Njabulo Project 2005-2006

Journals from September/October are in the lower depths of this page...
participants: Jamie, Tim, Selena and Esther

Second phase-November
participants: Jamie, Esther, Selena and Perry

Third Phase-January
participants: Jonathan, Sarah,Paddy and Bryan

Journal and E-mail entries are in reverse chronological order, as befits a clowned webpage...
and a few photos are interspersed

Jonathan's Journal received Jan 26th

Our second week in South Africa came at a time when we were very hungry to perform and thirsty to play. At the Amazing grace Children's home just outside of Johannesburg all these feelings were fed and ignited. On arrival sunday night, I recognised several children from a previous CWB trip to the Mpumbalanga branch of Amazing Grace. These children all greeted me with their complicated handshakes that I as a man from the west of Ireland did my best to replicate.

The home is located on the grounds of an old stables and so has plentyful green fields that surround the multicoloured L-shaped coradoor of rooms. It is run by Mama Grace Mashaba who kept mostly to herself in the big house. The children are all very well behaved in general but when she speaks you could hear a mosquito biting Paddy. The following morning we performed our show in the kitchen area so as to avoid the rain that poured all week. My familiarity with some of the children allowed me to push audience interaction that much further....We enjoyed their cries of "Woah!" everytime we performed some magic...and most importantly we gave the children a good idea of what they were to learn from us throughout the rest of the week.

Our first series of workshops that afternoon went off to a flyer. We split them all into groups starting with simple games and call and response with the 2 to 6 year olds. The success of that spurred us onto leading a stilt workshop with the 7 to 11 year olds untill finally we did what Bryan would call "Rocking out a Juggeling class" ith the 12 to 18 year olds. We all went to bed with the happy knowledge of a first good day behind us.

Though our teaching and performance work throughout the week was a great success, the most beautiful aspect of our time at Amazing Grace was our informal day to day interaction with the children and staff. Paddy was like some sort of healer for crying children. They would lay in his arms and become calm and contented despite having roared 5 minutes previous. Bryan would wander in the evenings doing what he termed guerilla magic, while Sarah tutored resilient stilt walkers into the late evening, and I would confuse the boys with my crazy irish leprechaun limbed football skills. It was a beautiful experience that has left the other three with swollen hearts and braided hair and me with deep inspiration and a cutlely tanned baldness.

Sarah Liane Forster's E-mail-received January 26th

From Amazing Grace we drove 6 hours to Makaphutu Children's Village, which is in the region KwaZulu-Natal, half an hour from Durban, in the "Valley of 1,000 Hills". The woman who runs it is an energetic, effusive white South African, who also works during the weekdays repairing diesel trucks. "As soon as you arrive you will be absolutely swarmed with children," she warned us on the phone. And so it was: we drove up and a bunch of kids crowded around the truck, very enthusiastic. I sang them a song, and they followed us for the rest of the evening: "sing the banana song! sing the banana song!"

Makaphutu is a cluster of pink cottages at the top of one of the 1,000 hills, with up to 10 children living in each cottage with one house mother who cooks and cleans. Although there is a higher ratio of adults to kids, the kids seem to be a little wilder here than at Amazing Grace. I never knew when there might be a child suddenly jumping on my back, or bursting into our room early in the morning to ask if we had a bucket. They were mad to try what we had to offer. "Do magic!" "Sing a song!" "When's the show?" And then, after we'd done the show: "those sticks you were walking on - I want to try them!" As soon as we started pulling the stilts out of the back of the truck, the whole orphanage was out on the walkway, taking turns. We went up and down, spotting the beginners, challenging others to try backwards and sideways. Those who got it explained to others in Zulu. Acro balancing and juggling were also great successes, as were certain group games, especially duck duck goose. Everyone LOVED duck duck goose.

Neither the Irish nor the South Africans had played it before, but it turned out to be a game that could entertain a huge multi-age circle for ages: massive chases, laughter, listening, suspense - elements of a good clown show. In the mornings we also traveled to local schools to perform our show. That Friday was the craziest: 3 shows in the morning, followed by workshops in the afternoon to get ready for the kids' performance at Makaphutu on Saturday. We left at 6:30am to drop a couple of kids at school on our way - Bryan had been driving kids to school each morning to save everyone a little sleep - Makaphutu only had one van and the kids were driven in shifts starting very early. Our first venue of the day was a brown, crooked structure with a dirt parking lot - a high school of 700 students. As we were setting up to perform at their 7:45am assembly, a school administrator came in very agitated: she hadn't known about this performance - the kids have to get to class - we can only perform for 10 minutes.

