contemporary clown circuit

Clowns Without Borders and War Child Canada, November 2011

2011-12-30T12:34:00.003-05:00

For this project, Clowns Without Borders partnered with War Child Canada in Haiti where WCC has been working since February 2010, focusing on child protection and gender based violence. WCC doesn't work directly in the field but through local partners and community projects. Their staff is composed of technicians, trainers, and psychologists and everyone is Haitien except for one french employee and one employee from Sierra Léon.

There is not a strong hummanitarian culture of protection work in Haiti and few funds are alloted towards protection work.

In Port au Prince, WCC works in the neigborhood of Carrefour Feuille with 5 Youth Clubs (Cleaced, JEZI, Ajevich, GEM, and EKT) and with a local organization called APROSIFA which has 4 centers. In Jacmel, WCC works with 3 Child Safe Centers (in Cayes Jacmel, Marigo, and Coq Chanté) and with a local organization which focuses on sexual and gender based violence called Femmes Décidés.

We are four clowns: Béné (French), Jeff (American), Marykristn (Quebecquoise), and myself, Selena (American, living in france). We begin our collaboration with WCC by going to Jacmel to tour our show with just the four of us clowns as a way to introduce our work. We perform for children from the 3 centers and we do a performance for an adult audience of mostly women at a sensibilisation event organized by Femmes Décidés. Perhaps Clowns Without Borders will return to Jacmel for a residency another time.

We also perform our show upon our return to Port au Prince at the lunch break on our first day of trainings. It serves as an introduction in clown, both to the group of 24 activity leaders we are training and to the community where we are in residency for 7 days.

War Child Canada has invited Clowns Without Borders to Port of Prince to train members of the youth clubs who teach activities in their communities. WCC wants out training to give these activity leaders skills to have fun with the children they are teaching. These activity leaders are volunteers and will be intervening 1-2 hrs a week, or up to 4 hrs a week depending on their availability and commitement. WCC wants to bring something new, special, and different to the communities via their project with Clowns Without Borders. Their director tells us they are proud to be bringing something new.

Our training is over the course of 7 days with 24 activity leaders, 4 from each of the 5 youth clubs and 4 from APROSIFA. These activity leaders were chosen by their respective youth clubs after a big meeting explaining the project with photos and video of past Clowns Without Borders work in Haiti.

Parallel to this morning training we lead afternoon workshops with 20 children (4 from each of the youth clubs) assisted by 4 activity leaders (1 from each of the youth clubs). These 4 activity leaders are also part of our morning group. In addition to having an all day schedule like us, they are responsible for picking up the 4 kids from their center at lunchtime and bringing them home at the end of the day.

At the end of our residency we will create a show with these 20 children and 4 activity leadersand tour the show in the neighborhoods of the different youth clubs.

For more about Clowns Without Borders : www.clownswithoutborders.org and http://clownswithoutborders.net/

For more about War Child Canada: http://www.warchild.ca/ and http://www.warchild.ca/whatwedo/haiti/

Audiences (CWB and WCC, Haiti 2011)

2011-12-30T12:28:00.005-05:00

I try to bring back a bit of our experiences in Haiti to share them. A whisper of the project.

For days after the trip I remain in suspension. Not yet arrived. I could open the door of my apartment and find myself in Port au Prince. I could wake up in the middle of the night, the sound of the fan in my ears. I wonder how they are the taking the end of the project, the trainers and the kids. This question floats around me like a light fog, but I don't try to answer it. I don't even try to imagine it. However the question stays there, ressonating.

The second of our final shows is in the community of a youth club called GEM We meet in the school which is dark like a dungeon and echoey. The kids from the neighborhood mix with our kids from the show, voices resonating off the walls all around us. There is some miscommunication about start time and snack organization and other logistical stuff. Before the show even starts I am already exhausted. The activity leaders from this center are in charge of setting up the performance space and we try our best to leave it up to them. Béné, Marykristn, and Jeff go to have a look but I stay behind. We get in line to start and try to warmup and ritualize putting on our noses, but it is sloppy, a fragment of a moment floating in time. During the recent years of leading groups in mouvement work, clown, english class, even Qi Gong, I seem to gain more awareness each time I lead a warmup of getting a group to breath with me, and that I can balance or off-balance or re-balance a group. At this particular moment I feel like I'm trying so hard to get us all settled, but it is just ... too frantic. It feels like trying to balance an egg on a spoon held in ones mouth walking against the flow of pedestrian traffic in the middle of midtown new york rush hour.

So we start. When we arrive I see how the stage is set up bizarrely. Too much space behind the stage area. Not enough space for the audience to sit and we take up most of it. In the end a large part of the « real » audience ends up standing behind the stage area. We try to chase them into the space where we'd like them to sit but they don't want to move. It only occurs to me after the show that part of their unwillingness to move must have been that watching the audience was just as fascinating as watching the show. Us 4 white foreign clowns mixed in with a big group of kids and neighborhood activity leaders and every one of us full of frenetic bubbling energy.

As we exit with our final chant « Et ils s'en vont au pas ! » everyone runs and the audience follows us. A wild mob energy.

For me this was our most difficult show of our final performances. Partly because I wasn't directing the immediate preparation of the show; we were trying to let the activity leaders from GEM be as responsible as possible. But it felt like we the CWB team perhaps hadn't prepared them enough. However, when I talked to my fellow clowns, and when we all spoke with the trainers from GEM I was reminded that in this hecticness, there was extreme celebration. One activity leader told us how magnificent it was to perform in front of her community.

The next day the 4 activity leaders from GEM surprised us by tagging along for our 2 shows in other communities. Our final show was at the entrance to two refugee camps and was organized by two youth clubs from those camps, Ajevich and JEZI. This was our last show of four. By now we knew the structure and the kids and activity leaders assisting with the shows had a better sense of what it was like to perform in front of an audience. Also, we had all gotten to know each other a lot more. I spent more time planning out with the activity leaders how we'd do the entrance, exit, and transitions. Jeff, Béné, and I helped Farah a little more with the presentation. And we had quite a few numbers from the activity leaders from Ajevich and JEZI.

It was a fantastic final performance and especially great to have made the journey from a more hectic and frenetic show to a better organized yet equally enthusiastic final performance. It was especially great that the activity leaders from GEM were able to see this evolution.

At this final show, at first the audience wouldn't approach us. In clown Béné and I tried to urge them to come closer, but Jethro whispered to me that it was their way in this community and not to push it. So we didn't. About midway through the show we realized that the audience had joined us and melded into our front rows of kids and activity leaders waiting to get up for their numbers.

During this trip we had a very interesting conversation with 2 trainers from the organization Terre des Hommes - TDH who have been part of past Clowns Without Borders trainings in Haiti and joined us for a few days of this one. They have been continuing to perform themselves and have been organizing performances with children at TDH. They are interested in continuing this work in many different ways, and one thing that they mentioned to us was how they would like to teach Haitian audiences how to watch a clown show. Because Haitian audiences are vocal, they comment on, and sometimes repeat what is happening on stage. Yet it is a gift to have the audience reaction be so visible and audible.

A few days after returning to Paris I went to see a physical theater show with a couple of friends, we arrived just a minute late and had to tiptoe in as the entire audience turned to look at us. Quiet and following the codes of a parisian audience, I viciously missed rambunctiously street performing in Haiti.

Témoignage (CWB and WCC, Haiti 2011)

2011-12-30T12:28:00.001-05:00

J'essaye de ramener un bout de nos expériences en Haïti pour les partager. Un souffle du projet. Un peu tardif, mais voici :

Pendants des journées après mon retour je me sens toujours en suspension. Pas encore arrivée. Je pourrai ouvrir la porte de mon appartement et me retrouver à Porte au Prince, me réveiller au milieu de la nuit avec le ton du ventilateur dans mes oreilles.

Je me demande comment ils le sentent la fin du projet, les formateurs et les enfants. Cette question comme une brume qui flotte autour de moi mais je n'y réponds pas. Je n'essaie même pas vraiment d'y imaginer. Mais la question résonne.

Une des formatrice m'a dit avant qu'on parte : « vous n’êtes même pas partis et vous me manquez déjà. Ça va être bizarre lundi de ne plus avoir la formation. » Un projet si dense et pendant lequel je me dis assez souvent que j'adore trop ce travail. C'est addictif. Et ce projet ci, qui a eu un tel élément de formation, avec un groupe tellement investi, j'en sors fière d'avoir été témoin de voyages individuels à l’intérieur du voyage du groupe.

Fabrication de balles de jonglage

Fabrication de nez

Formation de formateurs

Une formatrice qui a eu du mal avec l'acrobatie. Elle était consciente de son corps plus grand que les autres dans le groupe. Mais c'était aussi un plus grand challenge pour elle. Et a la fin de la semaine on la croise dans le centre ou elle travail, elle nous dit, toute souriante et pétillante qu'elle organisera la partie acrobatie d'un spectacle avec les enfants de son centre.

Au début de la semaine un autre formateur parlait de sa peur face à des groupes d'enfants et il nous a demandé si notre formation allait lui libérer de sa peur. Au moment de sa question j'ai senti un vide s'ouvrir dans la conversation. Je me retrouvais face à un groupe qui avait confiance en moi, Formatrice de formateurs. Et j'adore laisser la place à des questions. Mais quoi répondre ? J'ai parlé du travail d'expression d’émotions du clown, et du fait qu'on joue de nos émotions. C'est le dernier jour de la formation, en faisant un numéro avec son groupe, que ce même formateur se lâche dans des énormes pleurs absurdes. La psychologue de War Child nous dit qu'elle est allée le voir sur son lieu de travail et que lui, qui était au par avant plutôt fermé dans son approche avec les enfants, était entrain d'enseigner toutes les activités qu'il apprenait avec nous les matins. Elle le voyait plus proche dans son rapport avec les enfants, son visage plus ouvert. C'est au moment de ce retour positif qu'on se souvient de son questionnement du début.

C'est le premier projet formation Clowns Without Borders auquel je participe dans lequel on arrive à aborder non seulement le jeu mais aussi le clown. On vise à rester claire entre les activités qui sont destinés au travail avec les enfants – des jeux qui privilégie le ludique, l'expression, et aussi la concentration, l'écoute de groupe – et les exercices de clown destinés à ce sacré groupe de formateurs dans lequel il y a des écrivains, des comédiens, des metteurs en scène, des sculpteurs, des musiciens, et des clowns avec une sacrée envie de jouer sur scène pour un public.

On incorpore les numéros des 24 formateurs dans les spectacles qu'on créé avec 20 enfants et 5 formateurs assistant/apprentis. Et tout le monde met le nez. Le moment que le publique apprécie le plus c'est quand on fait tous la poule, l'espace de scène est envahie par 33 poules !!! Et puis on se fait chassée par un coq ! Alors on devient des chats et on le pourchasse à son tour et le coq se réfugie dans le publique.

Le long de nos ateliers, on témoigne aussi des enfants timides qui s'ouvrent et s’expriment de plus en plus. Une fille qui au début a beaucoup de mal à se concentré et qui nous pince pour avoir notre attention. À la fin des ateliers, c'est elle qui est une des leaders de son groupe et qui aide les autres à rester concentrés sur leur numéro. Elle nous donne des bisous au lieu de nous pincer.

Dans chaque projet auquel je participe on chérit les retours de ce genre qui mettent en évidence la valeur de notre travail.

Mais cette année je me retrouve pleine de questionnement et discussion sur le terme de « thérapie » et sur l'utilité de « l'aide humanitaire ». Ces deux termes et domaines sont basé sur une hiérarchie de celui qui a des troubles et celui qui peut l'aider.

Je pense que la beauté de notre travail est que notre but n'est pas d'aider dans ce sens hiérarchique.

Notre but c'est de jouer, de se pencher sur le joyeux, l'absurde, le ludique (et des fois l'importance et le sérieux du jeu, car des fois jouer c'est important et sérieux...) Et de jouer avec tout le monde qu'on rencontre: du directeur d'une ONG au cireur de chaussures, ce qui « aident » et qui sont « aidés », ce qui soignent et sont soignés, et tout ce qu'il y a entre ces pôles extrêmes.

On fait ça parce qu'on est clown, et parce qu'on approche le monde avec cette naïveté face à l'hiérarchie, notre travail reste celui des clowns sans frontières même dans les moments qu'on n'est pas « en clown ».

Ubla Dubla Trubla at Out the Box Festival (Cape Town, South Africa, 2011)

2011-12-30T12:24:00.004-05:00

This is my 3^rd time going to South Africa. As the plane approaches Cape Town, I try to travel back in time. Visions of bus stations, airports, minibus taxi rides...always comings and goings...often my arriving before or after...on my own. But this time I am part of a family. (And a show, Ubla Dubla Trubla, which is a creation of our ensemble theater company Crache Larmes) My experience of South Africa sets me apart. But still I am within. 1 of 3. We are going there together, staying and working together, leaving together. 3. Variable, but such a solid number.

People are so welcoming and generous. We stay with a family in Muizenburg, by the beach, for a few days. A 9 year old german boy lends us his binoculars to look at 2 whales. We watch a seal surf. We follow it walking along the beach as it swims down the coast. Then it is time to rehearse. We rehearse on the beach facing the surf but we are so immersed in our own water world we don't even see the sun set over the sea. Stunning pink skies and we don't even see them. The timing takes all. We sharpen our slapstick. Our glass jar tower. The ending. I'm afraid of over rehearsing. The sand is so different than the ground we're used to performing on. I jump smack on to the tower that I'm supposed to jump over. Whoops.

We spend much of our preparation time negotiating the ground of our performance spaces. What were we thinking creating a show with glass jars anyway ?!?! I feel like an overly cautious American girl afraid of setting a dangerous bad example by playing with glass jars on a hard surface. But also it really is dangerous. We need to perform on soft surfaces and the glass jars are a good, if drastic, barometer. We can't get used to them or take them for granted. The lesson I learn over and over these days is to experience the show in the present. To not take anything for granted when I'm performing. To let each scripted moment live rather than rushing through to the next one. Everything is a discovery.

I am learning with this show that I have to be with my partners, with the objects on stage, with the audience, and with my character. And I have to be with all of them all the time. And in all that, I guess, my self can be in suspension between all those anchors.

Our first show opens the Out the Box festival; we perform our first show to about 200 people at the end of a giant puppet parade. We are part of the festival's community hub in Observatory; the only outdoor show in the festival; part of their effort to bring the festival to the community and to bring new community members to the festival. The next day we do a show for a small audience in a community playground and another on the town green across from the Sunday « holistic fair ». The day after several school classes come to see our show. We do a question and answer session, "What do Ubla, Dubla, Trubla mean ?" "Does Trubla mean spit ?" "How come Trubla is the coolest ?" (what?!?!?) "How do you do that spin on your hands ?" "Why is Ubla wearing makeup like a girl ?" "How come you guys are crazy ?" "How come....you guys are funny." One fourteen year old fan tells us : "Your show is so dreamy and sureal. I loved the wave, I could just, like, see it. "

Simultaneously to our preparation for the Out the Box festival we have been in touch with an organization in Masiphumelele that Clowns Without Borders – South Africa spent a day with on a tour last year. Masiphumelele is a township with low crime rates and a beautiful library. Riding the train and minibus taxi the 1hr+ trip to get there, I feel the class distance from the downtown festival spaces, the nice house by the beach we are staying in, our paris neighborhoods. And yet compared to communities I had visited in on my last two trips to South Africa, this township feels middle class to me.

