A Circus in Chincha ~ by CHRIS

It’s our first day off on our second tour and I finally find myself with the time and creative energy to write. I’m not going to attempt to capture everything that has transpired or inspired me in these past two weeks. I’ll save that for the book I am still committed to writing about these tours and the greater life experience that the Dreamtime Circus has sent spiraling into motion for me. Rather, I’d like to take a narrative snapshot and capture just a moment or two to give my friends and family at home and around the world a taste of life on a charitable circus tour in Peru.

As I write this, the women in the troupe are visiting a shelter for about twenty girls, all survivors of abuse, all with children as a result of that abuse. The whole troupe, including the men, will visit this shelter again before we leave Chincha, but we decided that sending the women was the best way to introduce the girls to the circus. And every woman in the troupe volunteered to go, on their day off, with a bag full of make-up and other girly things, to spend an afternoon connecting, role-modeling, and allowing these young mothers to just be girls for a day. I feel fortunate to have played a role in making afternoons like this possible, even when I’m not participating in the particular activity. And I am so grateful to the amazing women in our troupe (nine of the thirteen members currently in Peru) who trust me enough to technically lead this organization and ultimately drive the circus agenda as much as I do, if not more. I believe the hearts of women will ultimately pull the world out of its war ravaged misery, and I want to do what I can to support that transformation.

Mayten, our incredibly generous host in Chincha, is one of these women on a mission to transform the world. She regularly works with the girls at this shelter and another one with about 80 girls nearby. And, she opens her door not only to charitable circus troupes from the US, but to all the children in the neighborhood where she lives. A lot of these kids have extremely difficult family lives and, since the earthquake in 2007, live in houses that have been scrapped together with whatever materials could be found – bits of wood, bamboo, sheet metal, and a plastic tarp for a roof. Mayten provides these kids a safe haven, where they know that anyone she introduces them to is “non-toxic” (won’t hurt them in any way). One of her passions is to help the kids that, through the trials and tribulations of a very difficult life, have lost their voice. She helps them find their voice through music, art, and other activities that build their self-esteem. Some of the kids I met, kids that came up and kissed me on the cheek and started a conversation with me, had literally lost their voice when they first started visiting Mayten. I mean they literally couldn’t speak anymore.

So thirteen of us are crammed into a couple of rooms in this hot, concrete house with no ventilation, sharing one bathroom amongst us which often means using the toilet while someone is in the shower and someone else is brushing their teeth. It’s the fast track to getting to know each other, that’s for sure. And, we’re attempting to put a show together in a handful of dusty, trash-filled spots because it’s the only shade around. We endure frequent interruptions because someone needs to run back inside and (urgently) use the toilet. But we’re all loving it, mas o menos, because we all wanted to come here and do exactly what we’re doing. We love having the kids around each day, getting to know them, learning their names, teaching them, playing with them, becoming friends with them. And we are all inspired, perhaps awe-struck, at the work Mayten is doing, and we want to be a part of it.

The work on the show is slow going. Key performers have been sick, we all went to the beach and everyone of us burned the heck out of our skin even though we all put on sunblock (imagine hooping, fire spinning, or acro-balancing with skin too sensitive to touch), and we’ve intentionally slowed the pace of our show development in order to invest more time in workshops with the kids. But now we’ve set a date – the first big show of the tour is a week from today, Friday March19^th, and the whole community is invited. It’s going to be a crazy week as we prepare the show, continue workshops, and squeeze in a few more shelter visits, but it will be all be worth it. Chincha has welcomed the Dreamtime Circus with open arms, and the least we can do is put on a spectacular circus show in return!

Love till it burns ~ by ALEX

So welcome to my first full length post on Dreamtime's tour through Peru. One week down and things have been pretty smooth so far. Lima wasn't meant to be our first congregation point but it worked out that way. We were only in Lima for a day and a half or so, but we made the most of our downtime before the official start of our tour. The peruvians we met in Lima were very friendly and easy to talk to. Even with my broken Spanish, I was able to follow a lot of the conversations and even carry a few of my own, most of which started with some one glancing down, double taking, and then yelling "Me gusta sus zapatos!" (I was wearing my Vibrams).

Our second day in Lima, the plan was to scour the city for various odds and ends we needed and then set off for Chincha that afternoon (about two hours south by bus) Come 1:00 we had all of our baggage downstairs and a hired bus driver claiming he'd be 6 hours late. It turned out our collective luggage was so massive that a second van was needed to make the journey. We're hoping that this will cease to be a problem as we embark on public transportation, but that will open a whole new can of worms that none of us have really considered for the sake of our own mental health. In any case, 11:30 that evening saw us at our contact Mayten's house in Chincha.

Mayten is an incredibly open-hearted woman who grew up in the circus herself and has devoted her life and home to providing creative and educational outlets for the youth of Chincha. Every morning Mayten wakes up to the calls of children outside her door begging to come in and learn. Chincha doesn't have too much in the way of...well really anything. The town was devastated by a disastrous earthquake some years back and poverty and violence are decently rampant. Mayten's one request in return for sharing her home and time with all of us was to spend as much time as we could with her kids and share the creative spirit. After meeting them, I was a little confused what she thought we could improve upon. All of her kids are incredibly creative, intelligent, affectionate and wonderful to be with. However it is clear that Mayten is really all they have in regards to higher expression. In a way, I see Chincha as a shadow of what California could become, seeing as my own state has compeltely cut the budget for arts and music and with our own earthquake risk. Mayten's work hardly stops in her community as she also helps with many humanitarian projects in Cusco and in the local shelters around Chincha.

