Buses and Motorcycles

I have to quickly say sorry.
Sorry to everyone who I have not been in contact with over the past two weeks. I´ve got a bit lost in it all and forgotten to keep in contact with alot of people. My mother told me today on skype that she was very close to booking a ticket to Colombia she was that worried about me. Mum I am really sorry I will keep in better contact from here on in. I am diving head first into this culture and am in a bit of a bubble. I am teaching all the week, helping with three different foundations and teaching on saturday and sunday as well. And partying as and when my body allows. The part of Cali where I am living is called El Poblado. Whenever you say to anybody I live in Poblado their initial reaction is one of shock and closely followed by the phrase oh no caliente! Its rough!. But I have to say I have never met a more welcoming, humble and generous community in all my life. I have been living here for three months but I have a family here who care for me as if I was one of their own.

Every night out on the street everybody who wants to meets for drinks or just for the company. But it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to go just for company. They work so hard here and there is a real athmosphere of the here and now that drink is a big part of the culture. With generosity also a massive part of their life here combined with me being a foriegner means everybody is desperate to give me alchohol. Which is great but it means that I am having to say no to so many people in a culture where saying no is bloody difficult.

But I love how it is nothing fancy, nothing over priced, no pretence its just music and good company sitting in the street and having a good time. We laugh alot. This is Julian. He has been like a brother to me here in Cali and is a dear friend. He takes the piss and cares for me in equally grand measures. The other day when I needed to go to a particularly rough part of Cali for a workshop he drove me all the way there in his van accompanied me all the way to the door and then went and spoke to the doorman and organised for somebody to help me out on the journey home as well. He is forever generous and forever on the wind up.

 These are the wives of three of mi amigos neuvo. From the left Martha, Yenny and Viviana. They have been pivotal in my salsa education and are protecting me from any potentialy dangerous women.

 This is Francisco who has been pivotal in my swear word education. There are two football teams in Cali, Deportivo and America and when the two play there are usually at least four deaths. It is literaly a die hard rivalry. But he and I are both America fans, the red devils. He lives in the house opposite and is very very funny. He works like a dog and partys equally hard, he is an incredible salsa dancer and is teaching me too.

 This is Lucho the brother to Andrez, who is the father of the one of my students and the reason that I know all of these people. He invited me to play football with them all one night and took me under his wing, I don´t have a photo of him but he is a real character. Infact his whole family is really beautiful.  But these two, Lucho and Andrez are the two who first started looking after me here. Lucho is an ace footballer, Andrez not so much.

Here is Julian and his wife Martha.


















And here is Yenny and Alex or Platano. His nickname is Platano or Plantain in English. He is a huge man but with a heart of gold. Whenever everyone is trying to pull my leg about one thing or another he is always the one who reassures me, Don´t worry they are just joking. And Yenny and her family are being absurdly accepting of me. I have started teaching Yenny´s sister english and every time they give me a huge plate of food and let me use their internet. I am currently sitting in their living room writing this and have been for the past three hours. Staying well over my welcome but I need to finish. Platano as well is a very good friend.

This is the group. Not everybody is here and I am sorry to any of you who are not here, it is not because I don´t like you. With time I want to get a picture of all of my friends from Cali up on here.

I so wish I could bring you all here to Cali for an hour to taste this athmosphere. There is only so much you can communicate with words. The feeling when we are out in the street dancing and laughing. It´s beautiful.



I wanted this picture in here because in this exact moment Francisco is teaching me a particularly vulgar swear word.










So the new foundations. The work with Doktora Klown has taken off. It is a truly beautiful foundation. Their aim is to enter a hospital and to try and give everybody in that hospital a few moments when anything is possible, they don`t have to worry or stress about their problems; simply enjoy three clowns being absolutley ridiculous.

And they are absolutely ridiculous. It´s beautiful to see a room transform from a sullen and melancholy place to a room full of joy and make believe. I have now been into two hospitals with them and helped with a day of workshops. Which went very well, a very special day, I have never done laughter yoga before but I will definitely do it again, I recommend it for anybody who enjoys being happy.

