Deeper down the rabbit hole

So first of all start off with some good news. The graduates from Circo Para Todos are performing at the roundhouse again this year. This is an incredible show and a real chance to see what these kids can do with a direction for their energy. All of the performers in this show are from the street and without this company would still be there. Yes! I love shit like this.

Link to Roundhouse website where you can buy tickets and read more

Onto slightly more sombre notes. Had a really fascinating talk with a teacher at a college I have started working with. His english was fantastic so I was making very botched attempts at speaking spanish and he was very eloquently expressing himself in English. It all started when he found out I was English. "ohhhh I´ve always wanted to go there, I don´t know why, ever since I was a boy, it´s so brilliant the language the culture everything" There is a real fairy tale ignorance here about England and Europe in general, that it is a place with no corruption or poverty and everyone lives peacefully and serenely. Bizarre. But we got talking and he is one of the first of hundreds of people that I have asked that doesn´t like Cali and he proceeded to give me the most honest opinions why. He almost seemed sorry to burst my bubble but I was very grateful for it. It turns out he studys statistics and so knows exactly what´s been happening over the past 50 years in terms of politics and corruption. He said that the current mayor isn´t as bad as the last two but still fairly bad. Cali is the way that it is because the rich want to keep on getting rich and that the past two mayors have embezzled so intensely that there is nothing left for the city. And they stay in power because they are so wealthy that they can launch the most incredible campaigns, door knocking with gifts of food is apparently very common. He also said that people who have tried to stand up against it and get things changed have been assasinated.

According to him the centre of cali is rife with prostitution, drug dealing and violence. This is a fact of Cali life but nobody seems to mind. Everyone you ask is so patriotic that they look past all of that and truly love their city. And its true I have asked everyone I have met do you like Cali and they love it, everyone here is very happy and wouldn´t dream of leaving. There is a real culture here of living for the moment. I suppose because it is so dangerous and killings are so everyday that they just live for today, there is very rarely a thought for planning for the future. Prime examples, Colombia sold all of its oil to America and now America is not only getting incredibly rich off it but selling it back to Colombia. All of the best coffee and banana´s Colombia has to offer he has never tasted, it all gets exported. Massive massive Colombian industries that you would think bring in such wealth to the country are more often than not foriegn initiatives that the government has sold on to make a quick buck, take Panama for example. Even in top government there is very little sense of long term planning. In that sense it is the complete opposite of England. In England the pressure to plan your life and to think ahead is so heavily applied it drives some people crazy, even on a day to day basis how many times do we draw up a list of things we need to do in the next week or month, it´s everyday practice. But the main fascinating difference is the majority here in Cali are happy. And I mean truly happy. You see a general contentment and joy for life that you just don´t see in England. Play and generosity are both everyday practice. Which throws up a very interesting question because here it is very dangerous with so much crime, drugs, prostitution, corruption and killings with so few opportunities but yet people are happy. Could you say the same for England I dont know.

We also spoke about the relationship between men and women in Cali. A truly fascinating and truly different one to us English. Everything here is so sexual, so hot blooded and so open with it. Even the kids in the street are forever aluding to sex, both boys and girls. With the boys luring over any nice bum that walks by and the girls dancing and walking in such a seductive fashion its off-putting. And these kids are 8 and 9. It´s funny because the men are obsessed with the women and the women understand this and play up to it. I asked this teacher if there were equal opportunities for men and women in Cali and he said "yes, the women that know how to use their sexuality possibly have even more opportunities than the men" I asked a very beautiful female friend here if that was true and she said that all of her female friends find work in a second whereas most of her male friends are unemployed. I then asked her if most of her females friends were beautiful, she said yes all of them. Image is so important here in Cali, it seems like if you are beautiful you can get ahead, education is so poor and the communication is so physical that it really does make a difference. Rape here is commonplace, apparently a huge problem. With this idea that you live for today and with such a hot blooded and violent culture rape is just another part of a very big problem.

It´s something that I find very difficult to get my head round. There is such poverty here and such poor education and what seems to be no investment in the young or the areas that need it. The teacher from the college seemed to think this was purposeful, the more the rich can keep the poor poor and ignorant the easier it is for them to keep lining their pockets.

On the circus side all is going well. Have set a structure and started to make all of the students set goals for the three months. Very exciting. Check out the video below. Have bought a load of skipping ropes and it is popping off!!You might have to tilt your neck.

Right I´m signing off, teaching a class at three. I am learning lots and begining to miss my family. It´s a strange feeling to lie down at night and think you are in this place for four months, for four months you will have no familiar sights or sounds. In some ways its quite liberating but in some ways a little bit scary.