We organize a performance at a nursery school in Masiphumelele. We go there the next day and just as we arrive, it starts raining. What were we thinking creating a show where we spit and throw water on the ground and need to perform outdoors?!?! We postpone the show til after the festival finishes and plan on teaching workshops which we can do outside or inside.

The day that we teach the workshops is our first time team teaching together. It is really fluid and fun. We do silling warmup games and object manipulation, making found object puppets that kids manipulate together in small groups. Our central theme is underwater animals, which coincidently turns out to be the current theme in the kids' classroom. A few months ago they went on a class trip to the aquarium and in a few days they will be going to the natural history museum. These 4 to 6 year olds transform our every day objects into dolphins and octopus, proposing underwater animals we hadn't thought of. Their teachers translate and participate in the exercises.

(On my last 2 trips to South Africa in 2005 and 2006 I had performed in so many different schools, in different regions, in the city and countryside, and along different class and race lines. This one school that we taught at this time struck me as an interesting middleground amongst the extremes of South Africa... a public school in a township on the edge of Cape Town, but one where kids have access to museum and aquarium visits as well as visiting clown teaching artists).

After our morning of workshops we organized to return at the end of the week to perform our show in the park next to the community library....when the performance day came....wouldn't you know more rain. We were very dissapointed and felt completely beholden to the shifting Cape Town weather.

But it was so fun to see Tristan having fun leading the underwater animals. And to see Linda so confident teaching. And neat for me to feel relaxed and totally trusting these fellow teachers. I have done many trips with many awesome, talented people, yet this is the first time that the team really feels like a family. That we are Linda, Tristan, Selena, but we are also Ubla Dubla Trubla. We each have strikingly different personalities but we also can work as an organism or as a distinct species with a shared unique language. It is the magic of 3 entities adding up to more than just 3. On stage. But also when we cook or make planning decisions. When we find our way around town and entertain each other. When we analyze our performances and workshops. And when we make fun of each other there is lots of caring for each other under it all.

For more about Crache Larmes and for photos and video of Ubla Dubla Trubla: www.crachelarmes.com

Debriefing, Feedback, Reflection

2010-10-03T16:10:00.015-04:00

photos by Fanny Mraz and Anna Zastrow

2462 11.512

At the very end of the trip I start looking at some of the photos. It is a glimpse of the impact that our work has. Because, in fact, from the inside of the work, we don’t know our impact, just our experiences.

It is also through our small debrief conversations that we get a taste of the impact of our work. The kids lit up when we asked what it was like to perform outside of their community. Our film director told us about seeing parents transform when they saw their kids laughing at us in the hospital. In our debrief with the 18 Activity Leaders we trained the first week, I realized how much they had discovered about their own talents in that one week and how much they wanted us to come back to work with again them. In side conversations with the trainers, we heard about their inspiration for up and coming events. And from our primary contacts at TDH we heard that they have received feedback about people feeling proud of their work with us and validated by the audience response to their performance.

On our last night in Haiti we found ourselves stranded in the TDH office by a violent downpour. We were with one of the spectacular trainers that we worked with in Grand Goave, Morlon Lhe Bellerice. We played “You are my Sunshine” on the recorder, Jan practiced diabolo, and we drew pictures in silence. Morlon made us this drawing:

by Morlon Lhe Bellerice

Back in Paris now, I received an email from a trainer in Les Cayes saying that our work is bearing fruits and will continue to do so. And a great audio interview/debrief with four of the trainers.

This trip to Haiti has left me with more thoughts, opinions, and questions on international humanitarian aid than any trip before. It as stirred up my views on systematic inequality. It has whipped up my political convictions. It has also made me consistently question and re-evaluate our own work and our reasons for doing it.

Yet the structure of this project has and will provide us with the most feedback of any Clowns Without Borders project that I’ve been involved in. The more I hear back, the more I find myself convinced that this type of multi-faceted project - this type of relationship with a partner organization and the individuals and communities it works with - is one of the best ways for us to work.

Contribute to Clowns Without Borders’ future work in Haiti at: http://clownswithoutborders.org/support-us/donate-now/

Galooper, Galoper, Galooper, Woooo!!!! Wooooo!!!!

2010-10-03T09:06:00.009-04:00

The community we have been working in all week feels completely different after nightfall. No electricity or hardly. Little gas lamps here of there. People standing on the street playing cards or dominoes. It has just gotten dark and we are told to get out of there quick. On our drive out I see one of the kids from our workshop sharing the rest of his meal (the hot meals we eat are always in big styrofoam take out containers that get added to the piles of garbage all over the place) with his dad, or maybe his grandpa?

The kids were so hyper on the bus ride home after our first show today. They sang the entire time. Over an hour of non-stop singing...."Pedaler Pedaaler Pedaler woo woo!! Galoper Galooper Galoper woo woo!" "Meli Melo! something something something Meli Melo! something something something..." "I said a Boom Chicka Boom!!" then "Okay Okay? Okay! Si....Lence!!!" we think for 2 seconds we will have a couple minutes of quiet, but, nope: "Un elephant...qui se balader...tout doucement...dans la forêt..."

It's great, the kids are flying. Having spent the afternoon as stars performing in another community - in the countryside - it was a trek to get to: we had to shuttle up to hill, piling everyone into our 2 4x4s for the 20 min ride up a super bumpy ravine like road. then we had to wait at the top for the second round.

This time we made a conscience effort to work the animateurs (workshop leaders we have been training) into the show. Not only did it give them the chance to shine on stage too, but we gave them more responsibility in the show creation. I think this group will come away from the experience better able to create shows than the last group.

This show was a much more integrated weave of kids, animateurs, trainers, and us 3 clowns all of us together on stage.

At the end of the long day, when we sat down to eat in the dusk lighting back in Cité Delma, one of the girls put my hand on her neck to feel how sweaty she was from dancing when we arrived back there. Still hyper, giggly, running around through dinner. I wonder now that it's dark where the kids will be able to wash and in what kind of water. It's only 7:30 but I myself am ready for bed, back at the hotel I take a shower and carefully set up my mosquito net.

Clowns with a Film Crew (Send in the Clowns: changing the face of international aid)

2010-09-27T13:16:00.007-04:00

During the this project we were joined by Samantha Lee and her documentary film team who are making the film "Send in the Clowns: changing the face of international aid." http://www.sendintheclowns.org/About_the_Film.html

The film crew has been less invasive than I imagined. I got used to having them around pretty quickly and now I see them as a unique aspect of this trip itself rather than just a crew documenting. Their film seems like it will be about the work of Clowns Without Borders, the lives of the people we work with, their impressions of our work, Haiti before and after the earthquake. They are busy filming and interviewing all day long.

I notice that the people we interact with tell me less about their lives and community issues than on past trips. It might be cultural or because of the nature of this project but mostly I feel like it's because they are telling so much to the film crew that they don't need to tell us. Our intervention is happening on 2 fronts: people discovering new aspects of themselves, surprising themselves with a new reality in our workshop and show creation and show performance & having their everyday lives and their personal experiences validated by sharing them with the film crew.

Our work has been complementary and by the end of trip I am so glad we have had the film crew along. I'm no longer ignoring the camera's presence, but accepting it and letting myself forget about it. And I can't wait to see what they make of all their amazing footage.

On the other hand I also notice that the moments I hold most valuable happen when the film crew is not filming and the other clowns are not taking photos... Moments of play on our one hospital visit when I am joking with the nurses and dancing for the moms in the baby room around the corner. Workshop exercises before the film crew has arrived, in the morning, when everyone is still focused and the circle is whole. Walking through cité delma after our 1st show as dusk falls and then eating dinner with the kids in the almost dark. Having a check in about the day just us 3 clowns.

Clowns Without Borders in Haiti, partnership with Terre des Hommes

2010-09-27T11:44:00.006-04:00

I was one of 4 clowns on a Clowns Without Borders trip this September partnering with Terre des Hommes (TDH). We did 2 residencies, one in Grand Goave the other in Les Cayes: training workshop leaders, teaching kids, creating a show with both kids and workshop leaders, and performing in and around their communities.

Papette – Grand Goave

The week of workshops and shows ends with a giant morning workshop. The 18 animateurs and 4 trainers we have been training teach the other animateurs from the 9 child protection centers. Yesterday we split everyone into groups and planned for the morning. Today there are 76 people in the warmup circle:

It is amazing to step back. After a week of creating and trying to direct the momentum of the training, we are on for the ride. The giant morning training takes off, a true team effort. Everyone participates teaching something different.
Our star mime leads an amazing magic imaginary ball exercise. Our star funny walker isn’t sure on how to lead the exercise but she commits 100% anyway. They are all teachers back in the teaching role after a week of being students. They are so luminous while they teach and it is delightful to tell them so in our reflection afterwards. We exchange many goodbyes on words of respect and appreciation.
One trainer describes Anna as the crazy one, Tim as the clumsy one, me as the Scottish beauty who helps others even so, and Jan as the insightful one with a big field of vision.
The workshop participants who speak thanks and goodbyes in front of the group say our names one by one. I look around the circle at their faces and wonder for how long I will remember their 22 names.

From Grand Goave to Les Cayes

Throwing names today, Tim asked, “Que côté la mer?” A quarter of the class pointed to one of the 4 concrete block walls surrounding the 1-hoop basketball court and the community center shelter where we are teaching our workshops. I could see about one meter of sky between the razor wire along the top of the concrete wall and where the roof of the shelter begins. So I aimed my name into this slip of sky as I threw and called it out. The group echoed “Seeeleeeennaaaaa” behind me. I am one of the teachers but I’m still giddy at hearing my own name echoed by so many people.

Anna asks why they have the walls around the community center. It is in stark contrast to Papette in Grand Goave where we were working last week. There we were right on the sea. Open. Surrounded by trees. a group of people making charcoal. Another group cutting string to hang mosquito nets. I answer that I guess the wall is to keep people out, as evidenced by the crowd of kids that climb to the top of the gate, or peer under to watch the strange noisy activities we are leading inside.
We are in the city now and it is completely different. The regional director of TDH said we have just seen the two different kinds of humanitarian aid. Emergency response in Grand Goave and now development work in Les Cayes. We certainly notice the strength of the community. Despite the poverty. The motivation of the participates. Last week was full of energy too, but this week the participants seem more solid. For a second I picture these individuals as buildings themselves. Here in Les Cayes, though they may be living in tiny shacks, they seem whole. In Grand Goave they were crumbled. I see sketches of the many different living situations we’ve seen in Haiti interspersed with the faces of my favorite workshop participants. A former home inhabitable, the roof at an angle on the floor, a shack full of too many family members, a tent among many tents.

Cité Delma – Les Cayes

The workshops this week have a family feel. I give directions for an exercise with the baby of one of the workshop participants in my arms. An older brother and younger sister quibble during pass the clap. A few adults hang around watching our work sitting on benches in the space while kids climb above or scamper below the gate catching glimpses of the bizarre preparations inside the walls. Maybe they know there will be a show for the whole community in a few days but for now we remain these silly creatures driving through the community. Big pickup on narrow cactus lined path . There are bizarre fun sounds ensuing from the community center during the day and I imagine quite a few stories about the workshops at night.
The director of the community center has chosen outgoing kids for our workshops so that they will share what they learn with the rest of the community.
Today one of the TDH trainers asked me “so do clowns live in families?” I gave him a long answer about relationship in clown - status and complicity through different types of relationship. Then realized that what he wanted to know was whether me, Jan, Anna, and Tim live in families or the four of us together.
People seen to like the word “clown” even if it’s not so clear. In Grand Goave we had the workshop participants draw pictures of what a “clown” was for them. For the kids it seemed to mean the 4 of us. For the adults more comic actors and characters and a lot of somewhat witchy stuff. Tails. Pointy hats. But no matter what, it always seems to mean “you silly goofies.” And when a workshop participant does something especially funning or uninhibited people say their name followed by clown. "Selena clown" "so and so clown" etc...

Performing in Addis Ababa

2010-03-03T07:26:00.016-05:00

My favorite shows are the ones with the WWO schools. We have already met the kids briefly, and then after the show, over the course of the week we build a stronger relationship with the school community, teaching the kids who live at the orphanage, some of the guardians of the other kids, and the staff from the WWO staff:

Our two shows on Wednesday are great fun too. The first one was supposed to be for a primary school of 500 kids but the principal invited the high school and 3 neighboring schools without telling us! An audience of about 2,000:

And in the afternoon a show for a primary school of 1,825 kids:

WORLDWIDE ORPHANS FOUNDATION

2010-03-03T07:17:00.004-05:00

This project is a preliminary expedition to explore the potential to implement Clowns Without Borders South Africa’s arts intervention methodology with WWO, a nongovernmental organisation dedicate to providing a holistic development to children who are orphans or vulnerable. They have programs in many different countries including Bulgaria, Vietnam, and Ethiopia. Our partnership was germinated over the past 2 years at the annual Unite for Sight Global Health Conference in which WWO founder, Dr. Jane Aronson, and Jamie Lachman (director of CWB-South Africa) presented in the same sessions on innovative community interventions that build local capacity. A casual conversation about potential synergy gradually grew into our first collaboration here in Ethiopia. Now Jamie (CWB-SA) Sibongile (CWB-SA) and myself, Selena (CWB-USA), are in Addis Ababa from Feb 16 - Feb 28 meeting with WWO, performing shows, teaching workshops, and leading training workshops.

On our first day in Addis Ababa we meet with the people at WWO, we give them an overview of what Clowns Without Borders does and try to find out as much about their programs as possible. We talk about a few different directions our work with them could go in the longterm and we make some changes to our schedule for the next two weeks here. We are trying to figure out how our work can mesh with their programs and go far.

During our first two days I see an interesting mix of elegance and poverty. The women running WWO dress really nice. The surroundings are simple. We are driven around in a new 4-door pickup truck weaving through insane traffic - few lane markers, no traffic lights, intense exhaust smog, and 4 lane main roads that shrink into 2 lanes with just a few rocks as warning. Tons of new construction being built - cement high rises, with simple wooden pole scaffolding. Apparently there are only 3 big supermarkets in a city of 5 million. People buy their food from vendors on the street and at the market. And yet there are 7 branches of a chain of coffee shops in perfect imitation of Starbucks. Big green signs spell: KALDI'S COFFEE and the people inside wear the same green aprons, even the chairs and music are similar.

We drive all around town to visit the places we will be performing: A primary school of 1,800 kids; Ababech Gobena an amazing center with outreach programs, a clinic, a women's empowerment through work program - there are red chili peppers drying in the sun and they export injera (Ethiopian flat spongy bread), a school, public showers, clean water, etc; Mary Joy, a clinic, orphanage, and a school for 150 kids; and of course the two WWO schools.

