bush, a tough shrub from our region.

♪ Serene Guitar Music Hi, I'm sitting here at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and around me here is one of my favorite workhorse plants, you might call it, Turpentine Bush or Ericameria laricifolia This plant is found from basically the region of El Paso, Texas all the way up to pretty much Las Vegas, Nevada with the middle of Arizona being pretty much the main bulk of its range.

You'll find this plant anywhere from 3,000 to 6,000 feet in the plains and mesas and especially rocky hillsides of the foothills to mountain ranges in the lower half of the state.

Here in southeastern Arizona you'll especially see it in places like Cochise County, in places like Bisbee, very common all over the hillsides there, all in the area of the Chiricahua Mountains for example.

But it can be found in the foothills of all of our sky islands in southeastern Arizona.

As you can see right here, this is in pretty much full bloom and being in the Astor family, it is a really good pollinator plant.

And the easiest way to tell that you're looking at an aster is if you look at the flower, you'll realize that it's actually made up of many smaller flowers, which is why the aster family is also known as the composite family.

Another nice thing about this plant is it's, even when it's not in flower, it's an evergreen plant with nice dark foliage and the name comes from the smell of that foliage.

If you take some of the leaves and rub them between your fingers, you'll notice that it smells pretty much just like turpentine, which is why its common name is turpentine bush.

This plant is definitely something that's beneficial to a lot of different types of backyard gardens, but especially hardscapes.

This is something that wants to be in a lot of sun.

The more sun it's in, the more prolifically it will flower.

It can do all right in the shade, but when you see it in habitat, it's on fully exposed rocky slopes.

So the ideal conditions for it in Tucson sort of recreate that type of habitat, maybe a gravel hardscape.

Right here we have it planted under an ironwood tree, but it still receives lots of sunlight throughout the day, along with other very,very arid plants like these columnar cacti and these agave.

When I call this a workhorse species, what I mean is it takes relatively minimal upkeep and produces a maximum benefit.

It is a generalist, pollinator plant so it's going to attract all different kinds of native bees, butterflies, flies, because it flowers multiple times per year, and when it does, it does it pretty prolifically.

Another nice thing about this plant is that being from right here in southern Arizona and being from elevations like 3 to 6,000 feet, it can handle basically our coldest imaginable temperatures here in Tucson.

It's definitely hardy to at least 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

So if you have a hardscape and you're looking for a good pollinator plant, this is a really great option for you.

If you're interested in recreating some of our native habitats in your own backyard, if you're interested in inviting pollinators into your landscape, I highly recommend getting out into nature, seeing what's in flower, seeing what calls to you, and if you don't have time to drive all over the state, here at the museum we have a good number of plants that can serve as examples for what would work in your own backyard landscape.

♪ Upbeat Piano Music (Tom) As spring approaches the Sonoran Desert, you might want to start thinking of new things to plant in your yard to see many more examples of native plants that will thrive in an urban landscape and some you'll want to avoid.

(Tony) Something that you should get rid of whenever you have the chance.

Kill it when you see it.

(Tom) Go to our website azpm.org slash desertplants.

We'll keep adding to this site as we cover new plants.

A breast cancer diagnosis can be very traumatic on many levels.

Healing takes time and the cost of procedures can be financially crippling.

And that's why a husband and wife team of plastic surgeons started a charity where women can get the breast reconstruction they need and it creates a space for them to connect, support one another, and find strength in their shared experience.

♪ SOFT MUSIC (Dr. Mahabir) We knew we wanted to start a practice together and we knew that we'd be successful wherever we went because we wanted to do something different.

We really wanted to create a practice that was something special.

And so we decided to start our practice here and our lives and now our family.

(Dr. Silvia Kurtovic) My mother had breast cancer when I was in my early 20s before I went to med school and she had a pretty difficult time through it and is no longer here and after she passed I really allowed that experience to drive my purpose in life by helping women like her have breast reconstructive procedures that we didn't even know were options back at that time.

(Lynsey) I don't know where they came from and I don't know why I got to find them but they saved everything.

I didn't realize going into it how much recovery heals your soul.

I found Dr. Mohamir and Dr. Kudavik from Google.