We've had to split our time three ways between working on our own show and circus duties,working with Mayten's community of children, and keeping ourselves healthy, rested and sane. We were finally able to spend a whole day with the kids yesterday and the whole of the circus took off for a beach day with Mayten and company. We made juggling balls filled with sand and splashed around with the kids all day and were feeling pretty good about ourselves until we got back home and realized nearly every one of ourselves wer covered in a tropical sunburn, myself included. (hence the title of this post, clever no?) IT wasn't that we didn't prepare for the sun, many of us used ample sunblock (yes me too) and one of our circus members, Riko, who had been trekking through Brazil prior, had covered himself with some jungle seed oil the night before that turned his entire body bright orange (think Ernie and Bert) and even he turned bright red (like Elmo)

Our show and mission are proceeding on track, though bumps and questions are fairly common. On top of the sunburns, people are starting to cave in to sickeness. Mumu has been struggling with a stomach bug, but seems to be doing a little better of late. A lot of the time these litle ailments never amount to much but you can't help but be scared by them while travelling. I had my own difficulty the first day in Chincha when I tried putting on my contact lens. The dusty, dry, and sweltering heat (70 degree nights and 85 + days) were not kind and my cornea began to get extremeley irritated in my left eye. After trying Japanese anti-biotics drops, cold showers, and a make shift eye patch. I bit the bullet and ran to a Chinchan farmacia to ge anti-inflammatory drops. Those didn't work either. Thankfully the chamomile compress and a good nights sleep did and I'm happy to report that my eye is feeling much much better, although I don't plan to use my contacts for some time.

Now those who know me intimately (albeit not biblically) understand that I pride myself on my modesty and damn good looks. And yes, I'm not usualy one to boast at my own clever witticisms however brilliant, but I have to put this in for the sake of my old time Barefoot Monkey crew who remember the glory days. At the height of my eye trouble, we were starting one of our brief four hour meetings and we were ging around the circle with a quick check in. It might have been th oversized Mtich Hedberg-esque shades I was wearing, but a flash of inspiration hit me and I just had to say it:

"My name is Alex.....Mucciolo
Mi ojo.....es rojo
So, no quiero.....diabolo
Pero.....estoy contento"

Maybe you had to be there. Hoping to make the next post from our next location, probably close to Nazca or Arquipa, but it's looking like we might make the most a good situation and stay here for a little longer. In any case, adios until then.

Alex

For more blog posts by Alex, please click here.

Paloma ~ by ERININA

For me Chincha is best represented by a little girl named Paloma. I believe she is about four years old. The first day that I met Paloma, she came crawling up to me on all fours meowing and then declared, ¨Soy una gatita!¨ with the biggest smile you´ve ever seen, as if I might need clarification that she was the cutest ¨little cat¨ there ever was.

Coming on this trip, I had some fears and reservations about what I would be able to provide to the chidren that we would meet. I didn´t have my trapeze with me, nor the places to rig anything if I did...I didn´t know anyone I´d be working with from Dreamtime to prepare ahead of time for being in a show or planning a workshop. And I feared that I wouldn´t have enough to offer, or that I wouldn´t fit in.

Paloma changed all of that for me in the first two seconds of meeting her. Immediately, she seemed to decide that I was worthy of her amazing friendship. Whenever I was in sight from the door of Mayten´s house, her little voice yelling, ¨Nina!¨ and calling me out to play rang through the house. She would make up games that we should play and insist that they be played, even horse rides (piggy backs) when my back was sore. She listened calmly from her perch on my back one evening as Mayten explained that she should be careful with me because I had injured my back, and after sharing her prescription for what native ointments I should rub on it to heal, solemly agreed to be very, very careful with me before kicking into my sides and yelling ¨Vamos!¨ with such glee, I didn´t really have the heart not to play along. I could always ice it later after all.

It´s hard to explain the appeal of Paloma without meeting her. If you look through the group´s photo complilation of the time in Chincha, you´ll see an abundance of her dimples and sparkling eyes laughing from her heart shaped face. A glow about her that defies the difficulties that she´s faced in her very few years of life.

When I don´t understand her Spanish, she is completely unfazed and calmly and slowly and quite precociously explains it all to me another way entirely. She may be the best Spanish teacher I´ve ever had.

I had a dream about Paloma before leaving Chincha that I had adopted her and her older sister Cyamara. I told it to Mayten and she said she felt the same way. But that not to worry. Paloma was a force to be reckoned with, a very strong little girl indeed and because of that, they´d both be just fine.

Now, sitting in an internet cafe in Cuzco, what I have to remember Paloma is a drawing that she made of me, with pink pigtails and a shining sun (my character in the show) and on the back her and I both in pigtails, holding hands and smiling and standing on a heart the size of the paper. When I think of Chincha, I will always think of Paloma´s laugh and the way she yelled my name with such joy.

More blog posts by Erinina can be found at www.erinina.wordpress.com

PHOTOS FROM PERU!

Photos from our arrival in Lima and our first tour stop in Chincha can be viewed here:

Dreamtime Peruvian Tour Photos

Enjoy!

Chris