The work has begun

So the teaching has finally begun. After all the waiting and preperation and obsene fatigue trying to get everything ready back in the UK it has finally begun! And it is amazing! so rewarding.

On the second day I had a child who was deaf and dumb on the unicycle and he was fairly close to pure joy.

So the area I have started working with is poorer than poor. I am based at quite an amazing place called Casa Naraña (orange house). Just and incredible initiative, the man who runs it, Jon Hairo, set it up because in the center of Cali there are many theatres and libraries and cultural projects but on the outskirts and in the poor areas there is nothing. So he works night and day, teaches in three different colleges and gives lectures and performs at festivals and effectively slaves away non-stop so he can provide this for the children of the area. I had quite a moving chat with him yesterday where he said every time you work with a child and give them a skill you are giving them a different option to the gangs. Because finding a legitimate job for these children when they are older is so so difficult. It´s heart breaking because you know there is only so much you can do. But its brilliant because he keeps re-instating these areas need as much help as they can get and he raves about the work Circo Para Todos do. It is such a fantastic, legitimate option for these children to not only get work but to travel, learn and then give something back to their community.

So I have been giving lots and lots of workshops.  The first day I gave a session in Acrobalance because we didnt have any other equipment but then the Unicycles arrived! And they havent stopped since. We have two children in particular who are just amazing!! they are turning the smallest of circles and jumping, all in under two weeks. Unbelievable. They turn up at the crack of dawn asking to practice and don´t stop until the end of they day when I literaly have to force the equipment from them.




Here is the theatre. Its an amazing space that he raised all the funds for and converted. Sitting there is one of the actress´s who volunteers there called Valentina but every body lovingly calls her Gorda which translates as fat. The culture is very very different here, much more direct much more open.

Here is the stage with Javier and another actress/volunteer Mellisa. Javier is an incredible human being. Very very generous and with an incredible imagination. He works here when he can, he makes puppets and masks out of rubbish and some of his creations are just incredible. I have some photo´s of the begining but none of the finished product because I am out of battery and in desperate need of an adaptor.

 The children are obsenely generous. They have so little but are still prepared to give all of the time. They are very generous with help on the equipment and are actually brilliant teachers. Some of them in particular would make fantastic teachers.

I had a meeting yesterday with Jon Hairo of Casa Naraña and the exec of Circo Para Todos and have some exciting news. We are getting more equipment and extra teachers from the school and we are going to be teaching in different areas. We now need to work out the logistics of how this is going to work but its going ahead. With a show at the end for the children put together by yours truly!! ahhhhhh! Also desperately trying to teach the children English. If anyone has any games or tips for teaching english then please let me know because the kids here are incredibly physical and understand their bodies so well but they have very short attention spans for  English.

Starting to try and think about this in the long term as much as possible because I now have just over four months left. What do these children really need? whats going to help the most? It´s incredibly challenging but hugely rewarding.

While I remember Javier is also looking for a beautiful english woman, he told me to write in my journal the following "Javier is a bad man, an ugly man but he is very funny and smart. Colombian women don´t like him. He needs an English woman" so if anybody is interested in a mask/puppet maker/teacher of drama then please get in contact. 


One night we had been painting the puppets and I had oil paint all over my hands. One of the kids took me to the kitchen got some white spirit and proceeded to scrub my hands for a good ten/fifteen minutes. It was a very humbling experience.

The main problem here for them is boredom. They are forever looking for something to do. they are all so bright and so able but just dont have any vehicle for any of their energy. One of the girls Valentina is particularly bright but particularly troublesome. I didnt like her instantly, she fights with other kids, was slightly selfish and very manipulative. I have since found out last year her mother was shot dead. I have changed my opinion of her ever so slightly and going to make more of an effort from now on.

 Although there are so many problems here, extreme violence and extreme poverty with a corrupt government that are doing nothing to help those in need. Everyone is happy. Everyone I speak to loves Cali and loves living here. They open their hearts to you as if you were family. It´s been an incredibly humbling experience.

                    Love this picture

Ahhhh the tropical paradise that is panse. Beautiful. High up in the mountains, a mountain spring and a waterful. Very special.

Will sign off now. It´s very special here and the kids really need the help. More so than I thought. I am frightened at times with the task ahead and with all of the dangers around but as Jon Hairo said to me in the car yesterday.

"often I don´t know how I am going to do it, I don´t know how I am going to pay for it or help anybody and it seems completely impossible but you just do, just do, I don´t know how you are here but you are. You just have to do"