Clowns Without Borders - USA

January

Volunteers: Gulshirin, Andrew, Malin, Stephanie, Cecelia and Helga

Project Overview

MOBILE CRECHES CENTERS – POWAI, CHANDIVALI AND WADALA

Since we decided it wasn’t possible to simply say what it was what we saw, heard and experienced, we are sending a list of our strongest impressions instead.

It seemed to me that at one point in our rehearsal process, we got very bogged down with what we thought a show needed to be – luckily for us, that notion and idea was humbly blasted out of the water, when we realized that the work is not about us looking good and doing a “show” but rather making a connection and creating some laughter/hope with and for these children and adults.

To that end:

• Starting our first show with 25 crying babies
• A hundred finger prints on my accordion
• Being asked how much I was selling my pots and pans props for
• How many children can hang on one arm?
• Successful conversion of a reluctant adult to a willing clown

• Knowing something went right with our first show when we were asked to come back again the same day – 4 hours later for an audience triple the size!
• Walking down the lane with150 children and 80 adults, all following with curiosity, laughter and handshakes – lots, lots of handshakes

• Handshakes, handshakes, handshakes
• Everyone wants to be touched and seen – insane photo takers!!
• Proud and tentative introductions in English
• Juggler kid whose abilities quickly exceeded our own
• “Take a bow” done after the show was over
• Lots of smiles
• Curious and willing girls who come up to be a part of the show
• Malin posing for a supposed “Times of India” picture, taken on a cell phone…

• Construction sites – no addresses and a million directions on how to get there
• Entering the area – landmarks for the sites are large new buildings or a shiny out of place IMAX theater surrounded by slums.
• The world’s alleged “largest” IMAX theater is in the same city as Asia’s largest slum!
• Sharing the bill with: Local school kids doing a puppet show and a dance/theater piece about education
• Meeting an adoring public - exhausted and drenched in sweat!

Journal

Gulshirin
Project “Muskurahat” has done 27 shows in 4 weeks and has played for over 5,000 children and many more adults. The project has gone wonderfully and this would never have been possible with the support and enthusiasm from all the people we approached. The overwhelming generosity we have experienced from people has been unparalleled. Before I start my ramblings on about my experience, I would like to say that none of my musings reflect in anyway, my gratitude for the support we have been given from our donors, volunteers and hosts.

I am in an odd position. The reason being that India is my home and there are certain aspects of life there that I take for granted – the extremities, the dirt and poverty are a part of life that I grew up with, so writing an update about my experience becomes slightly difficult for me. I can’t write about how seeing people with broken limbs lying on the side of the street, under a roof made of plastic, has changed me as a person. I can’t say that the extremities are shocking – I am part of this extremity. So, what I can try and say is how I find myself at a loss. I find that I need to be inspired by what I see and experience, however having grown up with it, I find myself at times, unmoved. Ultimately though, is it about what I feel? Should

I be changed? I don’t really know the answers to these questions. What I do know is that after we left, the children were apparently imitating us, doing the lazzi, creating new lazzi, taking bows, shaking hands with each other and smiling.

 
How do you evaluate an intangible such as happiness and laughter? What is the value of it and how long does it sustain itself? The more I think about it, I believe the answer might be something to do with relief in the moment. Laughter is known to relieve stress and anxiety – I guess, if I can contribute to reducing some of this – even for the shortest moment – it should be enough. The benefits of laughter are severely underappreciated. To know that the relationship and connection between human beings can be improved by laughter is one of the greatest discoveries I have made. No, maybe we cannot  measure it over a long period of time, but the period of time that lasts maybe a moment, a day or a week, through laughter, has the potential to forge relationships that may last a lifetime.

Andrew
My time in India was spent only in Bombay. It is both shocking and awe inspiring to see a city such as Bombay with its metropolitan high-rises juxtaposed with fishing slums and extreme poverty evident on the streets at the base of these multi million dollar skyscrapers. I noted while looking at a book of aerial photos of Bombay, that one could be tricked to believe that, although India is a third world country, this huge city is somehow wealthy. Yes, parts of it are extremely wealthy, but take one turn off of a major highway and you are in the middle of a completely different world. In fact the minute you stop, a 7 year old girl, barefoot and gaunt, holding her naked, bone-thin 2 year old brother on her hip, will ask you for money or food. In fact this happens so often, that to give to each and every one of these needy children and adults on a daily basis would take ones monthly time and budget. So to those that say, “Why not just send the money you raised to the people?” I say, “It wouldn’t be enough.” and “Then what?” With the money that was donated to this cause and expedition we were able to reach nearly two thousand children and adults in Bombay. And those that went on to the Andaman Islands reached even more. What we gave them at each center in Bombay was a performance and group play for a short period of time, but our success is the joy that will stay with these children and adults for much, much longer.

