Four Parables: Guatemala Update 2

Check out Olivia's second Guatemala update from June 4.

Hello all!

Greetings from Antigua. This week and next will be a bit mad- we have a show to create with the girls, Guatemalan artists to meet, and some volunteer work here in Antigua. This morning we worked with malnourished babies- the kids today were up to 7, but none looked older than  4.  Sunday we are serving dinner at a local homeless shelter.  Ida (of Ida's Hjelpefond) always provides at least two hot meals at the shelter when she is here, and I am fortunate to overlap with one.

A wonderful moment in rehearsal.

But....drumroll...the big news is about the play! The girls at Oasis had homework to come up with a short piece about lack of love, and we got some great stuff.  Yesterday, the girls workshopped the four parables they made about 'la falta de amor', turning them into fairy tales with strong messages.  

Tale 1: A little girl lives with her mother in the mountains. They are a very poor family, so she goes out to beg for food and to forage in the basura (the trash dump). Underneath old clothes, wrappers, and other discarded items she finds a broken doll. She sees that although it is broken, it can be made better.  So she picks it up (after a little game of Dead and Alive) and takes it home. Her mother is appalled, but the girl convinces her and they fix it up, clean it off, and sell it for more money. This becomes their lucrative business- selling remade dolls to local children.

Tale 2: There are four animals in the forest- a proud and fierce lion, a big strong bear, a small ant who does not think well of himself or anyone else, and a wise worm. The ant, lion and bear are fighting about a beautiful flower, each speaking too loud to hear the others. The worm comes upon this ruckus, and asks what they are doing. When he hears, he notes that the flowers are common in the forest and that each animal could have more than one flower if they work at it. After pondering that, the animals all agree that they should all enjoy the flower and dedicate themselves to cultivating even more.

Tale 3: There is a town in the mountains where everyone fights and nobody cares about one another.  Gangs fight for power, and the town is a mess. Three friends come to town, see the situation, and know that they can do something about it. They go to each person individually, offering love and friendship instead of fighting. Eventually they convince the whole town that it is better to meet together in faith than fight.

Tale 4: There is one tree in the forest who stands alone. It is proud of itself, thinking itself the strongest and best tree around. One day, a woodcutter comes along and cuts it down easily.  Then the woodcutter goes to a grove nearby, where all the trees have grown together.  He tries and he tries to cut the trees down, but he can't - the trees are united!

The trees.

The girls have started blocking these stories.  We have four directors/authors who have some distinct ideas about what they want to say and how they want to say it.  Christina and I found a framing device: two sisters reading each other these stories from a book of parables to calm one another down.  







I am so proud of these girls for their focus, for these incredible thoughts, and their strength. I wish you could all hear the conversation we had yesterday about the messages and themes of these stories. I was blown away.

More to come!
Olivia

Women Against Women, Women for Women

Zan Zid Zan, Zan Barai Zan (Women Against Women, Women For Women) is the name of the play to be performed by the women’s troupe of the Nangarhar Theater Company. It goes up tomorrow at the Support Center for Widows. The script for this incredible play was essentially written by the six young pioneers of the women’s troupe. The story centers around two girls, Freshta and Nafisa, and their families as they negotiate decisions around education, early marriage and how to respond to gossiping neighbors.

The problem tree that the women created.

Freshta has just graduated from high school and been accepted into the medical program at Kabul University. She is the first person from her school to be granted admission into this highly competitive program, which usually happens only through nepotism and not merit. At the start of the show, Freshta’s parents, who are also educated, are fully supportive of their daughter until two neighborhood gossips purposefully sabotage their plans. The pair of backbiters, who ban their own daughters from going to school, spread rumors about Freshta and how her moral character is being corrupted through education, from dressing immodestly to running off with boys.  Her father overhears this and, worried about the family’s honor and reputation, suddenly reconsiders his approval.

