Narratives of pain.

This weekend I decided to go visit a few friends whom I had not seen since the xenophobic attacks started in Johannesburg. I was hoping to get a few contacts who would be willing to share their experiences of the xenophobic violence. I intended to use the stories as part of an exhibition on xenophobia that I am working on at work. Idecided to visit a friend who had said she said she was going to be having a birthday party for her daughter. I showed up later on in the day expecting to be met by merry faces only to find a house filled with distraught faces. Everyone was speaking in hushed tones. They were discussing a neighbour who had gone missing when the violence started. He had been found dead.

The rest of the evening was dominated by discussions of xenophobia. What stood out above the facts and speculations of the discussion was the uncertainty,fear and pain in peoples' voices. This was one aspect of the project I had taken for granted; the emotions and feelings of the victims. As I sat there, I wondered how I was going to deal with the pain associated with the whole violent episode. Some of my key concerns at that point included the following:
-how do I begin to ask someone to share what is probably a raw wound at the moment?
-how will the stories that I hear affect me?
-will I relate to what others have experienced so far?
-how will my own feelings influence my handling of the whole exhibition?

The major challenge for me concerning the exhibition will be telling the story as I hear it. For me, the victims are humans, they are family and friends and I want their stories to sound like the experiences of living people. How then will I translate what I hear into narratives that capture the pain in the voices of the affected?