As we huddle to decide which 10 minutes to do a man runs in: "it's time!" We dash out with our instruments and the show begins. We are flustered and wild and it's the best 10 minutes we've ever played. The crowd laughs and roars through the opening, Jonathan's tennis bit, and the water routine. We end with a song in Zulu and run off, playing our instruments. Jonathan, last in line, has had his hat on the whole show. Right as he is leaving the stage he takes his hat off, revealing his bald head. "Impandla!" he says ("I'm bald!"). The crowd goes absolutely wild, and the show is over. We run off to do another, and then another. Good.

Back at Makaphutu it's nearly showtime... Saturday morning we set up chairs, don costumes, do last-minute rehearsing, hand out clown noses and noise makers, and parade around gathering everyone for the show. We play some music and do a little improv clowning as everyone settles. Then some older girls to a clown routine they've been working on. A bunch of older boys get up to do juggling and clapping routines - in just a few days some of them have really learned to juggle, AND to handle it gracefully on stage when they drop a ball! Some others come up to do acro balances. 10 kids on stilts have a special entrance, and parade in, chanting in rhythm with their steps. A clown routine featuring Jonathan and Mfanfikile. Another clown routine featuring younger girls doing slapstick as they fight over a chair. The show ends with everyone singing a call and response song.

Denise, the manager here, congratulates us on the show. She was very impressed at all the kids we've connected with, feels we've made a big difference here. We feel it too, especially when, hours later, as it's getting dark out and most kids are in watching tv, we find two boys on stilts outside. One is still wearing his clown nose from the morning, and juggling as he walks. Inside the cottage we're staying in, the girls crowd around us and start acting out our show from early in the week, remembering little details and facial expressions. They act out playing a trombone with a Barbie doll, pumping the arms and legs like a slide. Then we dance with them, Jonathan chases them, I toss them up to do acro balances on my feet, legs and shoulders. It's our last night together and we keep playing until late because it's hard to say goodbye.

Sarah Liane Forster's E-mail Jan7th

A big hello from Jo'burg! Hooray for us! We are now the tired-bodied veterans of our first clowning and workshopping in South Africa. Sarah met three glorious Irish clowns at Johannesburg International Airport about 4 days ago - there's Jonathan, who has been here before, and his brother Paddy, and Bryan - and we have had a jam-packed time (with real fruit) throwing a clown show together and building a mountain of stilts to use when we teach workshops.

Today we ventured out into Soweto to perform together for the first time. Jamie and crew from the fall expedition left us a marvelous trunk filled with clown noses and useful and funny things. This we proceeded to pack with more funny things, and loaded into the lovely truck also left for us by the last crew. (The Toyota people who donated the truck painted Clowns Without Borders logos and slogans all over it, and people do turn their heads when we're stopped at intersections!) So there we were, and at 8am we headed out to the Entokozweni Early Learning HIV/Aids Center in Moletsane. Smiling Selpy was our contact for today - he met us at a petrol station just outside of Soweto and guided us to the center. Soweto was where all the African blacks in the Jo'burg area were relocated to during apartheid.

"Soweto" stands for South Western Township, but has been generally appropriated as an African word. As soon as we drove into Soweto things looked noticeably poorer - run-down buildings, footworn roadside paths, people walking and piled into taxi vans instead of driving private cars. Another big difference was that we were the only white people we saw the entire time we were there. At Entokozweni, Joseph, aka the Professor, gave us a tour of the colourful but slightly run-down facilities. They started this daytime center 5 years ago for children whose parents don't have the resources to care for them or feed them or have died of HIV/AIDS.

Our playing space was a dilapidated gym with a large hole in the floor that Sarah tested out by accidentally putting her foot through. The kids - aged about 2-13 - looked at us curiously and set up seats while we got into costume and set props. We greeted them in Zulu and made faces at them as we passed, and they smiled and made faces back. Sarah and Jonathan led a quick audience warm-up while we waited for the children to assemble - all eagerly copied our pantomime movements in unison, and then the show began with a brass music parade and hat dance. From there we blew soap bubbles, and ate them, and swatted at them with a fly swatter. Other hilights included an Irish stilt dance, a chase scene that involved carrying kids around and swapping people's hats, an uproarious water routine, and a song in Zulu at the finale.

