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

La Arreglando

The people here are of a different quality. There is an understanding of what is important and not a hint of fear or apprehension in going for it. They are so humble and generous, obviously with exceptions but you can´t have a country completely perfect. For example, there is a woman of about forty or fifty. She has two sons one of which is epeleptic so is forever by her side just incase he has an attack, I have mentioned him before, she works seven days a week selling lottery tickets door to door, five hours walking round Cali in the morning and 3-4 hours in the evening. Sometimes in the backing heat sometimes in the pouring rain, It´s amazing how much can happen in two weeks. Seven days a week without fail, she also collects recyclables because she can sell them back to shops, she has a trolley that is forever full of bottles or plastic bags. She also cooks treats which she sells door to door. Her other son Johnatan needed five thousand pesos for a school project. That is roughly one pound fifty. It took him two days of asking friends and doing odd jobs to get it together.. This is a family that has nothing. Every other day she comes to where I live and work and sits me down and gives me a plate of food, or a fried plantain or a cup of rice pudding. A woman who has nothing and has to work solidly to have enough money to feed and clothe her children is not only willing but desperate to share all that she has with a relative stranger. And beyond that she is confused and almost insulted when I try and decline. I keep trying to explain that it´s a cultural difference and that it is hard for me to accept so much from her but she is simply saddened by the fact that people aren´t generous like that in London. "por que no, esso es feo, es malo, hentes no generoso? muy malo" It seems bizarre to her that you wouldn´t give up your hard earned to cook meals for your sons teacher.

On an equally difficult point the family that I was staying with in my first two weeks are just so generous. When I was first here they fed me and the five other people that were staying in their house completely free and when I tried to pay some rent I was flat out refused and told to relax. Last saturday it was the mother of the houses birthday, a grand party was planned. However on the wednesday the grandmother fell very seriously ill and was taken into intensive care. I presumed that there would be no party or atleast a smaller gathering. I rang to check on the saturday night and was told there was beers but nothing grand, I told them I would see them on monday. I had another invitation which fell through so I actually ended up spending the night at home alone drinking milk and eating cake, a nice evening if not a touch solitary. I turned up at their house today and in all honesty they were insulted that I wasn´t there on saturday. I have not felt this guilty in a long time. It was as if everything I have ever done that rewarded a little bit of guilt came flooding back to remind me of what it is to do somebody wrong. I have since been to see the grandmother in hospital, given the mother of the house her birthday present and desperately tried to explain that I thought they would want some space to be a family in this hard time. I think it will take some time to rebuild bridges completely but they definitely understand that my absence wasn´t through lack of caring. These people have shown me such warmth and honest generosity not just with things material but with their time and patience. An extremely humbling day and one in which I have learned alot about what it is to be human.

So, onto things a bit more positive: Turns out there is a company in Cali that uses clowning in hospitals to treat the ill. Who knew such a thing existed outside holywood. I am now enlisted to take photo´s and make tea for their next outing to a hospital and I am also giving a two hour workshop on clown for them on the 3rd of April.  It´s special what can come from extending a little bit of human warmth. I have seen this one man at circus so many times and thought "what are you doing here? you aren´t a circus person whats your story?" So last week I asked him. He started talking about a company he works with called Doctor Clown. I told him about my training in London and that I loved clowning we both gushed about how incredible Clowning is for some time and we are now rehearsing tuesdays and thursdays trying to mount a routine together and I get to help out what sounds like an incredible company. It also helps that when I went to meet the other members of Doctor Clown they both happened to be very beautiful women, its a hard life.

Before I start on any more updates you have to quickly take note of what the theatre looked like before we started repairs. Take note. Record it in your mind. And when you are ready feel free to move on.

We are so close to finishing all of the repairs in the theatre! So painfully close. And the way it all took off was just priceless. So if you have just joined I will fill you in on whats been taking place, a phone got stolen  from the theatre and so the kids planned a meeting to try and figure out how to make amends; they all started talking about how much they loved this little community theatre and how they wanted to help it. They then decided that they would repair the place from top to bottom. Well. The director John Hairo was going away to Barancilla for a festival for two weeks so there was a perfect opportunity for the kids to step up and show what they were worth...hmmm.