Thank God.

Maybe Courtney, how do you explain?

They just have this complete understanding just from a very deep soul level.

They really, truly care about you as a human being.

What they do is so amazing and to have that opportunity for anybody who is able to and who needs it regardless of their situation.

(Dr. Kurtovic) Through our experience, my mom did not receive really good care, kind of rude awakening to the reality of our healthcare system.

Fortunately, ended up in the position where I met Dr. Mahabir and with both of our skills, we create safety for our patients.

For them to be able to move from their cancer and their reconstructive experience so that they can actually heal.

(Dr. Mahabir) When Dr. Kurtovic and I started our practice in Tucson, we quickly realized that there's a lot of women that are either completely uninsured or underinsured.

Technically they have insurance, but the amount of money they would have to pay to receive their care is financially crippling.

We wanted to be able to create a charity that would be able to provide breast cancer reconstruction for these women at no charge to them.

We offer our surgeons services for no charge of course, but we still have to do the surgeries at hospitals.

Those costs, that's what the charity goes to pay for.

(Dr. Kurtovic) We named our charity Reblossom because it symbolizes the shifts and changes we see in our patients where they feel positive and more healed.

And the second aim of our charity was also to serve as a sense of community for women who've had breast reconstruction and provide education, the chance to bond and create friendships and move beyond their cancer.

So this "weekend retreat", Dr. Mahabir and I came up with that.

We had women who underwent breast reconstruction with us experience a special time of bonding.

I felt like these women didn't really see themselves as feeling beautiful and whole again, Even though they've had their treatments, felt like their part of them was missing.

And so how could we bring that element for them to see themselves as a woman again?

And so photography was kind of a natural way to do that.

We came across Caroline King.

(Caroline) Just be in touch with your body, it's not about being a professional model.

(Dr. Kurtovic) The idea was that they would all get their own photo, boudoir photography experience.

We also collaborated with Lola Torch, who owns Hi Tiger.

She creates custom lingerie to help them feel alive again and good in their body after going through all that.

And we called it Body Stories Redefined.

I feel like it's very easy to be very self-conscious.

Yeah, you literally just forget that I'm here.

(Caroline King) It seemed like a really natural fit to have me involved in the project because I have this particular kind of storytelling angle.

I think that intimate portraiture and boudoir, when you do it right, can be really therapeutic and really ends up having this very healing effect on people's relationships with their bodies.

So I sort of feel like a photographer and a therapist at the same time.

(talking to a model) Just kind of relax a little bit.

Gorgeous.

The process started with me having an individual conversation with each of the women.

I tried to get a sense of both what they went through in their medical experience, what their relationship with their body was like before this and how it changed throughout the experience.

It was pretty enlightening to get a sense of the really, truly holistic transformation that they've all been through.

And one of the sort of themes that came out in my conversations with them, a lot of them had pretty traumatic experiences in the healthcare system and with their medical treatment itself.

(Lola Torch) Silvia was insistent, they want it to be custom, they want people to feel special and comfortable in their bodies.

So I had the opportunity to have them come up here to the studio and none of them were shy at all and open to wearing different things even though they have all kinds of scars.

(Courtney) I'm here this weekend to help with the process of healing, of the diagnosis, the surgeries and everything related.

(Lynsey) As we are all sharing our photos and our journeys, that probably has been the most healing for me.

By how much we've been through, we kind of like-- (Courtney) We all feel each other's pain and understand what we've got.

Yeah.

(Mariette) You know, this is still a very internal process.

Only you in your head in the middle of the night are the one, is the one that's dealing with it.

And so this is very cathartic, because you're like, oh, I'm not alone.

There's other people who also are dealing with it.

It's a gift for us, right, to be in front of Caroline.

I think she's got a mission here.

The passion behind the lens is super important.

So I'm really excited.

♪ GENTLE MUSIC (Dr. Kurtovic) Every woman who has breast cancer and then surgery or treatments has multiple levels of trauma.

And so I always like to tell them, this is an opportunity to change the narrative around your surgery and release a lot of that. "

I don't wanna die."

Those were the first words out of my mouth when I hung up the phone and sobbed into my husband's arms.