I spoke of the skyscrapers that make up one view of Bombay. Bombay is growing rapidly and more of these high-rises are being built everyday. Migrant workers come from villages in neighboring states and bring their whole lives and families to make a living working on these construction sites. They make their “shanty” homes in the slums of the city out of scraps of metal, wood, tarps and anything else that can be found. Mobile Creches, the organization that we mainly worked with, provides the children of these workers with daycare, education and community. If it were not for these centers one, two, three year olds would be on their own for more than 12 hours of the day. Ultimately children around the ages of nine and ten become surrogate mothers and fathers to these children, taking on the stresses of an adult at an age that most of us hadn’t a care in the world and our main stress was which toy to buy, or what snack to eat after school.

These centers that we performed at are run by the most amazing women who do everything they can to make sure these children get an education so that they can have a better life than their parents have had to. One could think that to do this work is to go in and give respite to people who have horrible lives. While that is part of it I suppose, I have a different view of it now. I feel now that what we did was to go in and support, applaud what is being done. Somehow saying, you are on the right track, there is hope, don’t ever stop learning and striving for more, but never forget to relish what it is these places provide for you - community. To be a part of these mini communities for even a short period has left me with a feeling of great admiration and joy. I have never met more kind hearted, giving and generous people. With every handshake, laugh or smile I found it hard to believe that a people this happy could live in such poverty. I cannot feel sorry for them because somehow they have much more than me, joy that comes from them and not from the comfort that surrounds them. Maybe we saw the best of them, and I can’t even begin to imagine how many hardships even the youngest of them has experienced. I hate to sound as if I can only reflect on what I have taken for myself through this experience, but the effect it had me is still so strong even months later that

I yearn to be back so that I can give even the littlest bit of this joy back to the children in India, especially the other millions of slum kids, in Bombay-just Bombay, that we weren’t able to meet and perform for. I thank all who gave to this project, but I also thank you on behalf of all of the truly beautifulpeople we met who I know, if given the chance, would shake your hand for a very long time, and smile at you with true joy.

 
Stephanie
Sitting here in my apartment, on my quiet street in Kansas City, it’s hard to believe that just over a week ago I was in Mumbai, walking down Gulsh’s family’s lane, past the boys playing cricket in the street, beaming as they greeted us: “Hello-How are you-where are you from? Oh—very nice, do you have chocolate?? Okay tomorrow then!” Past the rows of motorized rickshaws and taxis, the open markets, the nariyal (coconut) stands, the corrugated tin dwellings, the temples, the occasional cow, or group of goats, or hand cart…

 
Our last shows on the Andaman Islands were as diverse as the first ones. In a show for 800 kids we felt like rock stars! Every time we went near a part of the crowd they would scream and reach out for us. During the toilet paper lazzi the roll got into the hands of one of the boys—he threw it into the air and it got caught in the fan (a happy accident!)—a string of festive pink paper went round and round and the crowd, children and adults alike, went crazy! The show that night was for an orphanage of girls and boys. Our stage was in an outside courtyard, beautiful and lush with plants, on a floor of pressed dung. These children were very shy, but sweet and polite. Throughout the show we had a fourth player—their dog, who kept barking in response to our antics. We barked back!

 
We played for a rehabilitation center for mentally and physically challenged children and young adults. One of our hosts told us that when they lost their old shelter, the head of the school moved it to her own home. After our performance they served us tea and we watched them perform for us! They sang and read poetry, told jokes, and did a hilarious comic sketch—the banana peel gag really is universal!

 
We traveled on a ferry to a complex of temporary shelters for Tsunami victims called Bamboo Flats. This was the group that was, as Helga put it, the most “hardened” by what had happened to them. They lived in rows of neat, tin shelters–no windows, no ventilation. It was a diverse group; some had come from the Nicobar Islands, some from Thailand. Some were very shy—our host told us that some had probably never seen a Caucasian—others boldly approached us (“Hello-what-is-your-name!?”) and squeezed our hands. There was a chart on the wall that broke down the community’s population: 242 families, 903 people. Pregnant women: 3, nursing mothers: 4, Widows: 28…

 
Overall, in this second leg of “Project Muskarahat” Helga, Gulsh and I played 10 shows for over 3500 people. The experience was full of color, laughter, music, screams, ocean waves and speeding cars, some sickness, some sadness, and much, much joy.