On top of this we eat dinner with 2 teachers from New York who are working with the WWO teachers, and of course, we create our show. We rehearse in my hotel room, on the lawn of the orphanage, and then on the terrace of the hotel. It is only at the nightly check-in, when our voice settle and drop in pitch, when we go over how we are feeling at the end of the day, that I realize just how much we've done and see in the last two days.

Workshop with Children from WWO Orphanage

2010-03-03T07:02:00.006-05:00

In our first afternoon workshop with the kids at the WWO orphanage, Jamie's story about Zama and the magic paintbrush is perfect for these kids. It is long but they stay with it the entire time. Me I am sitting amongst the kids, wedged in at the back of a table on the part of the bench with a broken slat. At the moments when Jamie does something silly - a silly voice or face, or as he is sitting on a cracked plastic chair, when the chair slips and threatens to send him crashing down - the kids turn around and look towards me, to share in the laughter or smile, maybe also to make sure it's okay, or to share their astonishment. This sharing of looks with the adult is the look of the clown. It is special that these looks go both ways with this group. We are both clown and teacher to these kids...
But during the rest of the story they stay captivated, watching Jamie and Lemlem. A moment of total focus as a group. The focus is just as special if not more so, than the laughs during our warmup and games. When we go to leave and they start cleaning up for dinner, we get a taste of the usual chaos of a house of 39 orphans ages 3-14. I realize what a respite it must have been to listen quietly all together, caregivers included, to an oral story. No TV, no music, no bickering, or distractions. Just listening and being transported.

"These kids are so lucky," we head this said quite a few times. Tonight
Jamie says "So lucky and yet so unlucky," yes they are fed better than many (maybe most?) kids in Addis. They have great medical care, are clean, and have good school situations. But all of them are orphans and all are HIV +. These kids are adorable and a few of them especially smart and gutsy leaders. The handful of kids who sneak or bicker to be next to me in the cicle or who whine about getting the right color crayon (I hear "Bourtoukan blah blah blah bourtoukan" - orange, the only color I know in Amharic) remind me of the everyday tifs of the kids I teach at the American School in Paris. Kids are kids anywhere.

But when the caregivers come around with some of the kids' medecines during one of the our circle activities, the normalcy of it brings home hard the everyday reality of being a young orphan growing up HIV +.

On Thursday during our second workshop with them, we turn their life dreams (that they had drawn pictures of after listening to Zama's story on tuesday) into group theatrical tableaux. The child whose dream it is, is the star of the tableau:

PILOT

DOCTOR

TAXI DRIVER

TEACHER

FLOWER

Workshop with Guardians of children from WWO-Addis Ababa Schools

2010-03-03T06:46:00.007-05:00

On Saturday we taught a workshop for some of the guardians of children at the WWO schools. There were 30 participants, young, old, single parents, relatives turned guardians. They trickled in, laughing at our ridiculous Amharic greetings and our handshaking. The goal of this one-time workshop was to play, release, relax and to freshen up their tools for relating to their children through games and stories.

We started with a warm-up, played games, and sang a South African song with choreography to much delight. The main activity was remembering a day or a moment from our childhoods when we felt happy and really proud of ourselves for even just a moment. Then we told our stories to a partner who transformed it into a fairytale for the rest of the group.

During the story telling one woman gets up into the middle of the circle. Her tone is different than the others, Mimi who is next to says that she is telling her own story, not her partner’s. She keeps going. The tone is different than the only stories. She stands steady, her feel rooted to the center of the circle, and she leans forward slightly. Someone in the circle says something. I guess that she puts the person in their place saying something like “No, this is what I lived through.” Something like that, because she waves the back of her hand at the person, but really I have no idea. But her voice is so steady and strong, her words come out spinning a strong rope. Then suddenly the tension in the circle changes, I feel that what she has said changes how I feel too. It’s like a strong knot that she’s tied with the rope of her story. I don’t know what she’s said, just that something in the tone has changed yet again and then I notice someone sniffling across the circle from me, then another person, and another, she keeps talking, they keep crying, even one of the men has tears in his eyes and is wiping his nose. The entire circle is moved, has shifted, so many people are crying. She sits back down and all 36 of us sit in silence for a very full few seconds.

Mimi who has been translating the stories into my ear is also so moved by the story that I don’t expect her to say anything. We just sit there witnessing the change in the group. Then Jamie asks how she felt to tell her own story. She answers that she told her own story because she felt it needed to be shared and says, “I felt so happy I could come here and tell my story. I felt like a very important person.”

After the end of the workshop Mimi summarized this woman’s story for us: “She was a maid for a family and the husband and the wife were both infected with HIV and they both knew it but she didn’t know. And the husband started raping her when the wife was away even though he knew he was HIV +. She got pregnant and still she didn’t know until she went to the hospital to have the baby and then she fund out she was HIV+ and she thought that the baby would be too. The baby stayed at the hospital for 7 months and then they tested him and he was negative. She says that he was cured by the people at the hospital.” When Mimi tells me this she kind of sighs. (Because less effective HIV testing with some fake positives was done in Ethiopia a few years ago, some people tested positive once and then after visiting holy waters or seeking other traditional cures, they tested negative…so now some people in Ethiopia do believe it is possible to be cured of HIV)

We talk about the power of telling stories, of creating a space in which to share our stories. The participants speak about the common ground between all of their stories. Then we close our ideas and do a relaxation exercise….
…when I open my eyes, the faces across from me look so peaceful and full of rest. One man says “I was disturbed by the deeply touching story she told us, now I feel relaxed and I feel at ease.”

We finish with Ethiopian song, a whole lot of shoulder shaking, big laughs, and warm handshakes.

in New Orleans with Clowns Without Borders

2007-10-14T16:05:00.000-04:00

"So what is Clowns with….or is it… without?….Borders exactly?"

"We're an international non-profit doing clown shows in areas around the world that have suffered some kind of crisis."

"Well – welcome to New Orleans…!"

The tone of voice full of the implication of all of the hardship that so many people have withstood and continue to withstand day after day. This voice belongs to a teacher at one of the Catholic Charities summer camps where we perform.
We incorporate the kids in our clown show. When we go underwater they are the seaweed, some blow bubbles, one is a shark. In the swamp they are the trees and help me hide from the swamp monster and then transform the swamp monster back into Dasani (Alice). Our show at this particular summer camp is very energetic and when we get to our desert scene, the kids get a little carried away telling us which way to go to find water. "There! No that way! That way!" One kid in the front row can't contain himself and periodically shouts out "She's funny! You're funny! Funny!"

We are here in New Orleans performing for kids all over the city. We are partnering with a large variety of organizations – local church groups, organizations that sprung up after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, established arts programs, a local farmer's market:

Catholic Charities
Dominion Power Ministry
Emergency Communities
Jefferson Youth Foundation
Kingsley House
Kidsmart
Pentecost Baptist Church
Play Power
The Renaissance Project
The Verge
Zion Hill Baptist Church

All of these groups are doing amazing work fighting to rebuild and support kids whose support structures have been ripped apart. We do a show at the Emergency Communities summer camp in the Diamond FEMA trailer park. Only 35 kids but they get out of hand easily and the counselors have trouble keeping them quiet and sitting down during the show – they start talking to each other or come up on stage with us. These kids live in a trailer park - rows and rows of white boxes – so many of their parents working at night, or not working at all. Most people in the park seem to stay in their trailers all day and it's a drop-in camp program so the counselors don't have much authority – the kids can always just leave and go back to their trailer.
Our show is in the "courthouse" – a former courthouse that was totally ripped apart by the storm. Only the basic structure is still standing, the floor a mess of ripped up tiles, insulation and wires hanging from the ceiling, but it provides much needed shade on such a hot day.
At the end of the show the kids want to see our props. They want to take our stuff or they want us to give it to them. One little 4 year old girl absent mindedly takes my orange arm floaty from the show and starts to walk away. A patient counselor says, "Baby, you need to give them back the armband." The girl doesn't seem to even notice that she's being spoken to; she walks in the opposite direction with the floaty. The counselor tries again, "Honey, look at her, she needs the floaty to swim in the next show. What's the matter? Did you sleep okay? Baby, look at how sad she is. You need to give it back to her so she can do another show." I put on a sad face, the girl looks up, smiles and gives it back to me.

I am so impressed by the counselors at this camp – wow is it hard to teach these kids respect when they have been disrespected over and over so many times – before the storm by the systematic oppression of poor black children in this country, and after the storm being pulled around from one living situation to another, so that almost 2 years later they are still living in a bleak trailer park with the constant threat that they will lose their FEMA benefits.
Of course they want to grab at our arm floaties, stereo, clown noses, even the half eaten apple from our show. I really can't blame them.

Two days later we return to the trailer park to teach a workshop. The kids trickle in slowly. I do a very little intro to clowning with them. We start off going around in a circle, each kid coming up with a clown name and a gesture. Peachcows, Blue, Skip, Blockbuster, Netflix, Heeltoe, Blueberries, Sir Isaac Hagen Daaz of Utah, CocoGoddess, Spiderman, Red, Stars, and Dasani (Alice) and Farquar (Selena). We do a group juggling exercise throwing balls in a pattern. The kids actually stay still and quiet totally concentrated for it! Then we all practice silly walks, and chant each person's new clown name as they do their walk one at a time. Finally, we practice tripping. "Hey Heeltoe, how's it goi...WOAH!…..(look back) what was that?" They totally go for it. And at the very end, one by one they put on a clown nose, do their silly walk and trip as we chant their new clown names.
We've had a great time, the kids have really opened up in just that one hour, and they have been respectful to each other and to us.

Yes there has been a crisis in New Orleans, but as a woman who watched our show at the Pentecost Baptist Church reminded us, the crisis is not contained to New Orleans. This particular woman is still living in Dallas because she can't afford to move back to New Orleans to live. Her old home was ruined and is contaminated with black mold. Rents have skyrocketed and there are few jobs. She can only come to visit her son and his kids briefly. She asks if we aren't by any chance going through Dallas so that we could perform for all the displaced people at her church there, cause they could really use us! There are so many people who have been displaced by these hurricanes all across the U.S.A., faceless in our media. What does that mean for Clowns Without Borders, an organization whose mission is to work in areas of crisis? Is our entire country an area of crisis?

KATRINA III

2007-04-09T22:06:00.000-04:00

Clowns Without Borders is embarking on its third project to the area hit by Hurricane Katrina. This third project will be composed of 3 different expeditions in April, June and July 2007.
Clowns Without Borders' mission is to provide relief through laughter to children in areas of crisis. Shockingly very little has changed in the area hit by Katrina in the past year. Even within the borders of the USA, it is still very much a crisis.

to hear what the children in new orleans have to say about how things are, check out this very inspiring video:
http://www.stillweatheringthestorm.com/

Alice and I will be in the New Orleans area July 4th - July 18th.

CHIAPAS, MEXICO - CLOWNS WITHOUT BORDERS

2006-12-15T15:57:00.000-05:00

Chiapas, Mexico with Clowns Without Borders.
November 16 - 24
11 shows for over 2,100 people
me and Rudi Galindo, veteran CWB clown.

Rudi has been going to Chiapas with Clowns Without Borders for 7 years. Though the area is no longer in a state of crisis, the relationship between CWB and local organizations is strong. Rudi is a very experienced performer and traveller and I learn tons from playing with him.
Most of our shows are in and around Las Margaritas, a small town where I am the only blond person to be seen. We stay with a Women's and human rights organization that works with indigenous communities in the area and sleep on the floor of their office. The organization is essentially run by a single extended family and the women in the family cook us simple but spicy and delicious traditional food - a big desayuno and a big comida in the afternoon with countless cups of sweet black coffee.

the neighborhood we stay in is called "los pocitos," people jokingly call it "los pobritos" (the little poor people).

We perform community shows, school shows, a show at an elderly center, a show at an alcoholics rehabilitation center (where patients are locked in the center for 6 months), a show at a roadblock, and a stunning final rural show.

The children we perform for (the adults too) have never seen a live clown show, but they certainly know a clown when they see one.
Rudi and I are instantly famous. When we walk through town the kids yell out "payasito!" "payasa!" ("little clown!", "lady clown!")
After our show at the elderly center, one of the women gives me an orange from her handbag. After a different show, a girl from the neighborhood buys me a spicy lollipop. These gifts are symbolic of the generosity we encountered over the course of this trip. While freely sharing of ourselves through our playfulness, both in and out of shows, we only received colorful appreciation and generosity in return.

Handshake Routine

2006-12-15T15:56:00.000-05:00

Chiapas, Mexico
Nov 2006
me and Rudi getting a volunteer

ROAD BLOCK SHOW

2006-12-15T15:55:00.001-05:00

It is the anniversary of the Revolution and the Zapatistas are blocking all the roads in Chiapas to celebrate.
Lopez Obrador who lost the presidential seat in a highly disputed and rather sketchy election, has declared himself president of a parallel government today.
The state of Oaxaca is still in a state of disaster with teachers striking in order to oust the governor. Around 30 protestors have been killed by the police in the last year.
The three issues, though very separate, have gotten confused, and there is a spirit of revolution and possible violence in the air today.

But we need to get to our performances! So get an early start and brave the roadblocks.
At the first one, the road is lined with at least 300 men and women in black Zapatista hoods. It is very impressive. But they don't even make us wait 10 seconds before letting us through the block.
At the second road block, there are fewer people, most of them men in cowboy hats. They are very cheery and are having fun blocking the road. Indeed they keep us waiting for almost 2 hours. After watching and playing gin rummy for a while, Rudi and I get bored. He gets out of the truck and starts juggling. The crowd gathers. He does some hat tricks. I get out of the truck and stand in the crowd watching, trying to meld into the audience. I love getting a taste of what it is like on the audience side of a Clowns Without Borders trip. I feel their surprise and delight and excitement at this strange character that just stepped out of the blue truck with California plates. The laughter ripples through the whole crowd. I feel, just for a few moments, that I too am part of them. Belong to that group of local zapatistas, or the other mexicans who by now have gotten out of their cars to watch; we're all laughing together.
Then Rudi pulls our giant slinky and I join him. The two of us start doing routines from our show together. I become a slinky animal. We do the water lazzi and I spit water at him. The crowd loves us.
Finally the director of the road block comes over. "We are distracting everyone, they are forgetting why they are here," he tells us. "Besides they are about to let the cars through". So we pack up and hit it.
As we are pulling out we hear an older man say "payaso!" They've had a good laugh and though we weren't wearing clown noses, they know what we are:

"clowns that know how to get through roadblocks"

Slinky Animal routine

2006-12-15T15:50:00.001-05:00

RURAL COMMUNITY SHOW

2006-12-13T12:57:00.000-05:00

Our main contact in Las Margaritas takes us to a community 45 min outside of town where she teaches human rights workshops. When we arrive, they start anouncing over the big community megaphone that we are going to do our show in 15 minutes. Children, youth, and adults start gathering close to the community center, but they are shy, and they don't know how to make an audience. They are not experienced performance watchers. They don't understand that we are trying to get them all together and they keep running away from us when we start to get close.

