Circus Cont'd. - by Sara

What a way to travel! Gotta love it. Thanks Dreamtime, for letting me tag along again. (Wish I were still with them, too, as the story continues with gusto; in Lima, they're performing in an arts festival for audiences of nigh on a thousand people and even making it on TV, so I hear.) My week with Dreamtime this time looked a bit like this:

Day one: We arrive in a tiny village called Coya (or Qoya, depending on which billboard you look at; this goes for Cusco and Cuzco, too, which in Quechua is actually Qosqo, and Pisac or Pisaq... I believe it's a discrepancy between Spanish and Quechua, and so the compromise is to haphazardly alternate between various spellings). We immediately check in to our free accommodations chez Loco, which consist of a handful of rooms in various states of construction, one cold-water bathroom between thirteen circus members and five or six family members (must admit there were so many kids running around I don't have an exact head count). I held the video camera, audio recorder, and Nikon D40 the whole time as the circus lead about thirty community kids in hoola hooping, acrobalance, poi, and juggling workshops and painted all of their aggressively eager faces. (When I was painting faces I, too, had to learn to say "Ninos!! Mas espacio por faVOR!" as those who were waiting wouldn't leave you room to move your elbow, or breathe.) The show, which I guess I saw about six times in total, is adorable and funny and entertaining, for the adults as well as the kids: first a playful quasi-narrative with colorful characters, conflicts, and non-fire circus acts, then a showcase of these San Franciscans' true colors: sexy, riveting, well-choreographed and at times pretty mind-boggling fire dancing, with poi, staff, hoola hoop, swords, torches, fire fingers, and even a fireball and chain.

Day two: Casa de Milagros, an American-run orphanage at the end of a rubble-filled road that had had to be evacuated during the major floods in the Valle Sagrado that devastated entire towns and villages, tore through bridges, and demolished homes and schools. The only damage that made any amount of news was the plight of the stranded tourists in Machu Picchu, of course. But in any case, most of my experience of the Valle Sagrado was when it was back to some sense of normality, and this beautiful orphanage was no exception -- garden, waterfall, mosaics, and love, lots of love.

Day three was San Pedro; day four the show was in Huaran, another tiny town along the river. For reasons unbeknownst to me this one was attended by a Peruvian circus as well as the typical crop of little kids. There were about fifteen of them, all dreadlocked and earlobe-stretched, pretty similar in age and arty-punk style to Dreamtime (to watch the two groups flirt after the show was disarmingly cute).

Day five: Urubamba, at Arco Iris (this means rainbow, I learned long after the fact, though with all the imagery everywhere at the school you'd think I could have figured it out), a school for children with developmental disorders. It was harder to paint their faces, but in some ways, more rewarding. One girl who resembled a boy wanted dragons everywhere, all over her face, and her arms, and her hands. Just as soon as I finished one she'd frown a little and point to a new scrap of vacant flesh and say fiercely, "DraGON!" The evening show at Arco Iris was extremely satisfying, as scores of kids from scores of schools in the area turned out, as well as their families, and the adults were as enthralled as the children were (I have video footage to prove it).

Overall, there's nothing like being part of the Joy Train. Everyone who participated in the workshops and saw the show was impressed, excited, jubilant, you name it. It's a rare gift to see such a thing pass through town -- and not only pass through town, but teach you how to juggle and paint a dragon on your face.

Stay tuned for an audio slide show. It might take me a few months to get the software together, but I did some interviews and tons of background recording; I'm on it.

For more blog posts by Sara, please go here.

Photos from All Stops on the Tour Now Posted!

We've sorted through 15,000 photos and uploaded the best from each stop on the tour here!

A Moment Made Possible - by Chris

Just as I started to write this, a cat mysteriously entered the cafeteria where I sit alone at a table and chair using the happily unexpected wifi connection at this Christian school for kids and young adults, many with various disabilities. We’re staying here for three days - two workshops a day and a show tomorrow. I’ve barely left the compound, so an unlikely place feels strangely like home to me.

Today was one of my favorite workshops. I was teaching a bunch of boys how to juggle and I noticed a young woman sitting on a bench holding a single juggling ball in her hand but not doing anything with it. I didn't notice at first that she had crutches and leg braces and I asked if she wanted to learn to juggle. She nodded and I started teaching her, eventually sitting down in a chair so as to demonstrate the skill from a similar position as her. I’ve noticed here that people that can't walk can potentially pick up juggling even faster because they probably compensate for a lot of things with their upper body. I taught a guy in a wheel chair how to juggle yesterday, and I’ve never seen someone get it so fast, it was amazing really.