After a short break, our audience returned and we formed a circle to begin the workshop. There was quite a language barrier, as very few of the kids spoke English - most spoke Zulu (we know little) or Sutu (we know none). At the same time, the adults there thought wanted them to use the English they have been studying in school, and were reluctant to translate. Despite this we did have a grand time - we had warm-ups, played a game, and split into groups to learn juggling (balls made by Garth, the amazing man with whom we're staying who is the biggest? the only? manufacturer of juggling balls in Africa) and stilt walking (stilts made by us!). The kids loved trying out the stilts and learning ball tosses. When the workshop was over they sang us a thank you song that they had learned with the Professor.

All in all, it has been a fabulous first day out. We got great feedback from the adults at the Entokozweni Center, and are excited to be on the move. Wishing you much love and excitement in this new year, Sarah

Selena McMahan's E-mail Dec. 10th

so, London. is cold. damn cold.

The first day here the cold got to my bones and chilled me and I...
couldn't shake it. I mean it's only between 30 and 40 degrees, but it
was shocking. And damp. I have been downing garlic echinacea pills and
emergenC to keep the strange teetering shaky feeling in my body from
turning into full on sickness - fighting the war against this bitter
cold each day.

The people here are cold too. the second of the three biggest shocks
after Southern Africa - nobody says hello or how are you or smiles or
touches me, they just stare. That kind of staring, which is fine to a
certain extent in New York as well, just seems so intense and
inappropriate to me now. To have someone checking me out with no
obligation to actually make contact with me, it just feels very rude.
The third shock is the amount of useless information that I have
gathered after just two days here - signs and articles and talking and
re-talking about the same thing and styles and faces and colors and
foods. It is unfathomable the sheer quantity of it.
2 days in a new place feels like a century.

When my flight stopped over at the airport in Dubai, it was the first
time in four months that I sat at a table, ordered something to drink,
and watched all the people walking past me. No one noticed that I was
white and I didn't notice that I was white. I was normal and anonymous
and it felt so different and strange suddenly to be totally anonymous.
but it feels normal to me too. 24hr internet access. fancier food.
riding a subway. city life. fast smart intellectual conversations
about this and that. lots of criticism. and having an old friend to
eat meals with. It is, in fact, normal.

In Lesotho we worked with 9 different organizations in 15 days – at
each place for 1-3 days – we only had one real day off. Our pace was
never normal; everyday was really different and always exhausting in a
new way.
We stayed in lots of different kinds of places – at children's
centers, with host families, at a center for adult women, at a lodge,
at a hotel. Lesotho proved to be overall much much poorer than South
Africa – we stayed in a number of places without electricity and/or
running water and we ate a lot more carbohydrates – pap (cornmeal),
rice, beans, bread, potatoes.
The pace was really hard. hard physically. hard emotionally. Hard
starting to comprehend the extent of the HIV/AIDS crisis – that it has
affected everybody and because it is so normal now, most people are
passive about it – won't get tested and don't use condoms. Hard
hearing about so much sexual violence against young children. And hard
seeing so much poverty. But in this kind of work it was also hard for
us to say no. For all four of us clowns to say, "no, we're too tired
we can't do that performance." Very very hard…

