We are Waltham shares laughter and tears at Charles River Museum

Six Waltham residents perched on the edges of their chairs at the side of the stage as around a hundred of their neighbors filled the seats in the Boiler Room at the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation on Friday evening. Eager and nervous in equal measure, the six were about to share highly personal stories to a roomful of friends and strangers. They were the stars of We Are Waltham, a storytelling event created by Chandreyee Lahiri to “build a stronger sense of connection and community” in the city. 

Among the evening’s “tellers” were immigrants like Monire Jalili, who grew up in Iran and now teaches at Bentley University, and Angel Okumu, a Ugandan native who founded a skin and hair care product business. Jalili shared how she learned to love her unruly hair, while Okumu spoke of furnishing her first apartment with cast-off items on the street, including a mattress that introduced an unwelcome visitor: bedbugs. 

Bicycling advocate John Allen regaled the audience with tales of lessons he learned as he rode his bicycle around Boston. 

The night also included Boston University professor Harold Cox, who told of his early missteps in launching a radio career. His tale set him up to declare he had “other fish to fry,” an expression from his native Texas.

Max Krasnow, a transplant from California, recounted to the crowd his search for the sperm donor who was his biological father.

Waltham native JuJu Simmons shared her challenges as a person with autism and how a teacher showed her how to advocate for herself when she got to college. 

The evening was filled with roars of laughter and sighs of empathy. The tellers and Lahiri received warm applause. Lahiri announced she would be taking a break from the WaW shows at the museum, but planned to continue producing smaller WaW evenings, dubbed “Wee WaW,” at the Common Good cafe in the coming year.

Past shows are available to watch on YouTube.