Day one. Turn out: brilliant, couldn´t have been better, kids aplenty. Cleaning: complete chaos. There was an older girl Melissa who said that she would organise it all, I thought fantastic somebody else responsible I can leave them to it. I went to the theatre to see how things were going and was greeted by insanely loud music, mop fights and a game the kids had developed whereby one child climbs to the top of the tallest ladder and the rest of the kids shake it as hard as they can. It was a very loud mess with Melissa at its center organising the chaos. I let them ride it out and then found them all one by one the next day and just quietly said that the clean up yesterday was a mess, you got nothing done you just pissed about on ladders. Surprisingly they were a touch more sheepish the day after. Especially Melissa. Next time she asked if I needed help I said a flat out no and told her in very plain terms why. Colombians as direct as they are really dislike confrontation, it´s a bizarre daicotomy that they are so open and honest in some ways but when they have a problem with somebody they will never say anything to their face, lots of talking behind peoples backs and berating through another person. So when I tell people I have a problem to their face in Cali it can be quite impacting.

Day Two. Turn out: Me and Johnatan. Cleaning: brilliant! Johnatan and I had a day of real hard slog. I never thought I´d hear myself say this about cleaning but there was something quite beautiful about it.

Day Three. I hear a knocking at my door unusually early. Its Pavlo asking to be let into the theatre. I said why? Repairs he replied. I was slightly taken aback at first but thought, here is a golden opportunity don´t let it fall away. I let him in and we worked all day. He cleaned, he fixed chairs,  and even started to design a way of hanging masks around the theatre. Ever since our chat Pavlo has been brilliant. It´s been a special change. I spoke with his parents and apparently he is doing more chores at home and is doing school work as well. And here he was at my door at about 10 in the morning asking to do a full days work labour. Don´t worry he is still aggresive, arrogant and violent with some other kids but he is doing it all with respect for me and his parents. I don´t know how long this will last but the way I see it just keep on going little by little. I can´t do any more than that, take it day by day.

Also quick moment for the classic child in doorway picture. Classic.

And from here on in is where the work really began. They next day Johnatan and Pavlo turned up early again and I was busy so I let them get on with it solo, they were fantastic. They worked all day. What started to happen next was again slightly special. The next day Pavlo and Johnatan turned up again but this time with an extra friend, again working well, they next day some one else joined, they next day two more until at its peak we had about fifteen kids working like ants. It was special, I really wish I´d taken pictures of that day.

Not to say it wasn´t without hiccups, one day I left them alone with these parting words "finish in the theatre and call it a day, no more work downstairs". I came home to find out that they had broken into downstairs, repainted the living room with oil paint and eaten my food. Not the highest point of my trip so far but as the Colombians say we are on a process.

But besides a few hiccups I think it´s a really incredible what a group of kids have achieved. Because it´s them that did all of the work and came up with most of the ideas. I was just there to say no when they started trying to mix silver paint with yellow and started trying to paint the floor with three different colours at the same time. Generally they worked with diligence, patience and generosity of spirit. And just look at what they have achieved, look at the difference. And look at the masks! Get in Pavlo, the original design had to be changed because the masks were hanging so that you couldn´t see the stage, but hey we´re on a process.

These stairs were painted about three times by Johnatan. He would spend about three hours on them, finally finish and somebody would walk on them and he would have to start all over again. This happened at least three times. 

If you ever want to try and give a heart condition to five children from El Poblado in Cali Colombia then tell them that you are going to take them to a professional circus school for a day.