KANANELO CENTER FOR THE DEAF
The third place that we visited in Lesotho was the Kananelo Center for
the Deaf.
Run by Sisters from the convent, it is incredibly poor, surviving on
donations that come in the shape of a grant for a building, or
electrical wiring (but there is no generator to supply any
electricity), t-shirts for the kids, staple foods, but rarely money.
The kids greet us immediately with warm smiles and lots of attention.
Each one wants our gaze, tapping us on the arm, grunting, waving their
hands, showing us their names in sign language, finding out where we
are from, writing the names of places in the dirt with our fingers.
We have a meeting with the sisters and David one of the kids' teachers
and our primary contact. Immediately the first question is "why are
you only here for two days?"
We have to explain that it's an exploratory mission. - Hopefully there
will be a next time. - Hopefully we will be here longer next time.
We have dinner – salty eggs on a big plate of rice – and a visit to
meet the local chief – a woman in charge while her husband is in South
Africa working in the mines. She gives us Sesotho names and serves us
sorghum drink (a big bowl of a kind of really liquidy porridge).
Esther is Lerato (love), Perry is Palesa (flower), Jamie is Thaban
(joy), and I am Mapuso (mother of independence).
(And I was sitting there very quietly and politely. really.)
The next day we perform for the kids in the morning. Go to do some
lunch time errands in town, come back to teach our workshop and
discover that they have a canoeing trip across the road that the
teachers had forgotten about. We are all of us tired and frustrated
about not being able to do the workshop and not getting to spend more
time with the kids. Perry and Jamie have to go back into town for
laundry.
When the kids get back, Esther and I teach a bunch of them the
softshoe dance from our clown show. Somehow it turns into a big dance
party. Everyone is dancing in silent rhythm. A long line of couples
weaving through the yard. David the teacher, a young volunteer staying
at the convent, and the down-syndrome kids who also live at the
center, want music. We get the music blasting. It is so unbelievably
beautiful and joyful.
This center suddenly strikes me as the most beautiful place I have
visited ever. So poor, the children utterly rejected by society, by
their families, by fate, and yet here such a supportive environment.
Everyone just dancing and bouncing and moving, huge smiles, a few kids
from town pass by with their donkeys trailing behind them. They stop
and watch. No one is bothered that they are being watched in all their
revelry. The town kids creep closer but there is a huge divide between
the center and the town and they don't join.
Perry and Jamie drive back from town to find a huge party waiting for
them. They join in dancing immediately. Perry realizes suddenly after
10 minutes that the kids can't hear the music; she had forgotten
completely. It is hard to tell because all of the kids are clued into
each other's rhythm. When the music stops and the party finally winds
down, one of the younger boys wants to keep dancing with me. He
doesn't know that the music is stopped. He probably doesn't know what
music is really. We dance in rhythm together. Smiling, doing different
moves. I don't think I've ever done this before. Danced just bouncing
rhythm silly dance in silence with another person. Not modern dance,
not ballroom dancing. Just dancing with someone, but in silence.
After dinner Jamie shows the kids Charlie Chapin films on his laptop.
35 people gathered around one screen. The kids love it. The group
erupting in laughter every once in a while. They all make sound.
Little grunts. Or sounds when they are trying to get your attention.
The down syndrome kids speak occasionally, mostly saying our names.
It's all a weird mixture of little sounds, SeSotho, English. The only
time the whole group makes a sound that feels totally normal is when
they laugh. Their laughs are normal laughs. It's beyond their control.
The kids so smart. Each one of them so memorable. In our workshops the
next day they are great. Thrilled by the pantomine. So good at it. We
have translators that help us say what we want in sign language. The
kids are really good in English. And they are so keen to teach us sign
language.
Still now, in London I can remember almost all of their faces.
After lunch it is time for us to leave, they want to perform for us
first so we stay around longer. Watch them do traditional dances in
silence, in sync with each other. Some times some drumming or a joyful
holler from one of the Sisters or the woman who does the cooking or
one of us.
I notice every sound.
They shake the bottle cap skirts, faces so blank, so pure and serious.
After many dances, we take some group photos. Esther, Perry and I go
around shaking hands with all the kids. It is the most
complete-feeling visit and goodbye I've had. We are heartbroken as we
drive away wondering what it will be like that afternoon after we are
gone. Imagining that emotional drop I've felt after a play I worked on
is over, at the end of the school year. It feels like that. The drop
after the emotional high of having us visiting. Knowing that whether
we see them again or not, they will all remain so vivid in our
memories, each of us thinking of what we can do to try and find
schools for the deaf for them in South Africa or even America. The
postcards we want to send to the kids. But it is beautiful waving good
by to them. Feeling like I made such an impact on all of them.

