Today marks one week until I’m back home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The past few days have been incredibly hectic. The CHW group has been spending day and night trying to figure out how to both logically and seamlessly intertwine the stories of our 3 CHWs into one story compelling enough to advocate for greater training on behalf of the beloved CHW community. During this time, I’ve had a lot of questions—Would Windy, Hosea, and Agnes like the film we are putting together? Would they have wished we would have done something different with the stories they’ve shared with us? What if nothing comes from this film? What if it doesn’t help them get training?
I’ve felt a bit conflicted putting together a film without the input of Windy, Hosea, and Agnes throughout production. We’ve been graciously entrusted with their stories, hardships, and aspirations, and I feel incredibly grateful that we’ve been given the opportunity to share their stories and possibly help them in some way; however, when I’m sitting behind the screen of my computer staring at the files on adobe premier, I can’t help but feel a degree of hesitancy flush through my fingers. In trying to create the film, we’ve been cutting audios from different interviews and interspersing images and videos from different days together. While I understand and appreciate this art of storytelling and visual media, I can’t shake this feeling of conflict. Who am I to decide how their story should be told? The audios, images, and videos that we’ve chosen to cut from our video represent so much meaning, strength, and vulnerability; in some ways, cutting these moments from our film feels like a disservice to the CHWs and patients who’ve so beautifully shared them with us.
Agnes shared such a beautiful and moving story with me about what wrestling means to her; as a single mom, Agnes watches female wrestling to give her strength to continue working through difficult days, even years without compensation for her work. Agnes told me this story on our first visit to Hammanskraal, and a day hasn’t gone by where I don’t think of Agnes and her wrestling. Watching wrestling—an act that many do for pleasure—is in fact Agnes’ lifeline, what allows her to have the strength to wake up every day. Agnes’ story has made me rethink how I perceive the hobbies and pastimes of others—what might seem like a mundane pastime or activity could be the reason someone has the strength and willpower to wake up the next morning. I felt incredibly guilty about my initial ignorance when Agnes told me she enjoys watching wrestling—I thought it was simply a favorite pastime activity, much like how my father enjoys watching Brazilian soccer, or a way to destress after a long day’s work—never did I imagine that wrestling acts as the sole source of the strength Agnes needs to continue every day.
Eliana and I spent hours desperately trying to weave this story into our film; despite our best efforts, we simply couldn’t get it to flow with the rest of our storyline. I wanted others to be able to connect with Agnes, to empathize with her struggles, and, importantly, be able to reflect and learn from Agnes’ story like I did.
Yesterday, I was met with the difficult decision to cut this moment from the timeline of our film; I stared at the timeline for minutes, trying to inch my finger closer and closer to the “delete” key on my computer. The “delete” key never held as much weight—I often use this key to delete typos or rework essays, but I’ve never had to delete someone’s story, let alone their story of survival.
For the sake of our film project, Eliana and I brought ourselves to delete Agnes’ story from the timeline. I went to bed thinking about other ways we could weave Agnes’ story into the broader context of our film; I even tried again this morning, only to have to face the dreaded “delete” key once again.
As Jonathan and Paul said—sometimes in filmmaking, we have to kill our darlings. When I first heard them say this, I didn’t quite understand the weight and conflict that existed behind this statement. I know that during my last week here, I will continue to think of Agnes and her wrestling, much like I probably will for the rest of my life. Although Agnes’ wrestling story cannot be a part of our film, I wished to share it here so it could exist somewhere beyond the folders of Adobe Premiere or the silver, rigid corners of our shared google hard drive, and perhaps, to prompt others to reflect on their own perceptions of others pastimes or hobbies and the quick and often flawed judgements we come to if we don’t reflect on our own privilege first.
