Orphans and Compassion

(Notes on a South Florida Sun-Sentinel series.)

© 2006 Mike Stocker

The topic of Caribbean AIDS Orphans is either a reporter’s dream or a compassion-fatigue cesspool sure to make people run for the hills. That was the main hurdle when the hashing out of the story began. Tim, the reporter, had notebooks full of rich (but potentially brain-numbing) material. He and his editor, Cyndi, wanted to engage people, not make them glaze over more than they already had simply by seeing the words AIDS and Orphans. I was invited to be their story coach, sort of cheering section and safety net-combined, there to push them to try new things but bounce them back if they started going over a cliff.

            Here’s what happened, and what altered my view (and theirs) about challenges writers face with compassion-fatigue subjects:

Still in the field in Haiti, Tim started sending us e-mail dispatches of raw interviews with kids he met. The interviews were filled with a kind of rough-hewn poetry – kids trying to describe life at its most desperate. It was clear to us all, with Tim’s first dispatch, that the kids’ voices made the (literal) heart of the story.

In editing down the interviews, we listened for the place where the kids talked from their gut rather than from self-consciousness. We made a hard and fast rule: The stories would be told solely from the point of view of the kids—no adults allowed—and where possible, in their own voices. The result, to my mind (and to the minds of numerous awards judges), Tim’s orphan stories were fresh, emotional, engaging, and full of lessons for us as journalists – the big one being: Don’t just look for the quote. Listen for the voice.

            Our inspiration was the beautiful book by Anna Deavere Smith, Talk To Me,  (which I think every journalist should read), in which the actor/ playwright goes on search for the “authentic voice” in American culture and public discourse. She holds that people (anyone, politicians, your uncle Charlie) start to speak authentically when they move past the scripted, the learned, the self-conscious, and tap into where they really live.

 “Our modern American problem is not lack of communication,” Smith says in Talk to Me. “The problem is a disconnect between the heart of a voice and the purpose that the voice is meant to serve. The public voice repeats the status quo. And most voices that we hear have been adjusted by the time they get to us. We rely so much on mass communication, and mass communication controls much of what gets to is. It’s very hard to hear an original voice. We are very far from the personal, the one-to-one, the human touch.”

            She could be describing newspaper writing, with its fly-paper reliance on quoting Very Important Officials about the state of things.

            Tim’s orphans don’t do that. They have original voice.

Favorites:

Fritz Junior, 15, street child :

"My mother is in the Dominican Republic. ...

My father died of AIDS. My uncle was the one who told me.

            His hair was straight and fine, and he had a lot of sores all over his body.

            He would talk to me about it, but then one day he just laid in bed and died.

            My uncle is now in New York. So now I live in the street. ...

            I wash cars, clean windows and make dice to sell out of dog bones.

            Sometimes I get sick, a fever, a headache.

            And sometimes I have cramps when it's too cold in the street.

            They abuse me, the older kids, the men.

            They burn you with matches when you sleep …”

 

15-year-old with HIV

            "I don't go to school. I used to go. I made it to fifth grade.

            I like history because it has a lot of good stories.

            It tells you what happened to our country before. ...

            It tells you about our heroes who used to fight for independence.

            My mother died in September 2004.

            She was sick for a long time. ...

            My father died in October 2004, right after my mother. ...

            People like to die a lot around here.

            It's a nice area, there's not a lot of noise.

            But whenever people die, people come out of their houses and look. When I get up in the morning, I brush my teeth. I cook, and then I drink my medicine.

            Then I go to the fields and look for wood so my grandmother can cook supper.

            Then I roam around the village …”

  

Odeline Victor, oldest daughter in family whose father died of AIDS

            "When I was in third grade I wanted to be a doctor.

            And now, when I see that I'm 19 and not even finished with my grade school, I see that's an impossible dream.

            It would cost too much money and take too much time.

            I would like to try to sing and just look for any other work or training I can get.

            Maybe computers, maybe sewing.

            I would like to sing for God, and sing about nature and all the things that inspire me.

            I want to work, though, because the only way to achieve in life is through working.

            So how can I achieve anything if I cannot find work? My mother doesn't want me to work as a maid or take any odd jobs because she wants me to learn something special.

            When I wake up in the morning I pray, and during the day I have these physics books that my brother found.

            It's about electricity.

            So I work in it, do the exercises because I don't have anything else to do.

            On Wednesdays, I go to church and sing.

            I used to play volleyball, but I don't play volleyball anymore. I think it's the economic situation of my family, it's just depressing.

            I often feel depressed. I don't feel like doing anything. It's not necessarily that my friends look at me badly because my father died, but I feel I missed something in my life.

            Instead of progressing, I regress in so many ways.

            But I feel like I'm not giving up yet.

            I have goals. I want to achieve something.

            I don't just know how yet.

            I used to be close to my father.

            He showed me to how to start a car.

            He was a good friend of mine."