LCCU HOMESTAY
A few days later we visit the Lesotho Child Counseling Unit run by an
amazing woman named Lydia – the center counsels, houses, and finds
permanent living situations for sexually abused children. We arrive
at night. It's thanksgiving. Jamie makes a pasta. We eat in the dark.
We are exhausted, wiped. The children are quiet and shy. After dinner
we drive to our host familes. They don't tell us anything at night
when we wake up our already sleeping familes at each door. But the
next morning they explain that they chose to place us with some of the
poorest families on purpose so that we would have the experience.
The family I stay with headed by a 37 year old mother. We sit on the
little couch in the kitchen and in the candlelight she shows me photos
of her husband and his funeral, herself and her children when they
were young. I don't have my photos from home with me so I show her
some photos of Jamie and Esther and some photos of John my honey from
Cape Town.
She speaks hardly any English so all we can say to each other are
basic things. She says "you are my friend" a lot. Both in English and
in SeSotho. I sleep on the floor in the bedroom. She sleeps in the
bed. Her son sleeps in the floor in the kitchen. That's all there is
to the house. Her daughter sleeps at the neighbors.
I pee in a bucket in front of her at night.
Show her how I have to take out my contact lenses and can't see without them.
She baths in front of me in the morning.

LESOTHO SAVE THE CHILDREN
At Lesotho Save the Children which we visit right before we leave,
there are about fifteen 2-5 year olds who smother every visitor with
hugs. The second we arrive they surround us. It is a great to just
play with them. no structured workshop or anything. But we have dinner
with them. Play with them while they are getting ready to go to sleep.
Sometimes three kids on our laps at a time. The two british volunteers
tell us that the kids aren't as adoring to the people that stay
longer. It is because they are afraid of being left by people and want
to get love before they are left again.
We do a beautiful intimate performance for the kids the next morning.
My last in Southern Africa.
Before we leave I play with the three year old boy I found especially
adorable from the get go. When I say goodbye he says "no" "no." I have
to go. "no." so normal for a fussy American 2 or 3 year old. But so
striking and sad in Lesotho. I flip him upside down one more time and
he joins his friends and is fine. As we pull away the older kids and
the grownups pretend to sob, crying the way that we cry in our show,
and laughing at the same time too.

We drive back to Johannesburg. Back to Jamie's grandfather's house –
with bars on all the windows and double locks on all the doors. Go see
a late night show of Harry Potter. Spend the next day doing an
expedition reflection, errands, and our closing ceremony the clown
eulogy. Then, the next morning Jamie, Perry, and Esther drop me off at
the airport. Suddenly I'm struck by how much they feel like a family
to me. We eat ice cream bars, take some photos, say our goodbyes, and
wave big grins as I walk towards the security gate. It feels like I'm
just leaving my family for a bit to go on a trip to London and I'll be
back in Johannesburg in a few weeks. It feels like I'm leaving home
and South Africa is my home now.

Jamie's Journal
Kananelo Centre for the Deaf-Lesotho – November 22nd, 2005

I am crying and smiling at the same time inside as I watch the others play with the children here at the Kananelo Centre in Ha Buasolo, about 25 kilometers north of Maseru. They throw balls, learn dance steps, shake hands, and teach a new language of communication.  A solar powered radio blares music pounding to the beat of African jive.  We dance together in celebration.  Of what?  Of being together and enjoying community.  The sisters watch over the action with the patience and austerity of nuns, surprising us now and then by participating in the frivolity of play.  In many ways, our time here is a miracle for these children are deaf – dancing to the rhythm of movement and vibrations of the bass. 
 
 
Later, I lie awake listening to the late night thunderstorm in a small room shared by an empty bed next to me.  On one side the ladies room, the other, the children.  Bright eyes and smiles.  Silent hellos.  Silent goodbyes.  There is no electricity, no water, no phone, little nutrition, a shortage of supplies for school but there is plenty of community, cooperation, friendship, awareness, and happiness. The children – a group of 24 ages 6 to 17 – are so creative, helpful, imaginative and open to new experiences.  And so poor.  Supported by unknown generosity and a nearby mission, taken care of by two sisters, two caregivers, a volunteer high school girl, and two teachers including David, our contact, they are in the hands of loving care amidst such hardship. 
 