So we take it slow. Improving. Me with my small accordeon which I am slowly getting halfway maybe okay at playing.
They get used to us.
And finally,
they gather.
But the children stay clumped on one side,
the youth on the other,
and the adults behind us.

It is a magic little show, in the middle of the countryside, with shy and adorable laughter.
We are truly strange clown creatures that have appeared out of nowhere and they watch us intently.
It is the last show of the tour and feels extra special to me.
As the show unfolds the audience opens up.
When it is over we depart stepping in time together with the accordeon,
the youth go "ooooh-h-h"
they don't want us to leave.
we stop, look at them, look at each other,
start walking again.
"ooooh-h-h"
stop.
start again
"oooooh-h-h." again.
stop.
start.
"oooh-h-h ooh-h-h oooh-h-h."
It becomes a game.

They ask us to do the performance again a second time.

We have a 3 hour drive and it is already getting dark. We are wiped. So we leave with them wanting quite a lot more. But it is a great ending to a lovely tour.

LESOTHO - CLOWNS WITHOUT BORDERS

2006-11-01T09:04:00.000-05:00

The 2006 Clowns Without Borders trip has come to a close...

I could have written way more. The posts below are just a few of many higlights.
we were in the field for 34 days
did 29 shows
for over 5,000 kids

some closing photo highlights:

REHEARSING:

SINGING IN THE RAIN UMBRELLA ENTRANCE:

THE DISSAPEARING HANKERCHIEF:

LEADING UP TO THE BALLOON FUNERAL:

PLAYING MY BIRIMBAO AFTER THE SHOW:

OUR LAST AUDIENCE (you can see that our show works!):

OUR LAST AUDIENCE (still laughing):

we've been to some really beautiful places this trip:

MALEALEA, LESOTHO

2006-10-21T04:57:00.000-04:00

After the show we rock out to the baSotho music. Jamie and Alice have a whole group around them. I single out a boy with a spark in his eye who is bopping his shoulders. He comes right up and dances with me, copying my moves. The other kids watch the two of us. I look down at his waist and suddenly notice how skinny he is. His clothes baggy like they once fit him, now belted and cinched. Notice the bluish purple blotches under his eyes.
Suddenly I am no longer just dancing with a fun loving boy, I am dancing with a 14 year old with AIDS who will die soon. (I don't know his actual status, but it is fairly likely - between 30% and 40% of people in Lesotho are HIV+) The two images of him dance back and forth painfully fast. I am having so much fun with him, see in his eyes that he too is carefree and happy. But wonder when he dies, will this moment, this day with the clowns and his whole school singing, will it be one of his happiest memories? How soon will he die?
While all this goes through my mind, I see in his eyes that he is obvious to all my thinking, wrapped up only in the music and the crazy clown in front of him.
I am relieved when we join the big group in a call and response of "monkey monkey" "awooooogah awoooogah" "eeeeeawww." I cry silently when the children sing for us. All of the older kids from the school are in the chorus. They are beautiful, they are together, they march up the hill while they sing their last song and wave at us.
As we drive off I lean over Jamie and Alice in the backseat trying to wave at that one boy, ignoring all the other kids on my side of the car. but I don't think he quite sees me wave goodbye.

SEMONKONG, LESOTHO

2006-10-14T08:05:00.000-04:00

OUR SHOW AT THE SEMONKONG CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL. HIGH SCHOOL SHOWS ARE THE BEST:

OUR SHOW AT SEMONKONG PRIMARY SCHOOL. WE PERFORMED AT 10 DIFFERENT SCHOOLS AROUND THE TOWN. BY THE END OF THE WEEK WE WERE LOCAL CELEBRITIES, WITH KIDS YELLING AND WAVING EVERYWHERE WE WENT:

ALICE, JAMES, AND I GAVE TWO SCHOOL TEACHERS A RIDE TO THEIR REMOTE VILLAGE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HILLS. WE GOT THERE AND OF COURSE THEY WANTED US TO DO A SHOW FOR THE KIDS. JAMES IS THE LOGISTICS MANAGER AND NOT IN THE SHOW NORMALLY. BUT FOR THIS OCCASION THE THREE OF US ROCKED OUT A CLOWN IMPROV. WONDERFUL TO BE BACK IN THE WORLD OF TOTAL IMPROV. REALLY REALLY LISTENING. MAGIC.
THEY SANG FOR US AFTERWARDS AND WE TOOK A GROUP PICTURE:

SOS CHILDREN'S VILLAGE

2006-10-04T11:41:00.000-04:00

We are in the middle of a 5 day residency at SOS children's village in Maseru, Lesotho.

We are teaching life dream workshops. Bringing to life children's dreams of what they want to be when they grow up. We share the teaching between the three of us. Warmup, theater games, and then different visualization activities.
Jamie leads the first day, we visualize what we want to be when we grow up and draw pictures of it.(us assistant teachers go through the exercises with the kids, each class I want to be something different - a mother on a farm, a chef, an explorer).
Alice leads the second day, selecting objects from a magic pantomine box that will help us acheive our dream. Objects that we need for our dream job. Kids pantomine using a computer, riding a horse, putting on soldier boots, etc.
Today, the third day, I lead the kids through a physicalization of themselves already working their ideal job. We warm up with moving around the room through different environments (the room is full of water, mud, we're walking up a steep mountain) and then as if our bodies are made up of different things.

MOVING AS IF OUR BODIES ARE MADE OF WATER

Then half the group at a time does the exercise and the other half watches, eyes closed. I lead them through a visualization that they mime with their body as well:
- If they could be anything in the world, what would they be? Imagine that right now they already are that person, that doctor, or scientist, or driver, or teacher, or soldier.
- What does it feel like?
- Imagine that they look down at their own bodies, what are they wearing?
- Now start walking to work, what do they see? the weather. sounds. smells. the street. other people. and
- stop. they have arrived at their workplace. In front of them is the building where they work, and right in front of them is the door to the building, reach out and open the door.

OPENING THE DOOR TO HIS WORKPLACE

- what does it look like inside? the walls. light. furniture (reach out and pretend to touch a piece of furniture, what does it feel like)
- outloud I have them greet another person who is at their workplace.
- then they get to work and use some of the objects they have imagined in the space.
- after putting in some good work, they take a last look around them at the room, at the clothes they are wearing, feel what their body feels like as this person.
- take three deep breaths and open their eyes.

Then we talk about the excercise. The difficulties. Their favorite moments. What it is like to watch other people doing it. or be watched.
The youth group class goes particularly well.

THE YOUTH CLASS

For our youngest class we do a different excercise, making tableaux of their happiest memories:

FEEDING THE FISH AT THE ZOO IN BLOEMFONTEIN

LESOTHO CHILD COUNSELING UNIT

2006-09-29T03:31:00.000-04:00

We return to the LCCU. I was here last year. "Mapuso" some of the kids say, "do you remember me?" Some of them I do. It is wonderful to come back. Seeing the same kids grown a year older. One shy but spunky girl who keeps taping me on the shoulder and I keep pretending not to see her. She has flourished so much. 8 years now, she seems grown. The little toddlers want to be held. and it comforts me to walk around, one giggling on each hip. I play with my big colorful scarf. Dropping it over me and the kids heads. A colorful tent it changes everything. Get a shy new girl to join in the game.

The Lesotho Child Counseling Unit counsels children from the community (in Mazenod) who have been sexually abused. Often they stay at the LCCU for a period of time while a new living situation is found for them: with extended family, on their own in child run households, or at orphanages.
The stories we hear about their abuse are shocking. There is such breakdown in community and family structure with the spread of HIV/AIDS. The things that these beautiful children have suffered, impossible to wrap my mind around. The rape of a 6 year old girl by her father, the spunky 8 year old by her grandfather. Girls who arrive at the LCCU and can't walk. I don't want to know why the toddlers are there.
The children who I know from last year are still there because they haven't found another home yet. The shy and spunky 8 year old girl, will finally get placed at SOS children's village because they have agreed to take her with only a police report and a letter from the chief - her extended family wont answer the letters to approve her placement in a children's home.

Yet there is laughter and smiles all around today.
And I am proud to be there shaping it.

The LCCU is an amazing supportive family. Two rondavel houses with a kitchen in between them. The woman who runs it - Lydia - is a mother for all of the kids. They are a great bunch.
I am so glad to be returning.
I am so glad to just be playing with the kids.
learning their names.
sitting with them.
I perform with a new found investment.
The kids from the community who are not staying at the LCCU leave.
We stay and cook dinner with the LCCU kids. Share food. I play my birimbao.
We drive off in the dusk.

ENTERTAINING BEFORE THE SHOW

OUR SAPPY "CAR SPONSORSHIP" PHOTO

SIZANANI WORLD CAMP

2006-09-26T05:08:00.000-04:00

Sizanani World Camp is a week-long American style camp for kids affected by HIV/AIDS. this week there are 130 girls.
Some of them are 15 and the heads of their households.
in their world there are funerals every weekend.
The camp focuses on life-skills, empowerment and adventure.
It is their second day and already they are full of power. chanting and singing loudly on their way to each activity.
The staff - local South African counselours, and volunteer foreign counselours are amazing.

We do a show in the morning. The talking and talking and revising and revising pays off.
It is a 1st rate show.
We have a blast doing it. The girls are a great audience. They trick me into walking the wrong way looking for jamie in the pink panther chase scene. They clap and whoop for the volunteers on stage.
Maybe it is because they are all girls.

In the afternoon, Alice and I teach workshops. James and Jamie are our assistant teachers. We are trying hard this trip to have us women in powerful roles, both in the show and in other interactions.

The workshops start with silly warmups and games to loosen up voice, body, and emotions.
The we move onto forum theater type work.
We are working on developing an emotional well-being and life-dreams workshop curriculum for Project Njabulo.
For the first workshop we stage tableaux of difficult situation the girls have lived through and then alter them to show positive outcomes. And my word, the girls have lived through difficult situations:
- an uncle stabbed to death in front of one of the girls
- being abducted by a man in a black care
it is hard core. but I push through it and it ends on a very positive note. a comment about how good it is to share ones experiences and discover that we are not alone, others have experienced similar things and still we can envision positive outcomes together.

For the second workshop we stage the girls' happiest memories. This is much more in line with the mission of Project Njabulo (joy in zulu.) not just tableaux, they use voice and movement. they are brilliant. the room is fulled with:
- surprise birthday parties
- passing school grads
- winning prizes
truly enriching. I end the workshop with a visualization excercise:

eyes closed
what did you feel in your body when you remembered your happiest memory
what did you feel when you shared your happiest memory
what did you feel when you staged your happiest memory
or what did you feel when you acted out someone else's happiest memory
now imagine that all of these feelings connected to your happy memory are in your belly. put your hands on your stomach and feel the emotions in your belly. now open your eyes.

we are all standing in a circle looking at each other, hands on belly.
we end with a big group whooopy.

leave the camp full of energy. tomorrow is South African heritage day, a national holiday and we have a day off. This means we will have a 3 hr rehearsal to fine-tune the show even more. But it is not work. It is life. We are living our work.

Our team in uniform: Jamie, Alice, Selena, and James (our logistics coordinator)

NDLOVU MEDICAL CENTER

2006-09-26T03:20:00.000-04:00

our first stop: Ndlovu Medical Center

An amazingly comprehensive medical clinic.

Their ethos is to provide first rate medical care in the third world. People here are content with 2nd rate or even 3rd rate medical care. It's better than the norm. But they're worth 1st rate care and they should get it.
the clinic, was started by two Dutch doctors and they now have a South African partner as well.

- they have 100% prevention of transmission of HIV from mother to baby.
- incredible retention rates for their patients taking TB drugs and ARVs
- Nutritional Units in the community
- An AIDS awareness program that does theater and workshops and testing in the communities.
- a fully self-sufficient laboratory - they can do all of their treatment and testing in one place - get HIV results in 15 minutes.
- and they provide their services at a really affordable cost.

Here with Clowns Without Borders Project Njabulo we also aim to provide a 1st rate show to our audiences they deserve it. We kick ourselves the first week because we feel that though they love what we're doing, we're not doing our best. We talk and talk and revise and revise.
We do three shows at Ndolvu Medical Center - teaming up with the AIDS awareness program Drama folk to perform at their outreach events.
We do a show for pre-schoolers at the Clinics 1st class sports facilities.
Pre-show there is hip-hop music blasting
the 6 year olds are practicing their moves.
the teachers leading them.
the have better rythym than I ever will.
moving their hips with tight precision.
but Alice and I show off what we got: attitude:

we also do an afternoon visit playing with the people on line at the clinique.
many or them old.
many of them very sick.
people here - they wait and wait to go to the clinique.
there is so much denial about HIV.
often it is too late.

but our games - Alice with her accordeon, me with my birimbao, our first time improving together - are light, change the mood, and we have fun. Afterwards we are full of a new found energy.

Having for a few moments bridged the gap between us, the young, lively, foreign, colorful clowns. And those who are waiting on line. sick, poor, powerless, waiting.

the beginning of the blog

2006-09-17T07:37:00.000-04:00

My 2005-2006 Watson Year has ended,
but my travels are continuing...

I will update this blog when I am travelling,
and will start writing shorter tid bits instead of endless mass emails.

ght now I am in Johannesburg, with Clowns Without Borders,
we are rehearsing our new show for our Sep-Oct Lesotho tour,
in Jamie's grandfather's fortress of a house.
We are a great group, and these rehearsal days are full of excitement for me.

As I write this an ominous spring storm is rolling in.

MEXICO #1 (my 2nd favorite)

2006-09-17T06:56:00.000-04:00

In Mexico City my life is more complete and full of routine than it has been all year....

It is the first country all year where I was met at the airport -
By the debonair Dr. Romanok (i.e. Andres) decked out in his red nose, top hat, and white Risaterapia lab coat.

My first two weeks here I stayed with Andres and his wife Ana Cecilia in their gorgeous comfy apartment full of books and little knick knacks to play with.
Andres took me around to eat quesadillas in the market and so on.

Andres is the founder of Risaterapia, the hospital clowning association that I came to Mexico to work with. I met one of Andres' best friends (Ensalada) when I was in Brazil and he is the one who persuaded me to come here.
I wanted to see what a big, successful, volunteer hospital clowning organization was like.
And I have been blown away.
Have learned so much. More than anything been inspired by how the organization is structured and run. Andres was a clownd with Ringling Bros. came back to Mexico and started Risaterapia with a group of friends from school. The fact that Risaterapia has grown up out of a core group is very evident; there are now over 300 volunteers but it still feels like a family.
Everyone is welcoming, supportive.

to me the idea of quickly training people with no previous clown, or theater, or music, or dance, or psychology, or teaching experience, to be hospital clowns seemed daunting and almsot impossible.
For this reason I have been very skeptical of volunteer hospital clowning programs. Have had the image of awful insensitive birthday clowns with balloons wandering into hospitals, going way too close to sick children with their grotesque make-up, and making people laugh out of discomfort.
Well Risaterapia's 30-hour long training is incredibly complete and trains their clowns in the very sensitive art of hospital clowning. It is a beautiful intense course that most people describe as life-changing. And wich, I felt really did prepare.
I took the course with Dr. Zito (i.e. Fernando) a beautiful open endearing person, amazing teacher, great clown. It was very similar to a lot of stuff I had already done, but for me it really put together everything I knew so that by the end of the course I felt so much mroe confident in what I knew and so psyched to get working in hospitals.