Anyway, I had this great interaction with Rosa, the young woman I was teaching to juggle. I asked her what she was studying and she said computers, then I asked her what kind of job she wanted and she seemed kind of ashamed. When I pressed her a bit she finally said secretary. I told her that I used to work an office job that I liked a lot because I liked to organize things, and that instead of smoking breaks I would take juggling breaks which is actually really good for your hands and arms which can get sore or even injured from typing all the time. We developed a really wonderful connection through all of this but, as she continued to learn how to juggle, I realized the balls kept hitting her friend sitting next to her. I also noticed her friend was very quiet and withdrawn and eventually it occurred to me that she was blind. Her name was Katia, and she had just had her face painted by Savannah. I told her how beautiful the stars on her face were. She smiled shyly, but quickly withdrew again. I realized that the situation for her was not so good. It was loud and crazy in that room with music on the stereo, kids banging drums, shaking rattles, and the occasional piercing screech whenever one of the kids got a hold of this plastic flute (that is now safely tucked away in my bag, never to come out during workshops again), and on top of all this, she was occasionally getting hit with juggling balls because she was sitting next to Rosa.

I decide to turn the music on the stereo down and wait for a bit of a lull in the kid generated "music", and then I pulled out my harmonica and played a little bit for Katia and asked her if she had ever heard such music before. She said no, but when I asked her if she'd like to try she gave me another shy smile. I handed her the harmonica and explained how to play, having to constantly ask for the correct Spanish word to "breathe in" because I can never remember it. It took her a bit to get it, but then she was mesmerized by it and played for probably 20 minutes or so, lost in a world of music she was creating, unfazed by the clamor of workshops and the occasional juggling ball dropping in her lap.

It was a sweet moment that I feel fortunate to have shared with those two young women, and it's yet another moment that could only exist because of this tour. In times like these I definitely feel like it's all worth it.

Farewell My Mountain Town - by Alex

And farewell to the flaky municipalidad! Today is my last full day here in Cajamarca and my first day off since last I updated this blog. The past week has been four straight full days of performances, workshops, parades, and sporadic rain showers.

So Tuesday and Wednesday, we had been booked by the municipalidad of Cajamarca (the government basically) to lead workshops and perform in the big stadium a few blocks from the plaza de Armas. They'd be bussing in scores of children from all over Cajamarca for this event and all we'd have to do is stay put in the stadium, do workshops in the morning and performances in the afternoon. That was the original plan at least. We were expecting 150 children (ages 4-7) the first day, so we decided to split them all into four groups, put someone in charge of each group and rotate workshops for two hours or so. We got to the stadium about ten minutes before the workshops started, thanks to the municipalidad flaking on transportation they had promised, and found not 150 children waiting for us, but closer to 300. Splitting them up into four groups and handling that many kids proved to be a big challenge, albeit an adorable one. I was put on facepainting and had to whip through nearly 75 kids at a time in 25 minutes. The "good" news is that as the day went on the kids thinned out after spending too much time in the intense mountain sun.

We were able to convince the municipalidad to spring for lunch for us and then we returned to the stadium to try and figure out how we were going to set up the stage for so many people with our very diminutive backdrop. The answer lay (lied?) in hauling some very heavy stage pieces from one side of the stadium to the other to create wings. At about three o'clock, we were scheduled to get down to the plaza de armas and parade back to the stadium to rake up an audience for tonight. That nearly snagged up as by 2:55 no transportation had arrived again, nor had any fliers showed up as promised, and to top everything off, we found out that the stadium was charging the public for our free circus show. Well, in spite of all these obstacles, we cleared up everything with the management about charging, decide to forget about the transports and the fliers, rallied the band and simply paraded down to the plaza by ourselves and back announcing our show all the while. I was whizzing up and down the parade lines on my uni whipping a green flag around and causing general mayhem in the roads. When we got back we found the fliers waiting in a nice stack for us, completely covered with incorrect information anyway.

Our show that night went very well and we played to what must have probably been about 500 people or more. We had spent all of last week rehearsing the show again and again trying to incorporate our new arrivals. This was the first show they were all able to participate in. The show was a big hit with some minor snags. One, since our fliers said we were starting at 3, when we were actually planning to start closer to 5 to allow some twilight for the fire show, a lot of our audiece had to eave mid show to get home before dark. We still managed to keep a bunch of them for the fire show except that the stadium{s power blew out in the middle of Mumu and I's duet. We ended the show there and bowed to a raucous applause anyway. We grabbed dinner and beer and thus ended day 1.

