In September, 2017, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck the Mexican state of Puebla. Over 200 people were killed, and buildings were reduced to rubble throughout Puebla and Mexico City. This was the strongest earthquake to hit the country since 1985. A smaller, but still deadly, earthquake had struck southern Mexico only weeks earlier.
CWB – USA has a longstanding relationship with the people of Mexico, especially in the southern Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas. After the 2017 earthquake, CWB – USA founder Moshe Cohen traveled to Mexico City as part of the Brigades de Risa, an informal collaboration with 5th Encuentro Internacional de Clow, and a group of Mexican performers.
Aline Moreno is the co-founder of Palhaços Sem Fronteiras and has participated in many Clowns Without Borders tours. In this blog post, she reflects on what it means to be together, after intensely shared experiences, even when you become physically separated.
Aline Moreno
Back home.
I feel overflowing joy. Every time I finish a project it feels like I’ve spent at least a year, instead of a couple of weeks. There are so many emotions, reflections, inter-personal exchanges and things to learn. Life is made up of arrivals and goodbyes, and though it was hard to say goodbye to Mexico, part of me will stay there to live on.
I’ll continue to experience these great encounters with generous people, who offer pure love.
Life continues, and I ask the universe to help me find similarly transcendental people, like the ones I met in Mexico. I remember one slogan: “We are alive, we are many, and we are together.” That togetherness is an ideal, independent of where we’re geographically located. It doesn’t matter if we’re in Mexico and Brazil. We’re still together.
I wish that everything I’ve experienced can stay organized within me, to help keep my heart quiet. It was a lot. There were many stories and a new world of knowledge. As I reflect on the adversities we all face, I think about how I can make them a problem, or I can acknowledge my lack of control over the situation. I breathe and feel my heart quiet. I conclude that our tour doesn’t want to end—the energy of the project was so magical that we’re still following it.