I had to tell my children what was going on and literally nothing else mattered.

Everything just stopped because all you have to do is you have to fight for your life.

(Stella) I've changed so much since then.

It made me take stock of what is important, who do I want to be, how do I want to show up in the world, how do I want to be a mom for my kids or a partner for the love of my life.

Life is even fuller now.

It really opens your eyes to what you can do, which just wakes you up.

(Lynsey) I am so blessed to have found Dr. Mahabir.

He saved my life, and not because he removed my cancer, but because he put my life back together.

Depression after surgeries, PTSD after surgeries, so much of your body changes, and everyone thinks it's plastic surgery, and I'm like, I don't think that you understand what's happening here.

(Dr. Kurtovic) Breast reconstruction is not simply aesthetics.

A lot of times, patients require radiation, which complicates things, creates a lot of scar tissue and tension on the chest, and so if they're flat, sometimes that can be really symptomatic and they don't have good mobility with their upper body, it limits what they can do, and it also feels bad.

Women often don't know that they don't have to be in pain.

(Dr. Mahabir) A group of people and a grassroots campaign put together a bill that eventually Obama signed into law called the Breast Cancer Patient Education Act.

And it's a very straightforward law that just says if you're a facility that's going to offer breast cancer care, you also have to make patients aware that breast reconstruction is an option and that it's covered by their insurance.

Even that we had to pass a law that people had to talk about it.

So imagine when you get to other health conditions that people aren't talking about, women's cardiovascular risk or other women's health issues at all.

(Dr. Kurtovic) Just globally, women's health has not been something that people want to talk about, from physical health to mental health to all of it.

I mean, me even as a patient, getting ready to have a baby was astonishing and disappointing.

It's not really about promoting health.

It's just, "oh, you're here, what's your problem?"

And just next patient, next patient, next patient.

And so I'm kind of coming into this as a practitioner myself, expecting that maybe, you know, in 2024, the delivery of care is just a little bit better and the education is a little bit better.

I was disappointed and shocked with how little education there is and conversations there are about preventative things, expectations.

It's just something that I think it's important to talk about.

Start that dialogue and keep it going, and find ways to make more and more people aware.

You could start at the beginning and say, yes, getting a mammogram is so scary, but it's so important.

If you have a history of breast cancer in your family, please get genetic testing.

It has been the scariest five years of my life and I wouldn't trade it for a thing.

To know that my body is now not able to produce those cells makes it totally worth it.

Because I caught mine so early, I am done.

I didn't have to go through some of the awful steps that everyone else has to go through and I'm grateful for that.

But women my age aren't getting mammograms.

Regular screening should be a standard for everyone.

Part of it, there's health inequity and health disparity, misunderstanding about it.

People bury their head in the sand, but if you don't find it, it can and will kill you.

Giving people all the information ahead of time so that they can make informed decisions and I don't think that happens as much as it should for various reasons.

I think having this foundation is just to get the word out that there are options.

There's people here.

Whether you choose it or not, that's not the point, but to have the information to make informed decisions.

(Dr. Kurtovic) This is the world that we're raising our daughter to be in and I'm going to teach her, you have to speak and if someone isn't listening, well, find someone else who will.

And when enough of us have come together, perhaps then someone else in the higher up will listen.

You know, why is one of the arms of the charity education?

Because information is power.

Yeah, we have a daughter and we want the world to be better for her when she gets out to experience it.

So, we're trying.

♪ SOFT MUSIC (Courtney) I truly think that talking to these women who I had not met before is what's going to make it enough for me.

And going through this experience of Caroline and her photography and acceptance of our bodies as they are today.

(Dana) The acceptance of where my body is now, I think after this weekend, I'll have a whole other perspective.

(Mariette) Well, there's no describing it until you go through it and you talk to other people and you go... "Oh my God, you know what it's like.

You know what it's like."

(Lynsey) It's pretty amazing to be able to meet other people that have walked in your shoes even though all of our stories are different.

I think this is a lifelong circle of friends.

(Tom) Like what you're seeing on Arizona Illustrated?

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Thank you for joining us here on Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

We'll see you again next week.