RECEIVING MY CERTIFICATE FOR COMPLETION
OF THE TRAINING COURSE

I have been volunteering in the hospitals with Risaterapia 2-3 visits a week. It has been delightful. After a lot of time learning from mostly observing great hospital clowns at Le Rire Medecin, Payasospital, and Doutores da Alegria (and briefly in S. Africa with the UP and Teodora) to be putting into practice what I had soaked up is great. The work itself is great fun, great challenge.

Among the volunteers, there is of course some tendency to cheesiness, cliche, cutsy wootsy, plastic toys, that kind of thing. Somehow people always seem to be attracted to that stuff, but overall the clowning is really good. For volunteers with only a basic 30 hour training (there is more followup training later on) it strikes me as truly amazing.
I have found a few volunteers who I reall yadore working with.

And I guess I should try and describe what we do.
We work in pairs (occasionally meld into bigger groups or seperate for a bit).
It is had to describe without talking for hourse, or just showing it,
but some examples from my day today -

I was working with a guy clown and a younger girl clown, the guy clown had this umbrella that when you opened it there was a sky with clouds printed on the inside. We went around bringing the sky to each child in a few of the rooms. It was beautiful because we would all get under this umbrella together and it totally changed everything to be three clowns, a kid, and a parents under an umbrella gazing up at a spinning sky.

With one baby who was convulsing a lot and was exhausted but couldn't fall asleep, his grandmother was sitting next ot him with her hand on his chest. I just sang a melody to them and made an imaginary sleep ball to send in the air to them. Just at the wrong moment, two other clowns arrived and we had to negotiate break in the moment, the baby convulsing again, and the clowns leaving again when they realized it wasn't the right moment to join in.

I hypnotized my clown partner so that she walked into walls and people and acted like a chicken.

Chatted iwth imaginary people on the polic guard's intercom wearing his hat.

Lots of just connecting with people, moving silly.

My last visit I was with a clown who doesn't talk and we had a wonderful scene in a room where I was attacked by an imaginary spider that got inside my clothes and gave me crazy tickles.
Then a snake bit my foot, I yelled for someone to please carry me to a hospital, then asked one of the kids what I should do. he said "fall asleep." So I did. Stayed sleeping. My clown partner led all the kids into playing little tricks on me while I was slumbering. They finished with one of them pulling off one of my shoes. All of them reacted that my feet smelled horrible, and everyone left the room!!!!
They stood outside the room, at the door, knocking, when I asked, still asleep "quien es? Who is it" one of the kids said "tu esposo, your husband" I sarted kissing the air in my sleep. One of the fathers was still in the room by himself and everyone standing in the door started shouted directions for me to walk towards the father (still with my eyes mostly shut and kissing the air in front of me) "isquierda! direcho! direcha! adelante!" until finally I ended up in front of him, he ducked, and I started kissing the chair.

Stuff like that...

I like the moving silly most of all. And letting kids direct me in what I should do.

I have written this before, but it is really wonderful going to a hospital of all places making sick kids, and worried parents, and exhausted doctors laugh, or smile, or just feel campanioned. And to give kids who are trapped in hospital beds, the agency to direct an interaction with the clowns. it is all about giving them agency.

Risaterapia is cool because it's not just the work, it is also the space, a gorgeous fun space, the red nose nights party/show once a month, the classes, the community.

OUTSIDE THE HOSPITAL

I have three other groups in my life here in Mexico City.

I am training Capoeira five days a week with is really intense but great. Capoeira is a fighting dance from Brazil. It is really hard exercise. IT is all about playing and tricking the other people and showing them that you can hurt them without really actually hurting them (too much) and lying and fooling and surprising some more. And the music and the ritual and the community.

I am living in a house with two Mexicans, one French, and one German. I have my own room. And wireless internet. And a kitchen. And a rooftop. It is truly amazing having an apartment after so much time travelling.

And I have been working with a Social Circus organization called Machincuepa. They are part of the Cirque du Monde network. I started out by watching and helping out with their workshops. And now I am teaching clowning workshops. Two workshops for each group.
- the advanced older boys who have been training circus for about 6 years
- the mixed workshop for 15-20 kids mixed 8 yrs and up
- the "women's workshop" for 15-20 girls 8 yrs and up
- the training for the volunteer instructors
I think that teaching has brough me more pleasure than anything else I've been doing, even working in the hospital. The kids are great and what I have been doing with them is so different from the workshops they normally have. I love teaching and it is great to be teaching kids how to have fun (they already know how...). And teaching the older ones more concrete, intense clown theory. They pick it up so quickly (naturally). And to lead a group so that everyone is comfy and being silly and making each other laugh is wild.
After each class I am filled with so much energy myself.

My time here in Mexico has been great because it really is giving me the opportunity to synthesize everything I've learned this year, Now it doesn't feel like this crazy Watson Fellowship year, it just feels like what I do.

Plus eating tacos and sopes and tortas and flautas on the street and luckily I haven't gotten sick yet and riding the microbuses and vw beetle taxis and the metro and the metrobuses and being in the biggest city in the world though it doesn't feel it and everyone here looks at me in the subway out of interest because I am blond and they tell me that my hair looks like a sheep's hair and my clown name in the hospital is Dra. Muco (which comes from moco which means snot, but really just sounds like a weird silly name because I was pronoucing it wrong) and I am speaking Spanish now with hardly any Portuguese mixed in.

SOUTH, CENTRAL, AND NORTH AMERICA #1

2006-09-17T06:16:00.000-04:00

I hit it to Rio for a week and a half, arrived in time for a great block party hosted by an arts organization. I stayed with a friend in Santa Tereza, the most beautiful part of Rio that feels like a small town in the middle of the big city. I visited the Rio branck of Doutores da Alegria (in a hospital where the thought of having surgery there really scared me, it was a really poor hospital that needed clowns if ever there was one.) I also visted the Enfermeras Della Risa (a university hospital clowning organization), Pequeno Tigre, and Final Feliz, two impressive social circus programs.

Final Feliz is an amazing program in the middle of a favella, started by one guy in his house, with his wife helping out. They do tons of different kinds of workshops and classes all week long for about 75 kids in the local community. They are in the north of Rio, where the steep streets look like erosion ravines and definietly aren't suitable for cars to drive up. There is lots of garbage in the streets. But the community where they are located is safe, and the project is beautiful. I only went for a day, but they stole my heart they were so welcoming and the kids were such a family. I wanted to stay forever.

In fact Rio is just a wonderful passionate city with all of its danger and violence and drugs and flash and money on the beach with the bright flood lights of Ipanema that look so much like in the photos that its uncanny.
The layout of the city is rich people in the lowlands and poor people in the highlands but all very close to each other.
and mountains and beach and cold water springs
just minutes outside the city in the forest on the mountains
and gorgeous colonial buildings with the paint chipping off of them.

It is amazing the people I remember most vividly traveling, this one girl I met at PEqueno Tigre who was so gutsy with curly lightish hair not unlike mine. I big puffed up belly with a scar on it. Younger than most of the other kids but leading the other girls. A funny walk and a gorgeous smile.

Back in Sao Paulo, I lived some more at Tati's house...fell for a Brazilian musician who looks like a gypsy and teaches music at a public school project. He (Olinda) took me to his work one day and I got to help out leading stunning chidren in animal theater exercises. Everyone at the school absolutely in love with Olinda, yelling his name and kissing and hugging him. So comfortably physical in the Brasilian way. Well the neighborhood where the school is, is something like the biggest periphery/favella in the world. But this new schoool project is amazing- beautiful facilities for the whole community. Swimming pool. and the kids have half their school day devoted to arts or sports (like most places I've been, the school day is only half as long as in the States...)

The Doutores da Alegria are like "The" hospital clowning group in Brazil. They have professional clowns and lots of publicity and are very well known. while I was with them I went to their weekly training course for their new clowns (there are about 10 of them this year, almost doubling the size of the organization...), observed them in the hospitals, but because of timing and organization, didn't actually play in the hospital until my last week. Well when it came around to it, I had a wonderful time playing in the hospital with them, finally my Portuguese was very good, I felt much more confident about my clowning, my self, all of that, it was a smash. They are such a great bunch of people those Doutores da Alegria.

Then, so soon that it felt unreal that I was leaving Brazil (I didn't want to leave but my visa had run out...) I got on a plane to Guatemala.

(Brazilians are so poetic, and they love "Saudade" which is like missing, only it is a noun and also means more like a longing.

SAMBA DO TOCADOR,
CADA SAUDADE UM AMOR.
SAMBA DO CANTADOR,
CADA SAUDADE UM AMOR.
The musician/player's samba
Every missing/longing is a love
The singer's samba,
Every missing/longing is a love.

For me, the traveller's samba: every missing/longing is a love. It was really hard to leave Brazil.)

Well on my way to Guatemala, I met Brendan, my best friend from high school. Stayed in Panahachel, a town on the edge of Lake Atitlan, in the beautiful house of my dear family friends Alex, Carlos, + Regina. Their garden is the garden of paradise. We were on vacation. We slept a lot. Cooked a lot. We were indeed living in paradise but in fear of getting sick from bacteria or pesticides.
Brendan got sick.
Then Brendan got better.
Then I got sick.

We had lunch one day with a group of clowns that do performances in the area about HIV/AIDS.

Then we hit it to Antigua/Guatemala City. Along with the bacteria and pesticides we had been warned countless times to not ever go into Guatemala City. But I wanted to visit Caja Ludica, an organization that my friend Yanna has been raving about for two years...(she worked with them organizing poetry events).
Caja Ludica is worth raving about. They are a wonderful organization that does all kinds of outreach work. The most excity thing that they do is to have parades twice a week (or more) where they all dress up in crazy costumes, some of them on stilts, others doing circus stuff, and they just go to different places or events of communities and lead the children in a kind of a party/ceremony about celebrating and being playful. It is big and flashy and beautiful. I went on one with them and was overwhelmed.

They also teach breathing workshops, and hip hop and grafitti and poetry and circus and more...
While I was there I taught two clown workshops and helped two Caja Ludica members make a clown routine with their circus skills. It was my first time this year teaching a group of people so close to my own age and I had a blast. It was very cool to realize that I had so much to share...also to be able to share it with Brendan.

Halfway through our short visit with Caja Ludica, Brendan and I decided to skip the hour commute from Antigua, the tourist town outside Guatemala City and go and stay with Iria the Spanish volunteer with Caja Ludica in Guatemala City proper. We strapped our packs to the top of the chicken bus (a revamped blue bird school bus) climbed onto the bus with out other bags and worried ourselves blue as the bus made hairpin turns at top speed and everyone on the bus laughed at us the two crazy gringos.

Well, as my mommy and daddy know, I have been very careful during all of my travels, watching my own back and not getting into any trouble. I will say though, that though Guatemala City may not be the complete hellhole that people make it out to be. It certainly felt like the most dangerous place I've been to. One night we walked home from a bar at night with Iria, the streets were completely deserted except for the military police men standing in groups on street corners with huge gigantic guns. And these are the same guys that killed so many people during the war... I did not feel very safe around those policemen. Especially when Iria started telling us about how if we were Guatemalteco, is we had tatoos and peircings (like some of the guys in Gaja Ludica), the police could just shoot us and justify it by saying we were in a gang. (but that as foreigners these police guys were our friends of course...)
But in Guate you pretty much do have to join a gang for protection. And it is so easy and cheap to buy a gun with fake papers, and so many people are so poor that it is totally common to get mugged at gunpoint for less than a dollar. It is actually worth mugging someone at gunpoint for less than a dollar, or killing someone, and so on. Life is cheap there in Guatemala. I really felt that in my bones. And well, it didn't feel good, expecially when just as we were arriving home, Iria told us that she had gotten mugged with a gun to her head right outside her building.

Well, one not so safe night in 365 is really not so bad....and it was safe for us in the end, in fact the bus rides and raw vegetables were probably, in actualiy, a lot more dangerous than the walk home. But Guatemala is a scary place. Learning more about the country made me even more impressed by Caja Ludica's amazing work.

It was wonderful to be with Brendan - speak in English - be with someone from home, and just hang out the two of us. I was sad to leave him.

However I had to move on to Mexico city to get here in time for a training course with Risaterapia. I got picked up at the airport by my amazing hosts! and was welcomed into their beautiufl apartment!! and started up with their amazing organization - Risaterapia!!!! Woo hooo!!!

But enough for now, will write about Mexico very soon indeed.

BRAZIL #1

2006-09-12T12:41:00.000-04:00

I arrived at the Sao Paulo airport at 6 am on February 6th after 30 hrs of travelling. I caught a 7:30 bus to the nearby city of Campinas, riding with eyes mostly shut, soaking up the delicious humidity and tropical trees....

In Campinas... I lived with a circus family - former circus stars now settled in one place and teaching trapeze, tightrope, acrobatics, and more in their backyard. The grandmother has alzheimers, the daughter talks to herself, the father is very quiet, and the spunky mother somehow holds the family together. The son teaches classes to almost everyone in town, the daughter in law is one of the only women in the world to juggle 7 pins. All of them incredibly kind and giving despite or maybe because of their supreme braziness.

When I arrived in Brazil everything looked so much more familiar than I thought it would. The buildings, clothing, faces, like movies and photos I've seen. So different from when I arrived in South Africa and everything was so completely foriegn. Here people are also very good at understanding and helping foreigners. From the get go I could make myself at least somehwat understood with my Spanish.

In Campinas I took two theater workshops with Lume - a great physical theater company. The workshops were during Feverestival (a festival of theater workshops and performances) so almsot every night there was a performance to go to, a bar to hang out at - foreigners from Brazil and abroad infiltrating this small suburb (Barao Geraldo) of Campinas

The first workshop, big with 24 people, was street theater "The Actor in the Street." We worked on intense presence, individual and in a group. Gaze. Panther. Body presence. Dispersing and coming together. Characters. Animals. Amazonian women and Savage men. In just a couple of days we whipped together a piece and performed it three times in the street. A beautiful group - gelled together quickly with luches after the workshops and then later seeing a show, having a drink at the bar of the day, like that. It being festival time, vacation, brazil, and theater people. Everyone was incredibly friendly, flirtatious, and physically affectionate. Delicious, but at times a little overwhelming.

