When “words create worlds”
April 19, 2010 – Selloane Mokuku tells us about the theatre based appreciative inquiry held in Lesotho around HIV and AIDS.
Satane (Devil) ♫
Satane (Devil) ♪ tloha ho rona ha u bone rea rapela (get away from us, can’t you see that we are praying)
Ha u b (Don’t you) ♫
E tšoare! (Hold it!)
Silence followed, as the voice reframed the words:
Molimo (God) ♫ ♫
Molimo (God) ♪ tloho ho rona hobane re ea rapela (come to us because we are praying)
Hobane re (because we) ♫♫ …
Another silence followed, this time accompanied by uncomfortable laughter.
People looked at each other, mortified, but then, within a few seconds, were trying out the new words in the old tune: “God come to us because we are praying”.
The people here were participants of a theatre residency geared towards designing an evidence-informed multimedia strategy for creating awareness on health, HIV and AIDS in relation to sex work in Lesotho; under the project HI Virus Prevention among Sex Workers (HIPS). As participants, we felt embarrassed because we had been introduced to a new way of engaging through a theoretical framework, Appreciative Inquiry (AI).
According to the initiators, AI, “searches for the positive core; that is those strengths that are often hidden and or underutilised”. At the theatre residency, AI was facilitated by Ntate Mafole Sematlane, who had warned that because AI challenges people to think on positive terms, we might find ourselves reverting to the old ways of finding problems and not looking for opportunities. In this regard, the appreciative centre for AI concurs with Sematlane that “while positive in focus, the appreciative approach does not avoid problems; rather it re-focuses energy away from ideas of blame and the cause of problems to possibilities and solutions”.
Perhaps in “re-focusing energy away” from Satane to Molimo, some positive signs of a paradigm shift were starting to show. Or perhaps a reminder on one of the principles of AI, that “reality is socially created, through language and conversations’, or an alignment of strengths as encapsulated in the Sesotho proverb ea bohlale o ithuta ka mehla (a wise one learns all the time) ensued.
Given the context of engaging in conversations around the plight of sex work in Lesotho and beyond, I have been thinking about the notion that “language and image describe reality, or language and image create reality”. For example, “I’ll believe it when I see it” or “I’ll see it when I believe it”. I am inclined to agree with the latter. Possibly because I have experienced working collaboratively with sex workers and actors, where in the learning process, individual experiences had to be appreciated and taken seriously, because we were all in a “collaborative, strengths-based approach to change”, a principle similar to the Winter/Summer Institute (WSI) in Theatre for Development theatre-making process.
According to the initiators, the WSI is developing a way to create collaborative group performance based on a phased structure of ensemble effort. Imperative in the approach therefore is to gather information and to access material, to generate improvisational responses to the material and to shape the work for public performances.
“I am fourteen years old” shared one girl, when we took to the streets of Maseru to gather information on the plight of sex workers. “My parents passed on two years ago and one of my friends took pity on me by introducing me to sex work so that at least I could care for my siblings. Unfortunately it is not as rosy as she promised; each day is a life-threatening struggle,” cried the girl.
Bearing the situation of the girl in mind, we entered into improvisation exercises where we continued the new tune: God come to us because we are praying.
Also turning to follow on organisational development consultant, Robert Marchak’s distinctions of what he terms classical organisational development (OD) and new OD, where he argues on emphasis on behaviour change and what one does (classical OD) as opposed to emphasis on changing the mindset and how one thinks (New OD).
I favour the latter and posit that HIPS should be the measured on the new OD.
I choose the latter because I learned about the power of words from the scripture, in a situation where Jesus intervened in a case of a woman who was caught in the act of adultery (John 8: 2-11). “He that is without sin among you; let him first cast a stone to her” says Jesus. We learn the “stone throwers dropped their stones”. As we continue conversations around the plight of sex workers, I am looking forward to conversations that will propel me to “see it” because I believe re-focusing our energy towards the positive intervention for and with sex workers will inspire sweeter melodies to our milieu. Those already encapsulated in the Lesotho Vision 2020.