Day 2 started very much the same way with the Municipalidad failing to provide it's promised transport from our hostel to the stadium. Rather than try and repeat the workshop fiasco that happened the day before , we decided instead to just do a quick bus show performance for the little ones and leave it at that. The whole day went a bit easier than Tuesday simple because we didn't have a parade to worry about and our stage was already set up from the day before. The crowd that showed up that evening ( well early afternoon thanks to the faulty fliers) stayed a bit longer than the previous evening and our power held out for the entire show. That performance was arguably the best run of our bus show yet. Also, with the three large stadium shows that we did in Cajamarca and the monster show we put on in Fiteca (look up photos on facebook by the way), we could safely say that we performed for more people in the second half of the tour already than in the entire first half put together.

The next day, we were supposed to have the morning off, but as a favor to our contact Vicki (a tourist professional not connected with the Municipalidad and actually a great help to us) requested that we put on a performance for her school in the morning. In cased like this, we try not to over-exert ourselves especially people who needed some time to recuperate so, as standard procedure dictates, we slapped together a last minute variety show to put on for the school left completely voluntary. IN the last week, I've been performing a diabolo solo in cases like these pretty often and am getting good feedback. Much of it is pretty cheap and relies on insanely high tosses to really impress the audience, but man do those kids love it. Also, the lunch that the school provided was a feast compared to the dinky meals we had been getting with the Municipalidad. (Papas, ensalada, paltas, aji, pollo, the list goes on)

That evening we were scheduled to perform in small barrio in Cajamarca on the street. It was a nice change of pace to perform in a smaller venue where no one had to leave early to get home and everyone could see us a lot better. The downside though was the sporadic drizzly rain that nearly made us cancel the whole thing. We persevered though and got pretty muddy and soaked in the process. We had to drag all of our equipment home afterward and dry it out after such a long and exhausting day. The whole audience stayed put throughout it though, even through the intimidating weather.

Day 4: This gig we had booked at a school 25 minutes away in an area called Otusco (I believe). We also heard that this area had quite a few scenic walks and a natural pre-incan catacomb structure. SO we organized several of our own taxi trips (not even bothering to consider using the transportation from the municipalidad) so a few people could check out the ventillas and the town before the show. the ventillas weren't too much more than a bunch of square holes in the side of the mountain where a bunch of bodies had been found. The surrounding town though was full of the pastoral beauty typical of the Andean culture. We caught a collectivo back to the school in time to put make-up on and watch the storm clouds gather up and pour down on us once more. In the midst of the frustration, we thought it best to nix the workshops and go straight for the bus show in the school's only indoor area. The stage was tight and it definitely had an impact on the show, but we made the most of it anyway. The rain had stopped afterward and we wanted to give the school a bit more, so we went so far as to break one of the cardinal rule of fire performance and did a day time show. The circus itself was unimpressed with the day time flames (there's just so much more to fire when it's dim out) but the audience didn't really know better and enjoyed it anyhow. Plus we finally got off for the day before 8 pm!

That night to celebrate a full week of work, Mumu and Sophia invited everyone out to a bar and lounge a few blocks from the hostel. We tried to get the management to play some dub step off of Chris' iPod and then Beats Antique from Rich' when that didn't work. Eventually we just took the party back to our guest house and partied proper well into the night. Mumu and I woke up around noon today for our last full day in Cajamarca. The city is beautiful and everyone is going to be sad to say good bye, but on the other hand there's a lot of excitement to finally get to Pucallpa and see the Amazon rainforest.

Basically tomorrow, the circus is going to consolidate our seven hundred kilos of stuff, throw it all on a bus headed for Lima at 5 pm, arrive in the capital about 7 am, and then slug everything onto a tiny plane leaving for Pulcallpa at 11am Monday and arrive in the jungle that afternoon. It sounds crazy but the alternative of taking a bus all the way to Pucallpa would have taken us an extra day at least.

Today also marks the beginning of my last two weeks in Peru. After that I'll be headed from the rainforest to the carribean as Mumu and I go visit her family in Puerto Rico. I'm excited to bring once phase of my travels to completion, but I don't know if any amount of time in Peru would have been enough for me. Well, only two more of these blogs to write from this country. Till the next one!

Ciao
Alex

For more blog posts by Alex, please click here.