Yesterday, July 13, I witnessed a Truth-Telling Ceremony that six of my classmates and I helped organize alongside South African human rights activist Shirley Gunn and fire survivor Sindiswa “Sindi” Nunu. The ceremony brought together fifteen people affected by the 1986 fire in Cape Town’s informal settlements during apartheid. For many of the participants, this was the first time they had been given a space to share what happened to them.
Before the ceremony, I had already encountered the fire in many ways since it is at the heart of our final project. I had read the limited information available online. I had heard Shirley explain the political and historical circumstances surrounding it. I had listened to Sindi describe losing her home and the ways that the fire continued to shape her life decades later. Each source helped me understand the event more clearly. However, none of them prepared me for hearing fifteen survivors speak, as much as I thought it would.
During the ceremony, I was responsible for audio. I thought of my role as primarily technical: making sure the sound was being recorded, making sure I could hear everyone clearly, and essentially just listening to everyone’s testimony. Yet, as the ceremony continued, I realized that working with audio placed me in an unexpectedly intimate position. Through my headphones, it sometimes felt as though each person was speaking directly to me.
I heard every detail.
I heard voices become quieter as people approached the most painful parts of their stories. I heard deep breaths taken before difficult memories could be spoken aloud. I heard voices crack, sentences trail off, and long pauses fill the space when words were no longer enough. Even when I could not understand every word because some participants spoke in isiXhosa, the emotion in their voices required no translation. I had not shed a tear even once during this trip. That changed during the ceremony.
The testimonies revealed things that the facts couldn’t. Thinking about all these people have lost because of this atrocity and the fact that they’re still going was incredibly moving. These are only 15 out of the approximately 70,000 people affected by the fire. I began to really understand the importance of the work I am doing, the number of lives I could change and the voices I can represent. I understood that we’re doing exactly what we should be doing. We are doing the right thing. I am inspired to make sure that I do these people justice by contributing to crafting a story that can make real change.