My second workshop was more persnally intense, "The Body as Frontiere" it was a search for the corporeal expression that is the essence of dance, theater, clown - finding the place that is all of them without distinction between them. Through Lume's physical training of pushin gyourself to the limit physically and then holding it there, like a stone, control, letting yourself go, then holding with your whole body straining. Incredibly physically intense. But more than anything incredibly emotionally intense. Memories, images, pain, delight.

The last day of the workshops was the 1st day of carnaval and all of us in the street in the carnaval block, dancing and singing until dawn. I kissed many people, went home and slept for 2 hous, and then caught a ride ("carona") to the bus station in ao Paulo where I met my lovely Louise. Arrived fresh from NYC to spend her vacation with me (good friend since age 13)

She was exhausted from a year of non-stop overwork at an architechture firm in cutthroat NYC, living with her parents, and designing a house for them. Me I was exhausted from 8 months of non-stop traveling and seeing too many new things with too few constant people in my life. So we were a perfect match for each other.
We spent almost every moment of the 2 weeks together. I was exactly what I needed. 1st we went to Rio for carnaval with friends from the theater workshops. Then to Recife/Olinda in the NorthEast where there is more traditional street carnaval. We stayed with Lara (brazilian) and Renata (american-israeli). We danced in a Cavalo Marinho block which is a traditional music and dance, in a tight group weaving through the streets.

The highlight of all carnaval was finding the rehearsal for the Cavalo Marinho with Louise and Renata in a poorer rather more dangerous area with skimpy directions and my Portuguese still quite mediocre. We found the sweetest young family with baby in arms that took us to pick up the father's sister who knew how to take us to the open air rehearsal space. All of them walked us there and then the sister went back home to bring her 3 beautiful kids. They stood and watched the very quick rehearsal. The kids with gorgeous polite smiles delighted at meeting the American girls. Kissing us and waving goodbye as we got on the bus for the ride with the musicians and dancers to Olinda (where the carnaval gather of different blocks was happening). The bus ride full of music jamming and smiles too.

After carnaval in Recife, Louise and I left Renata and Lara and hit the beauch on an island near Salvador. Mostly a vacation place for Salvadorians, it was empty since vacation time was over. We stayed at "Zimbo Tropical" in a little cabin with a giant mosquito net, living the good life. Mostly sleeping, eating mangos fallen from the tree outside our cabin, watching tiny monkeys, sun bathing in our brazilian bikinis, playing lots of gin rummy and dominoes. Me I had a lung infection after so many nights out without sleeping but Louise put up with my disguting phlem hacking like an angel.

All vacations must come to an end, so Lou and I returned to Sao Paulo, took me to the doctor to get antibiotics, went to see Lume's new show - a stunning poem of 4 old people in a hat workshop trying to make the perfect hat. Lou was able to see why my heart lies in performance and not in architechture. She jumped in a cab. I waved goodbye standing on a small corner in the big city. And got back to work and back to being on my own agaain.

In Sao Paulo I am living with a friend I met in Campinas at the festival - Tatiana- and her mom - Gladys - and the maid who also lives in their apartment - Maria - and the 6 month old terror kitten - Alici. Tatiana is 20 years old, studying theater, an only child like me, and very much spunky. Very much woman. And also very strong and masculine. Long wavy dark hair. Italian and Palestinian famaily background. We are a good match getting to play like we are sisters a little; wearing each other's clothers. Her mother has aan immense heart. Maria, the maid, is a goofy tempermental lady who runs the house like she is in sharge of absolutely everything and watches soap operas all day.

It is amazng, really amazing to be living in one place with a family. In a big city where there is everything. I am here visiting the Doutores da Alegria, a hospital clowning organization. I am going every week to the formation workshop for their new clowns, observing the clowns in the hospital, and I went to their program last week for disadvantaged youth - theater and clown training for 2 years and a 3rd year supporting each participant while they design and setup programs in their own communities. Everyone at the Doutores has been so kind and welcoming to me.

It is wonderful t o be back in this world after my vacation - watching a boy who has had a foot amputated hopping after the clowns like the happiest boy in the world. I am finding it super interesting to see the cultural differences between programs. These clowns hve more a clown pretending to be a doctor approach - like the Clown Care Unit in the States. They have more corporate sponsorship - a lot of media coverage - a movie. They are very popular here in Brazil. There are now around 100-200 volunteer clown groups in Brazil inspired by the Doutores da Alegria. They also have an education center for research about the benefits of hospital clowning - the psychology of it. And a woman who works with them on that side of things, wrote a beautiful very philosophical dissertation about their work. They have a great office with rehearsal/workshop space and a delicious lunch for everyone working there each day.

The coolest thing about living in one place here in a big city for a month (will be 2 months total) has been trying to incorporate this Watson traveling, learning, researching, doing, into more of a part of a complete living experience like what I might ideally have "at home". There is so much cultural stuff going on here. An amazing cultural institution chain, SESC, with money from the commercial sector for theaters, gyms, library space, art exhibits, dentist, and swimming pools. I have been going to tons of shows - theater, dance, Butoh, music - taking Portuguese lessons, doing contact improvisation, Capoeira, swimming, getting to know the city. There are no maps in this sprawling city. To get somewhere you always just have to ask people what bus to take, where to get off. It is delightful this daily treasure hunt to find my way.

As I get to know Sao Paulo and Brazil I find myself constantly comparing it to the States and South Africa. Here there is such a mix of people, like in the states, a similar colonial history, and yet the mix is so much more of a mix - in skin color, music, and religion, everything mixed, and everything Brazilian. In a way that in the STates not everything is American. (of course there are more recent immigrants in the US) The divide between rich and poor in some ways more similar to South Africa but the enforcin gof it more like in America. I have felt frustrated here not spending time in the favellas. Hearing about the military police that drive into the favellas in tanks with white skulls painted on the front, looking for stolen arms, and shooting down anybody. But living, rather than traveling, here I am also aware of how little first hand experience I have of poverty and violence in the States. Here is a frustration poem I wrote the other day:

My head hurts
So I miss him.
Try to let it flow down my arm
and out my right hand.
Here in the big dangerous city
I may never see a gun,
I have yet to see a rat,
But I dream of it.
of the family that cleans windshields,
of a woman whose right hand falls off,
of your face, there, in front of me in the Metrocar.
Little boys who sleep on the sidewalk
While I sleep in an apartment with a maid.
I say maid like I would say dishwasher,
say bathtub,
say terrace.
But there is no dishwasher,
no bathtub,
no terrace.
Only the little boy who sleeps on the sidewalk while I sleep on the bed.
because I dress nice, I smile nice, I am nice,
they let me pee in the bathrooms of their restaurants
they let me stay in their apartment for free
they let me cross the street when the light is red
because I am all the way in Sao Paulo
I miss South Africa
because I am white
I miss his skin
because everything is concrete
I miss him
because I am here by myself.

Two more little things - it has been amazing learning Portuguese. I went back to Campinas this weekend and it was incredible to see all of these signs and menus that a month ago I didn't really understand and now yes. Brazil is a totally different world for me than when I first got here. Hearing so many words, reading the newspaper, expressing myself. I am speaking almost no English these days.

And then - the most beautiful thing in Brazil is how musical everyone is. So much local musical tradition. I go out with Tati and her friends, someone whips out a tamborine and suddenly everyone is singing samba. There is music everywhere. This weekend I danced to Forro music (accordeon, triangle, drum, and singing) in a Campinas club. The same spirit as country music or contradancing only so popular here, such good dancing, and music.

I am very homesick, missing friends and family and new york city pizza more than ever now that the year is mostly over. These days, since a friend asked me how I've changed in the past few months, I have a new awareness of how many new things I have seen and done. Makes me want to be with my past more. But heck, I am having a great time here in Brazil.

EUROPE #2

2006-09-09T19:14:00.000-04:00

I'm back in london. It's dark but nowhere near as cold as last time.
Since my last time here...

SUMMARY - EUROPE

I spent two beautiful weeks in gorgeous and calm Amsterdam visiting Circus Elleboog (Elbow) and staying at a Christian youth hostel (fascinating). Had a lonely Christmas time in Paris, but then my parents came and visited me for two weeks. We are a lot of duck and I managed to stay put for a full three weeks in a single apartment. I visited Le Rire Medecin, an astounding hospital clown program that blew my mind. Spent time mulling over what to do with the rest of my life in a way I never have before. And then I went down to the slightly warmer and so friendly land of cerveza and tapas. Had a full day frolicking around the cave dwellings of Granada with a friend from home. And a week with the unbelievably welcoming PayaSOSpital clowns in Valencia who let me tag along for three days of delightful hospital performing. joing in on their music workshop, and also took me to the beach for paella. Finished the trip up with a visit to some recent friend involved in a politcal community center outside of Barcelona. Hung out with people my age for a change. Met with a wonderful woman from the Spanish clowns without borders (met earlier on with the French CWB in Paris). Lay in the sun in the park on the hill, dozing off and looking at the Mediterranean port. On Saturday I go to Brazil.

I am pretty wiped.

And ready to settle down in one place in Brazil. An apartment, living with a family. Something like that is in the plans. Given my exhaustion, my email is a bit scattered - journal entries, quickly written connection paragraphs. But I hope you enjoy.

CIRCUS ELLEBOOG - Amsterdam

(circus program for 4 year olds, each with one of their parents)

Today at circus Elleboog it was stunning, so beautiful, to watch the parents with their children, kids curled into their parents laps like baby animals snuggling. The human contact. So special to watch. A lifetime in each interaction. A million stories. Not just child rearing, physical attention, care - but a magic. A love. So viscous I could see it. Think between each parent and child. These parents they were good parents.
The one grandfather and his shy princess with butterfly wings. I could have watched the kids face painting their parents for hours.

4 such a perfect age. The age when the kid jumps forward to be a creative partner. The first jump to adulthood maybe. But still so physically close to ther parent that they meld into them. I remember my first memories at 4, as it it was the first time I started really analyzing. I remember learning how to tie my shoe laces. But I picture myself younge rcurled up again my mummy. Both of us in nightgowns and still sleepy in the big red chair in the music room.

In Lesotho, we met a white board member at one of the orphanages that we worked with. His granddaughter was there with him and came up to him and hugged him around the waist. I was so struck by it. Instinctively. Shocked. The image of it. I didn't know why though. I thought it was the demonstration of physical attention in front of so many orphaned or abandoned children. They I thought it was the fact that he was a n older authoritative man who suddenly became accesible emotionally; his granddaughter was free to just throw her arms around his belly. The I thought it was because I hadn't seen really any men in Southern AFrica being physically affectionate with kids.

After coming back to Europe and seeing the Circus Elleboog program (and other families situations too...) I realize that it was the fact that in Southern Africa, there is a different family sturcture, so much more death, and kids brought up differently than what I'm used to. In so many places I visited, there were so few parental figures. I hadn't seen any children expressing that kind of parental adoration at all really. Often because there were no parents there. Seeing a glimpse of the cherished relationship between a parental figure and their special grandchild, the kid of relationship I grew up with, but in that context, hit me like a freight train.

(I also saw the Cirque du Monde/Circus Elleboog final "Best of" performance which was stunning, intense, "kids" almost all of them older than me, were or had been living on the street or squatting, very hip, punk, stylish, doing really powerful and evocation circus peices.)

LE RIRE MEDECIN - Paris

In my journal I have a drawing I did of a 17 year old boy that I saw in the hospital with the Parisian hospital clowns. He was a bone marrow transplant recipient, living in what they call a "flu" (plastic curtains isolation him from germs)
In my drawing he is in his bed, inside the plastic bubble of curtains, isolated. But there are tons of wirds from his chest and arms escaping out into the world on the the other side of the curtains. Wires like breath like song like wings like hair like whispers.

I've always been terrified of hospitals. And so it was amazing to spend two weeks with Le Rire Medecin and find myself so excited to go to the hospital. So excited to go to services where kids are really, really sick. Cancer. Blood diseases, like that. (I went to 2 services like that and 1 more general one) In a single day with the clowns I witnessed so many magical beautiful moments, it was wild. One of Le Rire Medecin's strong beliefs is that there is always more child than diseae. They treat the child. In a world of white walls, beeping machines, wireds, and white uniforms, the human often gets forgotten. The disease takes over. Not so for the clowns.

The clowns I visited were brillian skilled artists. The ideal. They entered each room on the breath. Improvising every interaction. So sensitive to the people around them. And really playing. With the kids so involved. Too much to write a paragraph about.
My favorite "scene" was a boy who the nurses told us was so depressed he wouldn't come out from under the covers. The clowns went in, delicately talking about the stuff in the room, wondering where the boy was - - After a few minutes he was standing up on his bed being a ghost, a monster, roaring, lurching for the clowns, terrifying them, and having so much fun. It was delightful. After that he spent the rest of the day walking around the floor, hangin out with the nurses.
I saw so much. Played in the hospital with two of the clowns one afternoon. Which was a blast. Time going by so quickly. So different to be doing than observing. The clowns so good to me; calling me Madame Poux (Mrs. Lice), ach it was so much fun.

PAYASOSPITAL - Valencia

The PayaSOSpital in Valencia were amazing as well. To me, they truly felt like the Spanish version of Le Rire Medecin. More laidback. Less intellectually intense with the kids. So much music. The cultural difference was really strong for me. In the hospitals as well. The kids didn't seem as sick. As desperate. Neither did the parents. More family members hanging in the hospital. So many kids being carried in their parents arms. The laughter lighter in a way. That's what it seemed like to me. But of coures my Spanish isn't al lthat good so I was also probably missing a lot.

The PayaSOSpital are a smaller program than Le Rire Medecin - les hospitals and less clowns. But the services that they cover in the hospital are bigger so they move quickly, seeing lots of kids but spending less time with each of them.
My favorite time with them was the hour that they spent at the Down's Syndrome Clinic my first day there. (A day hospital where kids with down's syndrome can see all different specialists at once) One clowns was trying to dictate a phone number at top speed to the other with all of the distractions and impediments and qualities to make it into a brilliant problem to solve. Everyone in the waiting room area was involved. A teenage boy trying to help with getting the number. An older girl bossing everyone around. And all of us laughing our hearts out for the hour.

I often thought of Southern Africa while I was in the hospitals here.
My experiences there still really vivid.
I saw two hospital clown programs in South Africa. I clowned three times with the UPliftment Project in Cape Town - a project that is very young and full of energy. I was not really theatrical clowning. It felt more like just playing with the kids and being silly. But it was clearly invaluable to the kids and hospital staff. I also visited the Theadora Foundation program in Johannesburg for just one day. Their program relies more on skills - magic, juggling, but of course also improvisation.
The most striking difference between the hospitals in South Africa and in Europe was that in S. Africa it was always a big room with lots of kids. Not so many nurses. Somestime the nurse actually left when the clowns came because it gave her a break. Hardly any family members. At the hospital for kids with mental handicaps, not a single parent to be seen.
In Paris most of t he kids had their own room. In Valencia, it seemed like it was 2-3 kids to a room.
The diseases, also were different.
But the biggest difference between the Clown programs was how professional the PArisians and Valencianos were - how respected they were - how inormed they were. (They do a transmision wit hthe nurses or doctors at the beginning of each day so that they know all the basic info about the children that they'll see.) Peopke in the hospital understood that clowning was their work, that it was valuable work, and saw them as professional people outside of their clown characters. They were truly a part of the service that they inhabited. A contact. For the kids with long term illnesses, they were an important part of their lives. For the nurses as well. Everybody knew what days the clowns came. New patients got postcards with photos of the clowns on them. In Valencia there were information posters on each floor. I mean, it was really serious work.

