Telling Stories for a Change

A few days ago I rode my bike to the store to get some groceries. While I was there I grabbed a copy of Mi Diario, a daily Panamanian newspaper. I read through the usual stories –complaints of roads in disrepair, homicides, water shortages caused by deforestation, various protests and road blocks, corruption and embezzlement, the latest Miley Cyrus scandal… There didn’t seem to be any good news (I guess the media isn’t usually interested in that). One of the articles was about the AIDS epidemic and how it’s spreading here in the Comarca Ngabe-Buglé. The story said that the disease has been growing among the indigenous population due to a lack of knowledge and awareness of HIV/AIDS, and that people as young as 14 years old have been contracting the disease. Even though the author had some decidedly racist undertones in the article, it shed some light on an important issue. People are contracting HIV without realizing it due to a lack of education on the topic. In general Panama has one of the highest rates of HIV prevalence in Latin America, with almost 1% of adults infected. The numbers of course don’t include all those who live in hard to reach places that haven’t been tested.

The spread of AIDS isn’t the only problem facing rural Panamanians. Simply maintaining normal health and hygiene can be a challenge. Understanding how diseases are transmitted is half the battle. I’ve written before about how the essence of our work here is not just transferring knowledge about diseases, but empowering people to actually make a change in their habits. When that knowledge is connected and applied to everyday life, we can see positive behavior change. One way to make these connections that I’ve seen work very well over the past few years working in Panama is storytelling. That's the good news.

Often in seminars with Peace Corps Volunteers we do these short skits called socio dramas to promote an idea. They usually involve acting out as different characters such as goofy water committee presidents, loud-mouth meeting attendees, crazy old grandmas, or animals. Besides the fact that these dramas are pretty entertaining for the participants (it’s not often they get to see a group of gringos make fools of themselves), they really help connect the audience to the idea we’re trying to get across. That idea could be that hand washing saves lives, that drinking clean water will help your kids grow up strong, or that it’s important to protect yourself from HIV. The stories are situations people can relate to and therefore imagine dealing with it in their own lives. If it’s a good story, there will be an emotional connection that triggers some sort of response – the behavior change.

From this grew an idea. Amber, my accomplice in many health seminars and projects, decided to use her background in theatre and apply storytelling to promote health in rural Panama. It wasn’t hard for her to convince me to come on board. Often those with the most potential to be change makers in their communities are the youth, since they don’t yet have the hardened habits developed over a lifetime. Amber designed a theatre camp to train youth to become health promoters in their own communities. The idea was to develop different short plays for groups to perform that promoted some kind of health topic. The themes included water treatment, hand washing, and HIV prevention. All the students had vacation from school that week, and Volunteers brought groups of 4 or 5 kids 12-18 years old from their communities all over the country. They traveled (some for several days!) to the town of Alto Caballero in the Comarca Ngabe-Buglé. Over the span of four days they prepared to perform these pre-scripted stories and did a show on the last day for locals of Alto Caballero. As we were planning in the weeks leading up to the camp, we didn’t really know how it would turn out. Nobody had ever done anything like this in Panama before. We were in for a pleasant surprise.

Since most environmental health volunteers have more engineering background than theatre experience, those of us helping out with the camp needed some training beforehand. Help was solicited from two theatre people from the States, an actress and a director. They came and gave us a crash course on acting, directing, and stage managing for performances, and then helped out during the camp. To be honest, acting is not my forte.  I don’t enjoy being the center of attention. Luckily the past few years I’ve had plenty of experience with looking ridiculous in front of people, nonverbal communication, and navigating awkward situations. So that helped. In the end the engineers were transformed into theatre people.

When we finally started the camp, I was matched up to be the director for the group of indigenous kids from the Darién. I was excited because I could relate to them, having lived a similar lifestyle for my first two years in Panama. Their script was about how to purify drinking water. Sounds boring, right? Not when Rambo is involved! The play is about a kid who gets attacked by an evil intestinal worm villain, but Rambo saves the day with different kinds of water treatment methods. I worked with them to develop their characters, memorize their lines, make costumes and props, and figure out scene changes.

Throughout the camp we had group sessions to practice acting, speaking clearly, and just play fun and active games. One of the biggest challenges was to get kids to overcome the fear of performing in front of people without getting embarrassed. We had a short skit where the “shame monster” came and discouraged a girl from running for student council. But the supportive words of a friend made the monster shrivel up and disappear. All the participants were asked to write down all the mean or discouraging things they are told by voices in their head (aka their shame monster) when they try to do something new or intimidating. Then we put all the papers in an envelope and sealed them away. They wouldn’t have to worry about getting embarrassed or being made fun of at this camp.

On the last day of camp came the final performance with all the plays. We set up a stage in the outdoor area of the school and put out a few dozen chairs for the audience. Giant pots of rice and chicken were cooked up to invite people to enjoy a free meal before show. As the sun went down, the kids prepared all their costumes and props, the excitement building. In the darkness the stage was illuminated with Christmas lights strung from the ceiling. The principal of the school let us borrow a sound system with a microphone, and I emceed the show. There were a bunch of additional performances between the plays including singing, dancing, and reciting poetry. We started out with Fidel, a little guy with a big voice, who sang “Quiero Ser Aventurero.” All the plays had great energy, and our actors did an excellent job portraying the scenes. It was a night and day difference from where they started at the beginning of the week. The audience continued to grow throughout the show, until there was a crowd outside the school blocking the street. At the end of the performances everyone in the camp, including the Volunteers, did a song and choreographed dance. The song was the very popular “Bailando” by Enrique Iglesias but the lyrics were changed to be about hand washing. As is Panamanian custom, a few people had to give little speeches at the end for thanks and conclusion. One older gentleman from the audience came up and said the show was fantastic, and that we could’ve charged lots of money for tickets if we did it in Panama City. He called it an experience that both the kids and the audience would never forget, and said that the information about water, hygiene, and HIV was very important for their community. He thanked Peace Corps for sharing with them and congratulated the kids. We couldn’t have made a better conclusion ourselves. After that we turned on the music and had a mass dance party to celebrate a job well done.

In the end the camp was a big success. It was a very rewarding week seeing the youth learn and feel accomplished after working hard at something. Fidel, the one who sang the opening song, told me after the show, “I wasn’t listening to my shame monster because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get up and sing in front of everybody.” Another participant said it was the best vacation he’d ever had. The best part was seeing how much they enjoyed it once they gained confidence, after not being so sure about things at the beginning of the week. They were also able to meet and make friends with other kids from different cultures and backgrounds, and have a once in a lifetime experience. Now they realize that they can be health promoters in their communities, raising awareness for important health issues. All this just by telling some stories.