I have adopted a new style of life here. One in which I want to take every opportunity that comes my way and to not only take these opportunities but to take them fully and without fear. I have to say my life here is richer and more rewarding than it ever has been. It feels like there are so many opportunities here, I don´t know that there are more opportunities here or just that I am saying yes to so many that more doors are opening. Every oportunity that I agree to seems to open another door, sometimes two or three. For example I said yes to taking a workshop for this company and now there are two more lined up in different parts of Colombia all expenses paid and I am mounting a show with the director of the company here in Cali.

 And here he is in full clown glory. His name is Fabian and he is a really beautiful man. We have spent many a night after rehearsals sitting and talking about life and art and he is a very beautiful soul. Always late! But I forgive him.  I actually had a chat with him last night and said that unless he gives the project the full commitment we should call it a day, I understand why he cant because he has several projects on the go at the moment but so do I and I cannot be waiting for him in different parts of Cali all the time. He has just adopted a child with H.I.V. who lives with a different foundation called Fund Amor.

 Now Fund Amor. This is a company that works as a sort of orphanage for children whose parents have died because of H.I.V. and subsequently have passed the disease to their children. It´s a really beautiful place with an athmosphere surprisingly jovial and light. A group of my students and I were lucky enough to be invited to give a presentation to all of the children at this foundation. It was a very very special day. We gave an ace show! seven of my students from Poblado and me unicycles, stilts, balls, juggling, it was a real spectacle. And afterwards we gave a workshop to all of the kids. Some of which were extremely hyper active and some of which were extremely sombre. You got a sense for some of them the pain of what was happening in their life was very fresh and for some just a way of life with which they were accustomed.
                

 I am also doing Event after event after event. The community theatre is able to fund the work that it does in the community because it works its socks off. It gives event after event after event. We put together a group of my students and friends of the theatre. We put on the make up, costumes and we give some incredible shows. It´s brilliant for the kids as well, an opportunity to see different parts of Cali, and opportunity to perform for different groups of people. They love it. Every time there is an event I have swarms of children saying, please profy profy can I? can I? It`s good as well because now I have a very strong incentive for the kids, if you want to go and do events for the theatre you need to practice hard and help out when we are cleaning or repairing the house.

 On wednesday as I´m sure you were all aware it was international day of circus. And so Circo Para Todos hosted a day of events. There was about 100 kids in the tent sharing skills, taking workshops, playing games. It was brilliant. There was my kids from Poblado, a huge group of street kids from an orphanage and another foundation who I didnt get introduced to. It was fantastic. A real buzz in the tent.

 

These are the die hard students of mine from Poblado. We had endless problems oranising all of them to come but it was worth every moment of it. I decided to only invite those kids who really practice hard and are respectful. So all of the kids from Poblado who aren`t respectful and who don`t practice hard were furious. "Proffy why aren`t I going to Circus? Why aren]t I going to circus?" I had one kid in floods of tears one kid was in a blind rage but since that moment, surprisingly all of the kids are much more respectful and training much harder.


I am really tired. I need to rest. I think I am probably taking on too much but I love it. However today and tomorrow I am going to do absolutely nothing. Nothing. Clean my house, Eat alot, and nothing more. It´s getting increasingly close to June when I have to go back to London and I desperately want to do a bloody brilliant show for these kids. I have written a draft idea of what it will be like but I need to finalize it. I have worked out a load of exercises for Stilt Salsa, thats right stilt salsa, you heard it here first.

There are alot of problems here and actually reading over my last blog I was slightly gushing about Colombians in a slightly biased fashion. Obviously there are bad people here and egoism and bad characteristics as well. I don´t want people to read this blog and think that Colombia is a perfect place with these people who are only generous and humble because It´s not like that. I suppose I am concentrating on the positive because on a day to day I am concentrating on the positive, I am searching out foundations that require an incredibile dose of generosity and so I am encountering some very special people. But there are some terrible things that happen here and some people who live with incredible poverty and no choice but to do some terrible things in order to survive.

Sorry about the title, I started the blog with the idea of writing about the motorcycles and buses but now I have run out of time. So feel free to find a metaphor of sorts to justify the title and I fill you in on the buses next time. With love from Colombia