I am curious to see Hospital Clowning in the STates when I finanly get back.

For many reasons I am very happy that I decided to come to Europe: to see European Clowning in a European context, to visit programs with substantial funding that have been running for a long time, to visit the french and spanish Clowns Without Borders, to learn about different organizational structures, different ways of doing projects iwth similar goals, and to go somewhere where I can speak the language, is a home, see friends.

I finished this email on the airplane. Suspended over the Atlantic. Had a 9 hour layover at JFK. My parents met me for dinner in the airport. Two of my very best friends took the suway out for late night beers. IT was the best layover of my life. And now, finally arrived in Brazil, with a delicious layer of humid sweat on my skin, I'm sending off this email. I will wait to write about Brazil til the next one.

EUROPE #1/SOUTHERN AFRICA #4 (my favorite)

2006-09-09T17:22:00.000-04:00

so, London. is cold. damn cold.

The first day here the cold got to my bones and chilled me and I couldn't shake it. I mean it's only between 30 and 40 degrees, but it was shocking. And damp. I have been downing garlic echinacea pills and emergenC to keep the strange teetering shaky feeling in my body from turning into full on sickness - fighting th war against this bitter cold each day.

The people here are cold too.

The second of the three biggest shocks after Southern Africa - nobody says hello or how are you or smiles or touches me, they just stare. That kind of staring, which is fine to a certain extent in New York as well, just seems so intense and inappropriate to me now. To have someone checking me out with no obligation to actually make contact with me, it just feels very rude.

Ther third shock is the amount of useless information that I have gathered after just two days here - signs and articles and tlaking and re-talking about the same thing and styles and faces and colors and foods. It is unfathomable the sheer quantity of it.

2 days in a new place feels like a century.

When my flight stopped over at the airport in Dubai, it was the first time in four months that I sat at a table, ordered something to drink, and watched all the people walking past me. No one noticed that I was white and I didn't notice that I was white. I was normal and anonymous and it felt so different and strange suddenly to be totally anonymous. but it feels normal to me too. 24hr internet access. fancier food. riding a subway. city life. fast smart intellectual conversations about this and that. lots of criticism. and having an old friend to eat meals iwth.

It is, in fact, normal.

In Lesotho we worked with 9 different organizations in 15 days - at each place for 1-3 days - we only had one real day off. Our pace was never normal; everyday was really different and always exhausting in a new way.
We stayed in lots of different kids of places - at children's centers, with host families, at a center for adult women, at a lodge, at a hotel. Lesotho proved to be overall much much poorer that South Africa - we stayed in a number of places without electricity and/or running water and we ate a lot more carbohydrates - pap(cornmeal), rice, beans, bread, potatoes.
The pace was really hard. hard physically. hard emotionally. Hard starting to comprehend the extent of the HIV/AIDS crisis - that it has affected everybody and because it is so normal now, most people are passive about it - wont get tested and dont use condoms. Hard hearing about so much sexual violence against young children. And hard seeing so much poverty. But in this kind of work it was also hard for us to say no. For all four of us clowns to say, "no, we're too tired we can't do that performance." Very very hard....

KANANELO CENTER FOR THE DEAF

The third place that we visited in Lesotho was the Kananelo Center for the Deaf
Run by sisters from the convent, it is incredibly poor, surviving on donations that come in the shape of a grant for a building, or electrical wiring (but there is no generator to supply any electricity), t-shirts for the kids, staple foods, but very rarely money.
The kids greet us immediately with warm smiles and lots of attention.
Each one wants our gaze,
tapping us on the arm,
grunting,
waving their hands,
showing us their names in sign language,
finding out where we are from,
writing the names of places in the dirt iwth our fingers.
We have a meeting with the sisters and David one of the kid's teachers and our primary contact. Immediately the first question is "why are you only here for two days?"
We have to explain that it's an exploratory mission. - Hopefully there will be a next time - Hopefully we will be here longer next time.

We have dinner - salty eggs on a big plate of rice - and a visit to meet the local chief - a woman in charge while her husband is in South Africa working in the mines. She gives us seSotho names and serves us sorghum drink (a big bowl of a rind of really liquidy porridge) Esther is Lerato (love), Perry is Palesa (flower), Jamie is Thaban (jay), and I am Mapuso (mother of independence). (And I was sitting there very quierly and politely. really.)

The next day we perform for the kids in the morning. Go to do some lunch time errands in town, come back to teach our workshop and discover that they have a canoeing trip across the toad that the teachers had forgotten about. We are all of us tired and frustrated about not being able to do the workshop and not getting to spend more time with the kids. Perry and Jamie have to go back into town for laundry.
When the kids get back, Esther and I teach a bunch of them the softshoe dance from our clown show. Somehow it turns into a big dance party. Everyone is dancing in silent rhythm. Along line of couples weaving through the yard. David the teacher, a young volunteer staying at the convent, and the down-syndrome kids who also live at the center, want music. We get the music blasting. It is so unbelievably beautiful and joyful.
This center suddenly strikes me as the most beautiful place I have visited ever. So poor, the children utterly rejected by society, by their families, by fate. And yet here such a supportive environment. Everyone just dancing and bouncing and moving, huge smiles, a few kids from town pass by with their donkeys trailing behind them. They stop and watch. No one is bothered that they are being watched in all their revelry. The town kids creep closer but there is a huge divide between the center and the town and they don't join.
Perry and Jamie drive back from town to find a hug party waiting for them. They join in dancing immediately. Perry suddenly realizes after 10 minutes that the kids can't hear the music; she had forgotten completely that they are almost all deaf. It is hard to tell because all of the kids are clued into each other's rhythm. when the music stops and the party finally winds down, one of the younger boys wants to keep dancing with me. He doesn't know that the music is stopped. He probably doesn't know what music is really. We dance in rhythm together. Smiling, doing different moves. I don't think I've ever done this before. Danced just bouncing rythm silly dance in silence with another person. Not modern dance, not ballroom dancing. Just dancing with someone, but in silence.

After dinner Jamie shows the kids Charlie Chaplin films on his laptop. 35 people gathered around one tiny laptop screen. The kids love it. The group erupting in laughter every once in a while. They all make sound. Little grunts. Or sounds when they are trying to get your attention. The down-syndrome kids speak occasionally, mostly saying out names. It's all a weird mixture of little sounds, SeSotho and English. The only time the whole group makes a sound that feels totally normal is when they laugh. Their laughs are normal laughs. It's beyond their control.

The kids so smart. Each one of them so memorable. In our workshops the next day they are great. Thrilled by the pantomine. so good at it. We have translators that help us say what we want in sign language. The kids are really good in written English and they are so keen to teach us sign language.

Still now, in London I can remember almost all of their faces.

After lunch it is time for us to leave, they want to perform for us first so we stay around longer. Watch them do traditional dances in silence, in sync with each other. Some times some drumming or a joyful holler form one of the Sisters or the woman who does the cooking or one of us.
I notice every sound.
They shake the bottle cap skirts, faces so blank, so pure and serious.

After many dances, we take some group photos. Esther, Perry and I go around shaking hands with all the kids. It is the most complete-feeling visit and goodbye I've had. We are heartbroken as we drive away wondering what it will be like that afternoon after we are gone. Imagining that emotional drop I've felt after a play I worked on is over, at the end of the school year. It feels like that. The drop after the emotional high of having us visiting. Knowing that whether we see them again or not, they will remain so vivid in our memories, each of us thinking of what we can do to try and find schools for the deaf for them in South Africa or even America. The postcars we want to send to the kids. But it is beautiful waving goodby to them. Feeling like I made such an impact on all of them.

LCCU HOMESTAY

A few days later we visit the Lesotho Child Counseling Unit run by an amazing woman named Lydia - the center counsels, houses, and finds permanent living situations for sexually abused children. We arrive at night. It's thanksgiving. Jamie makes a pasta. We eat in the dark. We are exhausted, wiped. The children are quiet and shy. After dinner we drive to our host families. They don't tell us anything at night when we go and wake up our already sleeping families at each door. But the next morning they explain that htey chose to place us with some of the poorest families on purpose so that we would have the experience. The family I stay with headed by a 37 year old mother. We sit on the little counch in the kitchen and in the candlelight she shows me photos of her husband and his funeral, herself and her children when they were young. I don't have my photos from home with me so I show her some photos of Jamie and Esther and some photos of John my honey from Cape Town.
She speaks hardly any English so all we can say to each other are basic things. She says "you are my friend" a lot. Both in English and in SeSotho. I sleep on the floor in the bedroom. She sleeps in the bed. Her son sleeps on the floor in the kitchen. That's all there is to the house. Her daughter sleeps at the neighbors.
I pee in a bucket in front of her at night.
Show her how I have to take out my contact lenses and can't see without them.
She baths in front of me in the morning.

LESOTHO SAVE THE CHILDREN

At Lesotho Save the Children which we visit right before we leave, there are about fifteen 2-5 year olds who smother every visitor with hugs. The second we arrive they surround us. It is great to just play with them. No structured workshop or anything. But we have dinner with them. Play with them while they are getting realy to go to sleep. Sometimes three kids on our laps at a time. The two british volunteers tell us that the kids aren't as adoring to the people that stay longer. It is because they are afraid of being left by people and want to get love before they are left again.
We do a beautiful intimate performance for the kids the next morning.
My last in Southern Africa.
Before we leave I play with the three year old boy I found especially adorable from the get go. When I say goodbye he says "no" "no" I have to go "no" so normal for a fussy American 2 or 3 year old. But so stiking and sad in Lesotho. I flip him upside down one more time and the he joins his friends and is fine. As we pull away the older kids and the grownups pretend to sob, crying the way that we cry in our show, and laughing at the same time too.

We drive back to Johannesburg. Back to Jamie's grandfather's house - with bars on all the windows and double locks on all the doors. Go see a late night show of Harry Potter. Spend the next day doing an expedition reflection, errands, and our closing ceremony the clown eulogy. Then, the next morning Jamie, Perry, and Esther drop me off at the airport. Suddenly I'm struck by how much they feel like a family to me. We eat ice cream bars, take some photos, say our goodbyes, and wave big grins as I walk towards the security gate. It feels like I'm just leaving my family for a bit to go on a trip to London and I'll be back in Johannesburg in a few weeks. It feels like I'm leaving home.

SOUTHERN AFRICA #3

2006-09-09T12:56:00.000-04:00

I just came back from a two and a half hour walk to a 200m high waterfall. This after 2 stunning morning shows (still working with Clowns Without Borders). I'm in Lesotho which is unlike anywhere I've every been before. So rural. So gorgeous. The people here living a simpler life and seeming content in a way that I hadn't yet encountered in Southern Africa. Lesotho is mountainous highlands, chilly, lush, green, spiraling aloe plants and sometimes wild calla lilies. It's main resource water. It's a country right in the middle of South Africa but has stayed independent because of it's mountainous natural borders.
People here wear beautiful printed wool blankets with patterns of big spades and flowers and even airplanes draped around their shoulders. Or just plain grey also (much less expensive). There are so many horses and donkeys and cows and sheep. and so many stunningly handsome men riding on horseback with thei blankets draped around them, gumboots, a knit hat, and often earings.

Our second show this morning was so lovely. We stayed at the school for a while afterwards and danced with the kids. and then they did traditional dances for us. 10-12 yr old girls in their underwear with skirts made out of little bottle caps and shredded plastic bags mato rbounce and ring when they dance. (mostly they stand pretty still, tilting their pelvis rhythmically to the beat of the songs and making the skirts fly up) The girls seemed so confident. All against the most stunning backdrop of slopping hills.

These shows are our first where when we blew bubbles the kids shyed away from them like they hadn't seen people blow bubbles before. But they adored our show. and laught so much. Appreciated it in a different kind of way than our South African audiences though I can't really describe the differences. On our walk today people asked for sweets (and just twice for money) but also in a different kind of way - almost like they were teasing us - just trying their luck. Even when we came across the village chief on his horse and exchanged hellos, he asked us for sweets as an after thought with a little smile.

The race relations are understandably very different without the same history of apartheid as in South Africa. Here we are clearly foreigners. In South Africa people often mistake us for white South Africans.

Before these last 2 days in Lesotho we spent a week in the townships of Johannesburg. totally different scene than here. The kids such city kids. much tougher. we had 2 unexpected audiences of 1300 kids which got rather out of hand. At the first one the teachers used sticks and belts to beat the kids back from swarming us. At the second show we tried pausing the show when there started to be too much pushing but that turned out to be a disaster. It was hard for us, trying to figure out how to control crowds that size, dealing with the cultural differences of seeing the teachers just beating the kids to keep them back (but not being our place to criticize it), and of course facing the duality of the situation - the kids having such a good time and wanting to see the show so badly that they started pushing and pushing eachother, pushing till they were actually hurting each other.

I had a skriking realization driving through a poor area of Soweto (South West Townships) in Jo-burg and suddenly realizing how safe I felt there in our truck, dressed like clowns, and listening to Kwaito music. and remembering before I came to jo-burg people warning me about the crime, not being able to walk around or go anywhere and the fear. and suddenly the contrast of feeling totally comfortable working in one of the dissadvantaged areas of one of the hightest crime rate cities in the world (it is of course very different working as a clown than visiting as a tourist)

I did have a hard time emotionally doing this work in the townships of Johannesburg and then at night staying at Jamie's grandfather's house in one of the wealthiest suburbs. The difference between the two worlds everyday was so immensely huge it was unreal and we didn't have the kind of contact with the community that we're working in that we usually do when we're staying there and so much of our work is just our being there.

We have a new clown, Perry Daniel, a physical comedian from NYC who replace Tim in our team. We've changed a lot of the ways we work as a team and changed the show a lot. It has been a really neat experience (now # women and 1 man, our show centers around the theme of trying to clean - brooms, feather duster, dustapn) We also got a double cab pickup donated by McCarthy Toyota, without which it would be close to impossible to get around Lesotho.

We had many amazing shows this half of the trip. too many to describe. we performed for 8,000 kids in our first 10 days. one show in a soccer stadium. lots for very young kids. one primary school where we did a Q and A afterwards and the kids asked us such strickingly eloquent questions about our work. one in a really poor squatter camp all the way outside of the city where the adults all came to the daycare center to watch the show and had more fun than the kids.