We arrive with no expectation and even less directions.  “Just drive south from Teya and ask people after 20 kilometers.”  First I ask some prostitutes and receive embarrassing propositions.  Then some older women direct us to the road that passes the mission.  How will the children receive us?  How will we receive them?  We meet Sister Callixtina who insists on a meeting amongst the teachers and our team.  We sit in a circle in one of the three classrooms on school desks and discuss the plan of action.  Tomorrow, a performance and maybe a workshop but don’t count on it with the variance of making plans here in Southern Africa.  You can’t really count on anything to happen as planned.  Instead we must try to be open to whatever arises – leaving later than expected, starting later, canceling a show, scheduling a workshop, forgetting about everything to meet the local chief and drink unfermented sorghum beer with her while she gives us names: Lerato (Ester/Love), Mopuso (Selena/Mother of Independence), Palesa (Perry/Flower), Thuma (Jamie/Leader). 
 
At night we treat the children to a viewing of Charlie Chaplin short films.  The screen is small but they watch riveted and enjoy the routines – especially the chase scenes.  The next day, a couple girls reenact Chaplin’s walk and antics laughing.  Perhaps they will create their own silent routines!
 
What future lies ahead for these children? I often ask myself this question on this mission but find it echoing in my mind more frequently here.  There is a young teenager, Aba, with so much talent as a mime, clown, dancer, comedian – could there be a potential for him to break out of the confines of the expected and be the brilliance he is?  Or will he also be steered into manual labor and factory work?  Or left to fend for himself when he is too old to stay at the centre? 
 
Goodbye is difficult.  We must leave at noon, no one o’clock, okay, when the time is right.  After lunch, with the bakkie loaded and ready for the next unknown adventure, the children insist on dancing one more time with and for us.  They run to the convent to fetch traditional outfits – the fringed bottle cap skirts of the Basotho tradition.  First the younger children perform a courtship dance with a boy placing stones near the girls’ heads.  They move to the beat of a drum they cannot hear, in tune to the rhythms of sight and touch.  Then, four older teenagers dance the traditional Basotho bottle cap fringed skirt dance.  The pulsing hips create a rise and fall of motion to the sound of the bottle caps hitting together – it is almost as if the waves of the ocean are hitting a pebble beach.  Finally, the children perform the entire soft shoe dance from our show.  I laugh at their ingenuity and am amazed by their precision.  Sadly, it is time to leave.  One last picture.  Another.  And one more!  Aba and I exchange hats and pose Laurel and Hardy style.  Esther, Selena, and Perry thank each and every child while I watch with tears in my eyes.  At last, the inevitable has arrived – our departure.  I look in the back seat at the rest of the team.  Perry is biting her lip as tears trickle down her cheek.  Esther silently looks outside at the countryside.  Selena, ahead at the road.  We have all been extremely moved by our time here at Kananelo Centre for the Deaf.  We hope for a return someday.  We pray for the safety and wellbeing of the children who have blessed us with their silent laughter. 
 
May all beings be happy.  May all beings be full of laughter and joy.  May all beings see the blessings of what we have in our lives.
 

Selena McMahan's E-mail Nov 15th

 I just came back fron a two and a half hour walk to a 200 m high waterfall. This after 2 stunning morning shows (still working with Clowns Without Borders). I'm in Lesotho with is unlike anywhere I've ever been before. So rural. so gorgeous. The people here living a simpler life and seeming content in a way that I hadn't yet encountered in Southern Africa. Lesotho is mountainous highlands. chilly. lush. green. spiralling aloe plants and sometimes wild calla lilies. it's main resource water. it's a country right in the middle of South Africa but has stayed independent because of it's mountainous natural borders.
     People here wear beautiful printed wool blankets with patterns of big spades and flowers and even airplanes draped around their shoulders.(okay, maybe in America they would look garish) Or just plain grey also (much less expensive). There are so many horses and donkeys and cows and sheep. and so many stunningly handsome men riding on horseback with their blankets draped around them, gumboots, a knit hat, and a lot of time earings.
 
    Our second show this morning was so lovely. We stayed at the school for a while afterwards and danced wit hthe kids. and then they did traditional dances for us. 10-12 yr old girls in their underwear with skirts made out of lots of little bottle caps and pompom string to bounce and ring when they dance. the girls seeming so confident. All againt the most stunning backdrop of slopping hills.
    These shows are our first where when we blew bubbles the kids shyed away from them like they hadn't seen people blow bubbles before. But they adored our show. and laughed so much. Appreciated it in a different kind of way than our south african audiences though I can't really describe the differences. On our walk today people asked for sweets (and just twice money) but also in a defferent kind of way - almost like they were teasing us - just trying their luck. Even when we came across the village chief on his horse and exchanged hellos, he asked us for sweets as an after thought.
    The race relations are understandably very different without the same history of apartheid as in s. africa. here we are clearly foreigners. In s. africa people often mistake us for white south africans.
 