What a flipping day that was. We left our area at 6 in the morning with five kids dressed up to the nines and  with excitement burning through very tired eyes. No one on that bus was prepared for the whirlwind of energy that hit it that morning. The night before I was in a living room with the parents, grandparents and cousins of one of the boys trying to persuade them to give him permission to go. He had had a bad note at school and so his Mum and Dad had no. I was desperately trying to argue the benefits of going, that when he sees how a professional practices he will understand hard work, he will want to work harder at school etc etc etc. In the end it was the english he had learned with me that swayed it and he was given permission. They were so amazed when he started spouting out phrases in English, truly shocked. That really surprised me how the family were so taken aback by really basic english, need to keep that in mind that a task like learning a language is so alien to them that I just need to be patient. Very very patient.

The black boy below is called Jesus but everyone calls him Chucho. He is a brilliant kid. Very bright, very funny and always with a business plan or other in the pipeline. He has a great nack of turning up just as a meal is being served, an awful habit I cant believe somebody would base their movements around their next meal disgraceful. Whenever we see eachother now we sing at eachother Eyyyyyy Comida! (Eyyyyy food!). He has a job in a bicycle repair yard but has given up a days work so that he can come to classes on saturdays. I asked him why he misses a days worth of money and he says because the Casa Naraña is too important to him. A kid of fourteen who had to struggle and scrape to get together the equivalent of a pound for the bus fare gives up a days work so he can come to do classes in circus and keep supporting his local community. He says he wants to be a doctor and I so so hope that its possible and not a pipe dream. I keep saying to him if he wants to be a doctor english will help him massively, he has just mastered the phrase Do you have any brothers and sisters and is going round repeating it to anybody that will listen.

But generally the kids were brilliant at Circus. They respected the space, didn´t disturb any of the other students too much and learnt shit loads. They walked on balls, on tightropes, learnt acrobatics and were suitably inspired by watching all of the other students. Their eyes also lit up when they heard the students say that they all began in community workshops with stilts just like them. Haha! All of the kids, with one exception, that came to circus have now been practicing harder and with more concentration than before, with Chucho determined to do two diabolos. A little incentive will go a long way. The one exception is a boy called Alex, who also was the one child that didnt help out with repairing the theatre, I don´t know whats going on with him at the moment he isn´t coming to classes either, must try and find out.

A little shot of the teaching in action.

Here are some photo´s of a party. A very special party. This is the family I stayed with for the first two weeks and the ones who have opened their hearts and home. This is the grandmothers birthday party. The one who is now in hospital. As you can see Colombians are extremely macho alpha and only start a bbq with a hairdrier. Its surprisingly effective and I think every macho alpha man should have one.

The woman is Amanda and the man Roderigo. Amanda is Roderigo´s girlfriend from Australia who was here for three weeks, great for company awful for my spanish.

Here is me and the grandmother, we get on very well. We rarely understand what the other is saying but we understand eachother. That is an awfully phrased sentence but I hope you get my drift.

And here is a rather belated, rather drunken picture of the coleslaw that I cooked as a gift for the party. There was flipping loads of it and Mum you would have been proud it was delicious.







I had a horrible dream that I was back in London and hadn´t remembered anything of the end of the trip, my cousin Yoshi however had come to Colombia and watched the show I had made with the kids. As he was playing back to me the film he had made of the show I couldn´t remember a single part of it and I just started to cry. I had made a bloody good show though, the costumes and choreography were incredible.

Sorry there has been such a delay I´ve just been exhausted. Going to make an attempt to try and update more regularly. One last passing thought.

If you ever make a plan with a Colombian be prepared for it to change. Several times.

The Reunion

Well.

To think it´s been a week since I last wrote something is bizarre. So much has happened. I nearly had a fist fight with one of the kids, I got severely lost in Cali trying to get the bus on my own, I have started a personal battle against mosquitoes, the current score is Mosquitoes 532 Greg 5, but I can feel a miraculous comeback surfacing anytime in the next week or so, and the kids organised a big crisis meeting for the house all on their own.Oh and two more things, had my first barbecue and went on my first fiesta Colombian style.

Pero, before I commence, check out this link, its the graduates from the circus school and the show is just incredible and its going to be in london in March!! Oh my how lucky for everyone in London, it was a sell out run last year so hurry and book now to avoid disapointment.