But it has been amazing to get out of the city and have a more laid-back pace in LEsotho. Walking through the village and running into the kids from the schools where we performed. Seeing them imitaiting our show. One kid sitting with us for an hour watching the waterfall and teaching us some seSotho.
I want more of the village life. Makes me miss farming desparately and especially the feeling being off in the farm world cut off from all that is city life and communication and all that. It is especially amazing being in a place where the boys who show us around town don't know how to put their seatbelts on. and so many people are just hanging. herding their animals. sitting together . it feels so much deeper and makes me want to run off into the hills.
But I also can't help feeling that the dissadvantaged kids living on the edge of towns and cities are the ones who need our work most. The kids living in the hills of Lesotho, where people are subsistence farming and living in a more equalitarian society. yes they are poor. and the HIV/AIDS statistics are incredibly high. but I've seen so many more old men and women. people looking healthier. walking long distances over the hills everyday. everyone greeting us. and smiles so quick to light faces. it may be more thrilling and delightful for us to perform for them but they don't seem to need it as much as the kids where we were last week.

(after a show, they really wanted to be in the photo)

SOUTHERN AFRICA #2

2006-09-02T14:08:00.001-04:00

So I'm now traveling throughout South Africa with Clowns Without Borders...
(www.clownswithoutborders.org)
there are four of us clowns - Tim, Esther, Jamie, and me.
We spent one week in Johannesburg preparing our show and now we've been traveling for four weeks. We've done over 40 shows for a total of around 11,000 kids.
We've had three days off.

I don't want to take the time to describe our entire show but it includes a newspaper routine, bubbles (I eat the bubbles and then get hiccups...), chasses through the crowd, a balloon funeral, a little magic, some dance, imaginary balls - I play clown #4 which is the outsider clown.

it's been amazing performing so much - for crowds of hundreds of kids and the crowds just roaring with laughing. Just exploding. It's the kind of audience that I know it feels amazing to be in - when you totally lose control of your laughter.

These kids have never seen anything like us. Our audiences have been almost entirely black kids in poor rural areas and for them to see white people acting so silly is huge. To see adults crying hysterically over a ripped newspaper or popped balloon is also huge. To have us give them so much attention and play with them is too in itself huge.

The more time we spend traveling around the more I realize how much suffering these kids are going through - so many parents dying of AIDS. In Swaziland 42% of people who get tested have HIV and probably in actuality it's even higher. In South Africa fewer people get tested, the statistic is about 25%. So much poverty. The schools are poor - no electricity, dirty outdoor toilets, broken windows. Some kids can't afford a school uniform, that have to go to a community center to get a meal. we are working through a lot of organizations that help kid run households (like say a 15yr old taking care of three younger siblings) with housing, school fees, food, and so on. Some of the organizations have family-like foster care for orphans (say ten kids with one house mother) but the trend is more towards helping them stay in their own community.

So the kids really have a lot of sadness at home. And our impression of them during and after the shows- laughing, running, jumping, smiling, just totally bubbling - is very one-sided. We don't see what it's like before we get there and after we leave.

Right now we're staying at a Buddhist Retreat Center near a town called Ixopo (beautiful hiking trails on sloping hills and valleys lightly scattered with rondavel houses and cows and goats, amazing vegetarian food with is a treal after all the meat people have cooked for us, and single rooms to ourselves!) - the center has an outreach program called Woza Moya (Come Spirit) which is one of the nicest programs we've worked with. It's co-run by a white woman named Sue who speaks fluent Zulu and Tisi who is from the area. Of all the programs we've worked with it feels integrated into the local community, accepted and appreciated in a way some of the others aren't. Though of course there is some awkwardness with the center because it's easy to see it as mostly white people coming there and sitting, doing nothing for days at a time, while black people do the cooking and maintenance and cleaning.

We've stayed here for a week teaching workshops at one of the local primary schools - taking two grades a day so that we work wit hall the kids. Playing movement and comedy games - being silly and getting them to be loud and let everything out. Just an hour or so with each group. The kids are so great. so much better behaved than kids in the States. I mean I can think of only two "trouble-makers" our entire trip. They focus so well, and since they speak hardly any English and we speak hardly any Zulu, it's great how quickly they pick up the games. I spoke with one of the teachers the other day about how our workshops are going and she said they are so thankful we're doing it. That the kids are so happy this week. and indeed you could hear the whole school full of giggles and chatter. She said everything we are doing is good and they really hope we come back.

so many of the kids ask when we are coming back and it is heart-wrenching to leave each place so quickly, often without any kind of proper goodbye. not knowing if I will ever come back.

The three shows we've done that were the most special for me were our smallest ones - at a drop-in center for street kids, at another kind of drop-in center for families, (those two the poorest groups we've performed for) and here at the retreat center to thank the staff. But beautiful to share an intimate show like that and really see each individual that you're touching. Really feeling like a close group.

Most of our shows are so big - at schools - for hundreds of kids. After the show all the kids linger, pushing in around us, wanting to get a wave, a hand shake, touch our clothes, a hug, even occasionally an autograph. we are totally stars here. The four of us split up and we entertain the kids crowded around us by playing call and response games, singing, dancing, doing magic, or just being silly.

At one of our shows we got mobbed by the crowds of kids. It was at the end of the school day. 500 kids. The principal and all the teachers left as soon as we started. So it was just us, our two escorts from the NGO we were staying with, and the kids.
We played in the round and all of them pushed closer and closer during the show until our playing area was tiny - maybe 12' diameter.
So we ended the show early, tried to get away, it was scary the mob mentality. these kids meant us no harm. But they all wanted to get a piece of us so badly, they were craving the kid of energy and attention we were giving them. They started running and pushing and crowding. 500 kids rumbling over each other. Jamie and Esther tried to run ahead. Tim and I tried to stay calm and hold some of them back. It was very scary.
We split them up into smaller groups doing call and response stuff to calm them down. We tried to get in the car but they surrounded it and there was so way for us to drive away. They were so small. But so many. The man who escorted us there finally whipped his belt from his pants, raised it over his head, and immediately the crowd scattered. It was sad that it got to that. But still even at a show like that, the kids love it. They had a wonderful time.

We've had lots of other adventures - a lot of car trouble which has been very frustrating (an old Beamer - broken timing belt, standing on the side of the road in the dark waiting for a tow, constant oil leak, and we put the wrong fuel in twice, pushed it up a hill) but hopefully we have a vehicle donation for the next half of the trip from a Toyota dealership and we are hoping for a nice new double cab pickup. I got a bit of a cut on the back of my head while taking my bag out of the back of what they call here a Backiie (a pickup with cab and seats) - the back of the Backiie had nothing holding it up and a gust of wind sent it crashing down and one of the bolts sticking out of it went right into my head - a long car ride to the hospital with Esther holding my head together, 6 stiches (my hair shaved in a little patch around it) - but my skull is fine and surprisingly none of it really hurt much. it's all healed now and hair is growing back.
and lots of great chance meetings and hospitality from people that we hardly know.

We have encountered so many amazing people along the way. Keep coming back to the question of what makes someone stand out...because every show, every place we go, there is one kid, or a few, who grab my heart.
And then we have to leave and move on. It is heart wrenching.

Spunky girl Lungile who I mistook for a boy and then sang the song "Amanzawe" to just her and we talked about how she could become a clown.
The three girls at our last show who wouldn't let go of me and dragged me around the playground telling me I was their friend.
An 18 year old boy named Professor, who lives in an orphanage, wants to study nature conservancy and told me how important our work is because it really brings happines to people who are feeling down. He said our show could even keep someone from committing suicide.
Dudu, an amazing woman who runs SOS children's villages in Swaziland and is just so warm and giving and open and strong.
Just so many wonderful people.

After a lot of our shows the kids do traditional song and dance for us in return for our performance. Often that's the nicest part of the show for us. The joint feeling of appreciation that they feel the need to perform something for us in return. Little tiny kids dancing with bigger kids. It's gorgeous.

I could go on and on...but will stop for now. I miss home a lot - it has been really nice to get emails from you folks that have written. We have two weeks vacation and then back on the road for another month and a half of Clowns Without Borders here in Southern Africa.

SOUTHERN AFRICA #1

2006-09-02T13:23:00.001-04:00

So I've been in South Africa about 3 weeks now:

First I was in Durban for a week and a half visiting the African Dream Circus.
I went to their youth training programs (9folks about my age), did all of their acrobatics and games with them and then I taught them some clown games and exercises. Everyone wasso welcoming and accepting.

They all speak Zulu so talking was actually quite difficult. I assumed that everyone in South Africa speaks english but a lot of people really don't have very much english, so I'm trying to learn a bit of Zulu.

Selina is actually a zulu name - it means the sky before a storm.

I also went to the outreach program that the African Dream Circus does in townships. Driving down the highway on the way there (with Dumisani, the guy who is in charge of the African Dream Circus) and for the first time, seeing the township shacks - made from sheet metal, small and tightly packed, covering the hills along the road, looking like organized garbage sculpture - I was so struck by my gut feeling - the instinct to recoil and not go there.
like, you know that something is horrible and so you just don't want to have to see it. you have the curiosity to see it, but the fear of what it will be like to know it.
But then I relaxed and went for it. And after spending two afternoons there - where extreme poverty is the norm and yet people are smiling and the kids are playing the same as any kids I've ever played with, and knowing that so many people all over the world live like that, it felt normal to me.
(and going back to the hostel afterwards felt strange and so different)
I had never seen such poverty for so many people before - and it was a relief to see it. comforting to embrace something I'm afraid of.

The circus program is part of a bigger organization called Sinani ("we are with you" in Zulu) which does lots of different programs for people who are survivors of violence (political violence, domestic abuse, drug abuse, etc)

Driving in the car with Dumisani through the township to go buy some fruit for the kids in the outreach program he told me that now it's the law in South Africa that you have to wear a seatbelt but that there was a time when you didn't dare wear a seatbelt because there were so many driveby hi-jackings and if you reached to undo your seatbelt to get out of a the car, they thought you were reaching for your gun and would shoot you in the head.

When Dumisani asked me how I liked Durban, I told him that I really did like it but that I could never live there - there's no place for me in that city. I could never live in a nice house with huge fences and armed reponse security systems, but then I couldn't live in a poor black neighborhood or townships - and I never saw anything between those two residential worlds while I was there.

I asked him if it was safe for him to go for a walk at night where he lives (a bit nicer of a township area - houses with cement walls but still very close to each other and dirt roads). He said yes. I said that it wouldn't be safe for me though. He agreed and said "even if the two of us were walking together it wouldn't be safe for you, in face it would be dangerous for me."

Almost everyone I saw in Durban was black. and I got used to it pretty quickly. and assumed that most of South Africa is like this. The only white people I spoke with in Durban were at the hostel. The white people I saw in shopping centers seemed a bit cold and withdrawn, whereas all the black people I ran into and asked for directions of whatever were really friendly and helpful and smiled at me on the street and all.
and I actually never felt really unsafe.

okay. so.

then I went along the coast for a little vacation on my way to Cape Town,
I went to this hostel in a little village in the Transkei on the Indian Ocean (40 min on a bumpy dirt road from the main road) no electricity and no running water. At the hostel we drank filtered rain water and showered in ocean water.
everyone lives in beautiful rondavels made out of wood poles and mud and cow shit. we were on the edge of steep hills with huge surf down below and a little beauch nearby.
all the animals in the Transkei graze without fences - there are goats and pigs and cows standing in the road all the time.

The cows would walk down to the beach during the day. It was really odd to see cows hanging out, laying down on this beautiful empty beach.

I met Yvonne, a german woman, at the hostel. I told her about what I'm doring and it turned out that she does clowning too and just finished a hospital clown program in germany.
We started joking about making a clown show together for the village kids. both of us wanting to do it. but also keeping it jokey so that we could back down - that feeling of being afraid to go for it was so similar to the feeling of being afraid of the townships.
but we went down to the beach just to do some improv. play. and see how we worked together, we got so into it right away. we were a great match, it was so easy and we were so into it for about 45 min. we realized just hom much, when a wave washed up onto us and soaked our bums.

we made a show for the school kids in the village. when we went to tell Kelly, the school teacher (an english woman who came to the village on vacation and stayed for the past 16 months as the head teacher for the 3-7 year olds with Beauty, the Khosa assistant teacher.) we found sitty with her a wacky guy from San Francisco who was visiting because he had a donation of a few hundred really nice plush stuffed hand puppets to give to schools. Yvonne and I started playing with them, me with a hippo, her a snail.

and so we ended up doing a puppet show the next morning at the school and the clown show the day after at the beach.

both went really well. - the puppet we did some educational stuff and some joking stuff with hip-hip-hip-hip-hip-hip--o--! and zola the snail. and then turned it into getting the kids to try on a puppet one by one and learn how to use em and treat them gently.

for the clown show we did a bunch of different things that evolved into a bit of a ceremony with everyone holding hands in a circle and doing movement and song that the kids already knew as a friendship thing. the audience was half black kids from the town and half white visitors from the hostel - on this stunning beach with forested hills and crashing waves in the background.
afterwards we all kept playing and went swimming.

It was all really beautiful but it's also been overwhelming - to experience so much so quickly.

now I'm in Cape Town which is a completely different world. there are white people and black people and colored people and clean big buildings and newly paved roads and so much money and infrastructure and everything. I wasn't prepared for that after the other sides of south africa. it's like being back in a european city. it's amazing how this country has so many so different worlds in it. (th landscape has varied so much too)
I visited the zip zap circus yesterday which has lots of really really nice equipment and is run really efficiently with kids from all walkds of life in cape town learning circus skills and putting on shows. it's run by a white south african and a fench woman. they're very professional and have won lots of awards.

last night I had dinner with Nicki a young woman who recently started the UPliftment project - which is hospital clowning. I'm going to visit that tonight and tomorrow. Nicki is bubbling with energy and claps her hands a lot and the project sounds really successful. and it is very nice for me to meet a strong woman running a project like this.

I'm also busy trying to track down a vehicle for the clowns without borders trip which is really shaping together. We have the itineray for the whole first half all planned out - will be doing both shows and workshops in schools and orphanages mostly in Kwa-Zulu-Natal and also going to Lesotho and Swaziland.

Oh - and since I've been in South Africa, I've also gone to play Roulette on amy first trip to a Casino and gone to a Horse Race (I only bet on one of the races though...) and ate Crocodile and Kudu steak and had a monkey start to go through my bag.
The night sky here is totally different from at home - it's amazing.

The Beginning-June 2005

2006-09-02T13:15:00.000-04:00

So my deal is:
I won a crazy and really amazing fellowship called the Watson Fellowship (www.watsonfellowship.org) to travel with organizations that do humanitarian clowning and circus for the entire year. I will be performing, teaching workshops, observing, and who knows what else.

my loose itinerary is:
August: Durban and Cape Town SOUTH AFRICA on my own visiting a couple of centers that do circus with kids
Sept-Nov: Clowns Without Borders trip with 2-3 other clowns throughout SOUTH AFRICA, LESOTHO, MOZAMBIQUE, and SWAZILAND
beginning of Dec: a little trip to FRANCE
Dec: a study project with Makampon in THAILAND
Jan: maybe INDIA? more THAILAND?
Feb-July: BRAZIL, GUATEMALA, NICARAGUA