 
Thank you to all who supported us on this journey. Namaste,

Cecelia
I was one of the five that arrived for the first leg of this expedition and was astonished on a daily basis by so much of what I saw, heard, felt. People I spoke to here in the states who had there told me that there was no way to really prepare for what I was to experience. I spoke to a man from India who told me I should imagine that I was getting on a spaceship and would be landing on another planet.

 
Bombay is astounding- dense, and extreme in its life and death-ness- such vibrant and beautiful people in such incredibly desperate circumstances. Families with children living in little more than shacks without adequate plumbing or water, poverty beyond what I could have conceived. But what really struck me was that in the face of this, and without exception, the children we had the privilege to play for were bright and lovely and affectionate.

 
In the spirit of the first update that we wrote as a group- together, letting it fall out of us- I will try to capture in a few words some of the impressions that have stayed with me most strongly:

• Impromptu slapstick routine exploding from playing with kids after the show- everyone laughing and laughing- the kids at how silly we were and us at sheer surprise. Following THEIR lead is what made us funny.
• Groups of boys at the state school for destitute children so enthusiastically taking on the making of their “found object” musical instruments- creating drums and shakers beautifully decorated with flowers and leaves that they showed off to us and played with pride and HUGE smiles.
• A group of adolescent girls at the same school, introducing themselves and each other –in English. One girl pointed to another and confided to me—“she’s my best friend”. One shared an original song about her absent mother. Our unscheduled visit with them lasted for nearly and hour.
• Having to really work toward gaining the trust of a suspicious adolescent boy (and subsequently, a few if his mates!) with a magic trick—until he was swept away with the fun of trying to teach his friends how to do it.
• ALWAYS a group of adults, usually men, craning their necks to try to get a view of the show through the windows and doors of the schoolrooms
• By the end of two weeks of doing shows, the schoolrooms became an oasis to me. We would arrive sometimes after a two- hour or more drive in traffic and heat and chaos to find these peaceful, cool (by comparison) places where the children could just be children, if just for a little while.
• Heartfelt invitations to stay for lunch—to come back tomorrow—to stay and stay and stay.
• And again, hugs and handshakes and kisses blown and crowds wildly waving and shouting “Bye-bye!”

Malin
The work that CWB is doing around the world is amazing and being part of it makes me very happy. We work with feeling of sadness, anger, disappointment and frustration. However, the biggest feeling is one of happiness that we share all together in the same time and same place. Seeing the change in a child’s eye that a new hope has begun.

 
After all the trips that I have done with CWB I have never experienced two different worlds in the same place as I did in Mumbai. The rich and the poor are neighbors. However, I saw the same kind of laughter and love
that we all share as people. Children all over this planet have the same needs. To laugh, run, play and just to be children.

 
Thank you for all of your support. It means a lot to us and the people we meet. You give us the opportunity to share laughter and joy.

Helga
… The small street we drive up to is too crowded and small for the car to drive through. We decide to walk down to the small room where the children are waiting for the weird white clowns who are coming to perform for them. I throw my accordion on my back and we walk out into the maze of people and small alleys. As we get closer a procession has started to take form, a woman asks if we are selling our props, people are pushing to get closer to see who these weird looking people are and where they are going. We get to a small room, (at this point I really have to pee and when I borrow the restroom I have a problem… there is nothing there, just the floor? After trying to place m,yself in odd positions to try to hit the grating, and contemplating to use the bucket that is also there, I somehow just end up sitting peeing in the middle of the floor) When I come out from my little adventure the small room have completely filled with people from the street outside, at some point they have to close the door and lock it because there is no more room. The knocking on the door from outside creates the soundscape for our persormance. After the show is over I am caught in the stream of people running out o9f the door. Suddenly I am alone in the midst of chaos with hundred hands pressing me up against the wall trying to make a sound out of the accordion on my chest. It is crazy it is a delight! I am really there in the midst of all these people, I really see them and feel them. As we walk back to the car an even bigger procesion follows us back, Gulsh create a call response choir with the people, and right there in that moment we are there 100 % for these people, with these people…