It was an absolutely brilliant night. We started off by going to a show called Delirio. Oh my god what a show. It´s four hours of Circus, Salsa and live music.It´s partnered with Circo Para Todos, the circus school I am working with out here, so I had many friends in the show and managed to get back stage and watch them all practice. Fabian the man who I was staying with when I first arrived in Cali was one of the main acts and truly brilliant, the man is a great teacher but it was very exciting to see that he is also an incredible technician, he did one areal routine with a very beautiful woman called Melissa that was fairly spectacular. I had no idea what to expect from this show so when I heard it was four hours long needless to say I was a little bit worried. However along with 1´000 other people I was on the edge of my seat for four hours. With Salsa!! I was wowed for four hours by Salsa!!! I was also pleasantly surprised that every break the majority of the audience would get up on stage and start dancing salsa as well. Please reference picture above.  I turned to a woman I was with and said wow isnt that amazing everyone is dancing in the interval and she said "well of course, you see the salsa it gets in your blood and you need to dance as well" I said that would never happen in England "why not?" she said, I started to try and explain in my quite limited spanish the social constraints that might limit mid show boogying but fortunately the show started again and all was forgotten in the melee of legs flying and hips girating. The speed and skill with which these people dance salsa is absolutely unbelievable. . Oh my lord I have never seen so many beautiful women in one place at the same time. I am seriously considering becoming a professional salsarer.

Check out this you tube linke cause it really is an incredibile show

So when that show finished at midnight there was a few hours in the big top with a dj where everybody danced salsa. Obviously. And when that was finished we went off to a bar and danced the salsa, the chacha, meringue and I threw in a bit of techno just for good measure. There was a point where I tried to go home and Fabian took me by the arm and said "why are you going?" well I´m teaching all day tomorrow and I don´t know how long it will take me to get home etc etc etc he stopped me and said "sit down and enjoy yourself, you´re staying at my house and you can go home tomorrow when you need to start the class" I sat down. I thought here I am, in Cali, with a really lovely group of people, I can either worry that I have work tomorrow and try and reserve energy or I can just enjoy the moment. I poured another beer and had an absolutely brilliant time. You can see from the picture we all had a great time. We danced and danced and danced it was lovely. I think because I am out here for such a specific reason I often need to give myself permission to kick back and relax. Which now I write it down is a little bit crazy. I have lots of work to do but I need to keep myself sane as well. One thing is for certain Calenia´s (people from Cali) definitely know how to party, wow.

So on to the reunion. Last saturday we were having the most epic clean up of the theatre. When I arrived it was in a real mess as you can see from the pictures before and so it´s been a long road to cleanliness ever since really. As you can see I spent a long time underneath the stage sweeping. There was a point where I looked at where I was, hunched over in the dark with a really small broom and I couldn´t stop laughing, and then one of the kids who was under the stage with me starting doing frog impressions and that was me gone I was a complete mess. And yes you are right that is a toilet under the stage, don´t ask I have no idea, there was all sorts of nonsense under that stage. It was all going really well, lots of joviality, lots of children helping, we had just about finished and set up the projector for the saturday night film. Every saturday they set up a big screen and show a film for the kids. Before this alot of these kids had never seen a film before, its quite special. Nia one of the women volunteers said "where´s my phone?" and fortunately it had been stolen. I say fortunately because what followed was really really special. John Hairo the director of the theatre went balistic, apparently it was the fifth item that had been stolen alongside three other phones, a camera and a part of a computer. "No more classes no more nothing until Nia has a new phone!" Well the kids came up trumps.

In the picture from the left is Jonathon, Alex and Nia. In Alex´s hand is a collection box for a new phone for Nia. Jonathon and Alex had decided something needed to be done and that they were going to be the ones who did it. They single handedly organised a meeting with John Hairo and as many of the kids as were available. We were all sitting up in the theatre the younger kids and John Hairo in the audience and the older kids on the stage. To my extreme annoyance I understood very little of what was being said, everybody was talking very fast. However the translation the came round to me at the end was this. Child after child gushing about how important this place was for every single child that was in that room. How it has affected their life and how they want to help keep it running. The meeting ended with round after round of applause and what was close to hysteria. The photo´s don´t really do justice to what was a very special athmosphere and one that I hope I will remember for a very long time.

