Avignon Festival: 'When I Saw the Sea', Ali Chahrour's peaceful and political work
When I Saw the Sea centers on three women. These domestic workers, who came from Africa, met Chahrour through a nongovernmental organization. They, along with others, testified about their harrowing survival conditions at the hands of employers who treated them as slaves. Emerging from the darkness of the stage, they share their stories and simply recount what they experienced, detailing one act of violence and humiliation after another. One, an orphan, was abandoned on the street by her mother, a housemaid, raped by her employer, and describes the abuses suffered by domestic workers: burned with boiling oil, forced into prostitution. Another explains how her hair was cut, she was forced to bathe in front of "Madame," and made to sign a paper forbidding her from having sex.
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