    Before these last 2 days in Lesotho we spent 3 days performing in towns near the border and before that we had a week in the townships of Johannesburg. Totally different scene than here. The kids such city kids. much tougher. we had 2 unexpected audiences of 1300 kids which got rather out of hand. At the first one the teachers used sticks and belts to beat the kids back from swarming us. At the second show we tried pausing the show when there started to be too much pusshing but that turned out to be a disaster. It was hard for us, trying to figure out how to control crowds that size, dealing with the cultural differences of seeing the teachers just beating the kids to keep them back (but it not being our place to criticize it), and of course facing the duality of the situation - the kids having such a good time and wanting to see the show so badly that they started pushing and pushing eachother, and pushing till it got out of control and they were actually hurting each other.
    I had a striking realization driving through a poor area of Soweto (South West Townships) in Jo-burg and suddenly realizing how safe I felt there in our truck, dressed like clowns, and listening to Kwaito music. and remembering before I came to jo-burg, people warning me about the crime, not being able to walk around or go anywhere and the fear. and suddenly the contrast of feeling totally comfortable working in one of the dissadvantaged areas of one othe hightest crime rate cities in the world. (it is of course very different working as a clown than visiting as a tourist).
    I did have a hard time emotionally doing this work in the townships of Johannesburg and then at night staying at Jamie's grandfather's house in one of the wealthiest suburbs in Jo-burg. The difference between the two worlds everyday was so immensely huge. and we didn't have the opportunity to have the kind of contact with the community where we were working that we usually do. When so much of our work is just our being there.
 
   We have a new clown, Perry Daniel, a physical comedian from NYC, who replaced Time in our team. We've changed a lot of the ways we work as a team, and changed our show a lot. has been a really neat experience. (we're now three women and one man, and our show centers around the theme of trying to clean - brooms, feather duster, dustpan) We also got a double cab pickup donated but McCarthy Toyota. without which it would be almost impossible to get around Lesotho.
    We had many amazing shows in South Africa this half of the trip. too many to describe. we performed for 8,000 kids in our first I think 10 days. one show in a soccer stadium. lots for very young kids. one primary school where we did a Q and A afterwards and the kids asked us such strikingly eloquent questions about our work.one in a really poor squatter camp all the way outside of the city where tons of the adults came to the daycare place to watch the show and had more fun than the kids.
 
     But it has been amazing to get out of the city and have a more laid-back pace in Lesotho. Walking through the village and running into the kids from the schools where we performed. Seeing them imitating our show. One kid sitting with us for an hour watching the waterfall and teaching us some seSotho. When me, Perry, and Esther walked up the hill at night to look at the stars, the watchman from the lodge that was hosting us in the town, followed us to turn out the lights so we could see the stars better. then he sat by us, watching out for us and watching the moon rise with us, curled in his patterned blanket.
     If anything I want more of the village life. Makes me miss farming desparately and especially the feeling being off in the farm world cut off from all that is city life and communication and all that. Of course I'm idealizing it. but it is especially amazing being in a place where the boys that showed us around town didn't know how to put seatbelts on. and you see so many people just hanging, herding their animals. or sitting together. or whatever. there is more time. it feels so much deeper. makes me want to run off into the hills.
     But I also can't help feeling that the dissadvantaged ciks living on the edge of towns and cities are the ones who need our work most. the kids living in the hills of Lesotho, where people are subsistence farming and living in a more equalitarian society. yes they are poor. and the HIV/AIDS statistics are incredibly high. but I've seen so many more old men and women. people looking healthier. walking long distances over the hills everyday. everyone greeting us. and smiles so quick to light faces.It may be more thrilling and delightful for us to perform for them but they don't seem to need it as much as the kids where we were last week.
 

Perry's Journal

Hello Everyone!
 
Each day has been so packed it is difficult to know where to start. 
 
