Tag Archive: theater
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People’s Settlements, Not Slums
1 CommentMy first real working week has proved a whirlwind of navigating the seemingly endless number of community organizations that Hakijamii works with. As the first AP Fellows with Hakijamii, we have been trying to create a feasible work plan for our time here. Hakijamii’s work is vast- the best I can compare it to is a Kenyan-focused Amnesty International. We began by meeting with several of the networks that Hakijamii supports- the Nairobi People’s Settlement Network (NPSN) and the Soweto Forum. NPSN is large and incorporates 87 groups ranging across the 168 slums of Nairobi. Soweto Forum is geographically focused in Soweto village, Kibera, and is comprised of about 18 groups.
Our first real site visit was to Kasarani, located in the Korogocho slum, several kilometers out of Nairobi. Marcy, the Community Officer at Hakijamii, took us on the visit.
Marcy is from Kibera, and provided us with a wealth of stories about life in the slums and the difficulties that people in these communities are facing. Perhaps the most important thing that she informed us about was the proper way to refer to these areas. The word “slum” is used regularly- by the media, NGOs, every day citizens- so I assumed this was an appropriate way to describe the settlements. In fact, Marcy informed us, in the past people in the communities had no problem referring to their homes as slum areas. That is, until they discovered the connotations behind the word “slum”- meaning a place unfit for humans to live, a place suited for pigs. This was an insult to the people living there. Though residents were fully aware of the unsanitary and harsh conditions when compared to cosmopolitan Nairobi, the settlements were still livable- people have been living there for decades, after all!
Therefore, residents call their communities “people’s settlements,” and I will do my best to refer to the areas this way. Change must come from the bottom-up, from those the most affected; a small step outsiders can take is to reduce the stigma associated with slum areas by referring to them as the communities do.
Kasarani village is located right next to the Nairobi city dump. I won’t say much on this subject, as Louis has blogged about it, except to say that this is both a blessing and a curse to those who live around it. There are obvious health implications of literally living in the dump- high levels of lead in your blood, respiratory problems, higher rates of problem pregnancies. But, the dump provides livelihood for thousands of people (5,000, according to one blog post). Every day, residents of this area scour it in search of items to resell- plastic bags, appliances, anything they can. The Kenyan government has been discussing the removal of the dump for some time, and the debate between long-term health effects v. being able to buy food today continues. (See pictures below of Kasarani and plastic bags from the dumpsite)
Alleyway in Kasarani, Korogocho
Plastic bags drying after being washed, Dandora dump, Kasarani
Despite the conditions, within this community are an abundance of organizations doing incredible work. We attended a meeting held by the secretary of NPSN, Samuel Njoroge (see picture below, with Louis Rezac), where about 17 groups came to discuss their efforts using theater and entertainment to illustrate the different issues facing the settlements- i.e. HIV/AIDS, water and sanitation, education. Jungle Africa is Samuel’s theater group, and they often perform at soccer matches and other community events. He said that lecturing people is ineffective in getting messages across, but if you entertain them they will listen.
Samuel Njoroge explaining NPSN's work to Louis Rezac
As Americans we might think of ourselves as educated and interested in learning about the world’s issues without the need to be entertained to do so. But how does the average American become aware of the world’s troubles in the first place? I’m thinking of movies like Blood Diamond and Slumdog Millionaire, and famous artists who rap about the injustice of the ghetto (we were also treated to a performance by a Kasarani rapper while there- see link to video below).
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEkc-n1demk
We shall be attending a Jungle Africa performance sometime in the future, so stay tuned.
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Crossing the Lines
Leave a CommentThe past few days have been extremely busy at WIB. Activists have been coming in from Spain, Italy, India, and Sweden, just to name a few places, in preparation for the trip to Srebrenica for the genocide commemoration. In July of 1995, 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed by units of the Army of Republika Srpska under the command of General Ratko Mladic. Srebrenica had been declared a “safe area” by the United Nations, and 400 armed Dutch peacekeepers were present at the time.
There are many events leading up to Saturday’s trip. Today, there was an all-day conference on the topic of transitional justice. It was awesome. I thought every single part of the day was fascinating. I will write more about different aspects of the conference in blogs in the near future, but for now, I wanted to focus on the play, entitled Crossing the Lines, that closed the conference. The conference was held at Dah Theater in Belgrade. The motto of Dah Theater is, “In the contemporary world, destruction and violence can only be opposed by the creation of sense”. Since their founding in 1991, the group has tried to address questions regarding the role theater should play in times of darkness. They tackle such questions through experimental theater, research, and workshops. The group strives to be independent, which has unfortunately but predictably (or unfortunately predictably) been a challenge throughout the years. Rumor has it that the current government wants to shut the group down for good.
There was a panel discussion with the actresses during the day, and it was clear that they were truly passionate about the power of art to change everything. Crossing the Lines is based on a Women In Black publication entitled “Women’s Side of War”, which chronicles in harrowing details the stories of women affected by the Bosnian war. For the play, around fifteen stories were selected from the book and adapted into a theater production. One actress commented, “the show helped me make peace with myself. With my country, with my feelings of guilt and responsibility.”
The first scene of the play
Although most of the play was in Serbian/Bosnian, the emotions were palpable. (sidenote: I am apparently still completely incompetent with my Serbian phone because even though I thought I had put it on silent, it went off during the play…mortifying!) My words can’t possibly do the play justice, so suffice it to say that it was an extremely powerful play that really delved into the human aspects of the conflict. Even though Women In Black focuses more on direct activism while Dah Theater primarily utilizes theatrical tools, they share common goals and visions, so it was really cool and inspiring to see them partner to create such a moving work of art. I kind of saw it as a cycle of social action. Women In Black put together the book, members of Dah read it and are inspired to develp a play based on it, WIB members go to see the play and are in turn moved and inspired by the stories. At the end of the day, the stories still take center-stage. This was the third time one of the activists saw the play, and she said it was her best experience with it because she could really feel the emotions this time. She explained that the first time she saw the play, the actresses were so emotionally distraught with the subject matter in the days preceding their performances, that their performances became compeltely rational and void of emotion. They were afraid to allow themselves into their work. Yet, it seems like this is the rare professional endeavor where it is both welcome and necessary to allow personal emotions to permeate the craft.
The last scene of the play: "Salt"
The poem below is from “Women’s Side of War”:
Crossing the lines
Out of lines
Means different colors
Sounds
Ways
Crossing the days
The thoughts
Souls
Crossing every time
Every day
Crossing together
The senseless war
Crossing history
So They put the lines
Words of women’s future
Remind us
Remembering life in peace
Crossing the south and the north
The east and the west
Balkan
We walk across the earth
Out of lines
When we see wach other
We know
We are together
When we think of each other
Miles far from
Together
Remembering our dreams and goals
The wholeness
Despite lines and sides
Senseless war
Wear not alone
Imagine
Out of lines.