Here you can see some of the younger children alongside John Hairo. It was very sweet to hear the younger children making points, I think alot of them were talking just because they wanted to be included but some of them were very passionate.

Some of the older kids. Pablo is the boy lying on his back. I will come back to him later so keep him in your mind.

Once the general meeting had finished the older ones all stayed behind with John Hairo to agree a plan of action. They all decided that they would team together and organise the repairs that needed doing and raise the money for this new phone. All fairly special from a group of kids who have next to nothing. Jonathon on the far left is a really special young man. I don´t know the story fully with his dad but when I asked if he missed him he said no, its much better now he is gone. He has a younger brother and a mother who seems to work non-stop, the younger brother had epilepsy so is permanently with his mother just incase. Jonathon is 19 and  so generous and hard working it is unbelievable. He applies himself so fully to every little job and cares so much about doing it well. He has a level of respect for everything that I am finding inspirational, he is teaching me about what it is to do something properly. I like him alot and it gets to me that there are no opportunities for such an incredible young man. I want to give him as much confidence and skills as I can because if anybody deserves a better life it is him. It´s so frustrating because I feel this so strongly but just can´t put it into words, I hope you get the gist.

So, Pablo. I´ll start at the very beginning. There is a boy. His name is Pablo. He is 16. He is an extremely physical young man, good looking, impressive physique, a brilliant acrobat, always has cool clothes, generally cool. All of the younger kids look up to him, all of the older girls fancy him and all of the older boys laugh at his jokes whether they like them or not.  The problem is this: he is very violent and lacks any idea of respect. At the beginning he was fine and I don´t know entirely what has happened but we have got to a stage where he was coming into the theatre where I am working, pushing other kids around, stealing things, messing the place up and generally trying to provoke a reaction. When he got the reaction he would then speak really quickly in spanish and say what all of the kids here call a grosseria (naughty words) which is a much bigger deal here than in England. This was going on for a while and I was trying all sorts of different tactics to deal with it, some of them working but some of them complete failures. He was rude again the other day so I said no stilts. This is where the problem began. He proceeded to get stilts and to put them on so I said to him, "you put those stilts on and I take everyone else off, no more unicycle no more stilts for anybody today" he looked at me, looked at the worried faces of his friends and made the decision. They have a phrase in spanish which translates as testing the oil. When you are around somebody new you test the oil, see what kind of a person they are. Pavlo decided to test the oil. What resulted was a scuffle which ended with me bending this kids thumb back and kneeling on him so that I could get the stilts back. I then walked round like robocop taking disgruntled child after disgruntled child off their stilts. No one was happy. I found Pavlo later and took him up to the theatre just me and him. I said "Pavlo I´m not going to go on like this, you do all of this because you want a reaction, cause you want a fight but I´m not going to fight you" (I said this but I was umming and erring as to whether the best option wasn´t to just catch him on his own and fight him once and be done with it) He pleaded his inocence saying he was never rude, I reminded him how he had told me to fuck off the night before swore at me this morning and threatened to shoot me the day before. He was silent. I said to him "either fight me or stop all of this because it´s not what I´m here for, I can´t teach anybody else when you´re like this". He started to say something quickly in spanish, I didnt understand, we spent a while trying to understand eachother, me sure he was trying to wind me up and him getting more and more insistent until eventually I understood that he was saying he was going to stop. I don´t know how long this will last but since then he has been brilliant, calm, respectful even sometimes apologetic in his manor. He has helped clean up, repaired seats and helped me teach stilts. He is still violent with other kids and rude but that is just his way, turns out he has a very abusive father which makes sence for alot of things. He is also 16, very strong and going through alot that he doesn´t really understand. Hopefully from here on in he will be fine but you never know, I´ll keep you posted.

Below are a set of fairly arty stilt photos and a home made barbecue that was absolutely delicious.

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"