Meanwhile, Freshta’s friend and neighbor, 12 year-old Nafisa is facing her own challenges. Her father, who is illiterate and poor, decides to marry her off to a very wealthy man, who is 40 years-old and already married with children.  He reasons that this would rescue their family from poverty. He forbids Nafisa from going to school, dismisses the desperate pleas of his wife against the marriage and violently abuses both of them.  Freshta learns about her young friend’s trials and seeks the help of one of her former teachers, a staunch advocate of women’s rights. The teacher visits Nafisa’s father at home and tries to convince him to cancel the marriage and allow his daughter to complete her studies. She points out girls’ rights to education and its merits, as specified in the Koran, and the minimum age (18) for a girl to marry, as written in Afghan civil law. Nafisa’s father is not persuaded. Meanwhile, the two gossips continue with their chatter and sabotage.

The mothers then intervene on behalf of their daughters and seek the moral guidance of the mullah.  He agrees to help.  One day, when all the men gather in the masjid for the mullah’s routine talk, he speaks about education and marriage. He reminds the men that it’s a farz or moral duty of every Muslim to seek education, both men and women. And that the Koran also decrees that a girl should be of mature age to marry and cannot be forced to do so against her will. Eventually, the fathers have a change of heart and allow their daughters to go to school. The girls are overjoyed and celebrate. The two back-biters also reassess their behavior and realize that it’s un-Islamic to gossip and that, as the idiom goes, gossiping about someone amounts to eating the corpse of your own brother.

The schedule of performances in Jalalabad is as follows:

4/23 – The Support Center for Widows
4/25 – AFCECO Safe House for Children
4/26 – Jalalabad Women’s Prison
4/27 – Women’s shura (council) in Surkhrod district
4/29 – Afghan Women’s Educational Center (AWEC), Behsud district

May we break a leg tomorrow! Stay tuned…

Sahar

What a Difference an Election Makes: Myanmar Update 1

Michael and Joanna left for Myanmar last Sunday to continue BST's collaboration with Thukhuma Khayethe (Arts Travelers).  Here is Michael's first update from January18.

Greetings from Yangon, Myanmar.

What a difference an election makes.  Today we met with our local collaborator, Thila Min of Art Travelers Theatre, and he was fairly giddy about how much has changed in the last few months.  The election was 4 or 5 months ago -- that is, the military regime handed over the government to "the people", though it was indeed one of the military favored parties that won most of the parliamentary seats. Since then, they have freed many political prisoners, Obama sent Hilary for chats with the government and the USA opened diplomatic relationships (we had an embassy here, but not an ambassador).   As Thila Min reports, people can now shout "freedom" in the streets, and say Aung San Suu Kyi's name without fear of imprisonment (until recently they had to refer to her as "the lady"; she being the opposition party leader lately free of her house arrest).  Heck, I just realized I can GOOGLE Aung San Suu Kyi's name and get results -- couldn't do that before!

They can now visit the websites You Tube and the BBC and Voice of America, previously all off limits. They notice there are WAY more tourists in town than ever before.  In fact that was a problem for us on our first night-- our two usual hotels were all booked, and all have raised their prices $5 per night.  We will be checking in to our favorite, Kung Lay Inn, tomorrow night.  We stopped by there and they still had our brochure on the desk from our stay in 2009! 

Our task here is to do some serious work on a play we've suggested to our collaborators in Arts Travelers: Ben Johnson's Volpone, a Shakespeare-era comedy about greed and con games (kinda resonated with us re: our collapsing US and world economy).  We're using the basic plot-line, but we'll update the language and situations.

We've been working with Arts Travelers in two projects, the last one being our tour around Yangon and the Mon and Katrin States with the Hand-Washing Show for kids.  Our hope is our version of Volpone will interest the sponsors of international collaborations to underwrite a tour of the show in Myanmar and the USA next year.  Their company has grown from the four members we worked with in 2010 to the 10 members they have now.  We'll meet the new actors for the first time tomorrow morning.

That’s the news at present.  We're pretty excited about being here and working with this energetic group.  

More to come,

Michael