Clowns Without Borders - USA

October-December

Volunteer: Anna Zastrow

Notes from Anna’ blog:

I’m at the end of my journey. How did I get here so fast?! Isn’t that how it always goes. December 27 I take the bus from Sihanoukville to Koh Kong border to continue on to Bangkok, where a flight awaits me to take me home. Three months is a long time (two in Cambodia), and yet it was just enough to start to sink your teeth in… I would love to return to work with the children again, especially where I only visited a day or two, for a sense of continuity and deeper exchange. I also discovered additional places (such as ‘Homeland’ taking in orphaned and abandoned children off the street) where the children had never had any creative visit or outlet and very much were in need of opportunities for joy and laughter. Alas, a visit there was not possible this time around. So I have to come back! We’ll see what the future holds.

In meantime, this particular venture is complete. It has been a fantastic journey. Although, I must say, it is difficult to qualify the experience in words. But I have tried to give you a good description below of what I was up to these three months, and I hope you enjoyed looking it over! The children and adolescents with whom I clowned and the directors of the places where I went all expressed how excited and grateful they were to have me visit, and I would like to extend their sentiment through me to all of you who helped make this venture possible. Thank you all for your great support and contribution!!! Aw-koun jee-ran!

December 22 - 27
My last stop on my clown journey through Cambodia is Sihanoukville on the south-west coast. This is fast becoming a popular beach resort with foreigners, but I am not here to lie on the beach and frolic in the water. I’m here to work with the kids of M’lop Tapang.

M’lop Tapang
is an organization helping street children with shelter, education and a future. There are tons of street children in Sihanoukville; you see them roaming the beach selling trinkets to tourists, begging for money or picking garbage. MT addresses itself to three kinds of street children: street-living children - who have been abandoned by their families, or have run away from home and are living alone on the streets; children from street-living families, i.e. children who live on the streets with their families; and street-working children, children who spend most of their time on the streets fending for themselves, but do return home on a regular basis. Many children are sent out by their parents to work all day or night to help the family survive. MT works with these families to counsel and convince them that the children are better off in school and to find ways for the parents to earn a better living.

M’lop Tapang operates a main day center where education and recreational activities are offered together with regular meals, medical care and counseling. There is also an outreach team with small centers in the midst of the slums where those children who can’t come to the main center still have close access to schooling and recreation for a few hours a day. MT provides vocational training for the adolescents and also houses many girls and boys who are not able to stay with their families or have none to return to.

Tapang is a certain kind of tree also called ‘umbrella tree’ because of the extended branches. M’lop means shade or protection in Khmer. Everything got started with a bunch of street kids who were living under an umbrella tree on the beach and has since expanded to a large organization helping over a thousand children.

Clowning around
I play with the children aged around 4-12 at the annex center, which is being built to accommodate more creative arts activities. In the morning I have one group of around 30 and another one in the afternoon. The kids are really engaged and very creative, the boys a little more so than the girls who are more shy… I can tell which kids have already had a chance to express themselves, in creative play that has been offered before — who are “warmed up” so to speak and jump into the games more readily — and who are new to this and new to the center, and therefore more on guard.

We do workshops with creative movement and clown play, goofing around with our bodies and faces, making funny dances, and playing with exaggerating reactions like surprise! discovery! wow! how great! excitement and joy! ha ha ha! whoopee! woohoo! yey! or anger, arrrr! or upset, boohoo!, back and forth. Playing with rhythm and range. Warming up body, face and spirit! Together in a circle or in small groups. We work on being connected, having eye contact and responding off each other. The kids work together to each add interesting movements into a choreography. I am impressed with the kids’ creative engagement — I have them do an entrance and greet the ‘audience’ as three clown characters, with a funny walk, and do a little dance and then exit. And they’re hamming it up! Funny stuff. We practice some juggling and stiltwalking too.

The Slums of Sihanoukville

I also visited the children living in the slums and we had great fun as well.
See for yourself!

Entering MT’s center in the slums

The school house in the slums, and inside the classroom


Passing out clown noses