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.
No comments:
Post a Comment