Somehow I made it through customs with my 900 clown noses.  My first week in Johannesburg was spent recovering from jet-lag, learning and then performing the show. What first struck me about Johannesburg were all of the walls.  Looking out from my plane window, I felt like I was looking down upon an enormous maze.  Walls were everywhere.  It seems that a house here is not complete without an enormous wall, barbed wire and/or an electrical fence.  In a city that is trying to push beyond its Apartheid past these walls serve as a reminder of all of the work there is left to do.
 
With the help of an organization called NOAH (Nurturing Orphans of Aids for Humanity) our CWB team was able to perform and teach throughout the city and nearby townships, primarily Soweto.  I was deeply moved by the members of each community who have worked so hard to create a safe and caring place for the children.  There was one grandmother I met who is both caring for her 10 month grandson and volunteering at the daycare center after having lost her own daughter to AIDS only six days earlier.  She is but one of hundreds of caregivers who continue to fight for their community with grace, courage and commitment.
 
So far, our group has performed for almost 8,000 children.  We perform 2 to 4 shows a day, usually at Primary schools.  The show is about 45 minutes long and is a mix of clowning, eccentric dance, magic and tumbling.  The most enjoyable moments are when the children are brought onstage to help us.  The other students love seeing their friends prance around with four strange clowns.  Oh, did I say stage?  I use that term loosely.  To date, we have played in school yards, cafeterias, churches, soccer stadiums, driveways, community centers, mountainsides and one Polo field.
 
Of the many highlights, picking up our newly donated truck from McCarthy Toyota was definitely one of them.  Yep, we now have a clown truck.  The dealership even detailed the sides and hood with our Clowns Without Borders logo.  We do get a few odd looks on the highway, mostly laughs.  This new truck has been extremely helpful as we travel the difficult terrain around informal settlements, squatter camps and the mountains of Lesotho.  
 
One of my favorite moments (and there are many.  I’ll tell you the rest over tea when I get back) was yesterday when I was taking a stroll through the mountains of Semonkong, Lesotho.  Halfway through my hike, I heard this loud noise.  When I turned to see what it was, I saw several girls frantically gesturing towards me.  My first thought was that I was about to be run over by a herd of wild horses.  I quickly realized that the signaling girls were some of the students that I had performed for earlier that morning.  They were now putting on a show for us!  It was wonderful to be able to stop and play with them in a more informal setting.  Later, as I walked back to our camp, I looked behind me to glimpse the girls still giggling and re-enacting bits from the clown show.
 
 
I feel so blessed to have had this time in South Africa and am glad that I still have almost a month left. 

Jamie's Journal
November 11 – Nora and the Barcelona Squatter Camp

Our last day working with NOAH.  It has been an eventful week: adjusting to a new show and team, lessons in crowd control, migraines, city streets, and many, many, many children who live in such poverty on the edge of the wealthiest neighborhoods in South Africa.  Our spirits are high as we have had recent success with larger audiences though we long to really get to know at least one of the sites we visit.  Today, we drive out to Bapsfontein in the northeast of the Guateng Province about an hour away from Johannesburg.  Here, the townships are much poorer and desperate than the ones in Soweto, Katlehong, and Freedom Park.  Schools consist of trailers and rickety log cabins surrounded by tin shacks where the children live.  Our first show is at one of these schools, and we are joined by Garth, a South African based clown who has collaborated with us in the past.  Performing for about 75 children, they are delighted by an improvisation involving a soccer ball during one of our chases!  Then, we drive to Barcelona – a squatter camp on the edge of farms and open fields – where we meet Nora, an elderly woman of great resources who takes us to an Ark for 300 children.  The roads are almost nonexistent and full of rubble, chickens, and even an impromptu soccer field with cinderblocks for goal posts.  Nora is the founder of this Ark and has built a church next door in order to bring the community closer to the services for the children.  She has also built a new school for the orphans as well as another center called Nora’s Ark.  After our show she takes us around the complex while explaining how she has worked tirelessly to bring this impoverished community together.   It is extremely difficult to get the funding for her projects so they must be creative and resourceful.  We visit the cinderblock toilets to train the infants, talk to Patricia and Beatrice who are making white bread and peanut butter sandwiches for the children, cutting them into wedges and placing them in great big white bucket, see the children’s multicolored shoes outside a container with over 200 4 year olds packed in like sardines waiting lunchtime, and finally Patricia’s own house adjoining the infant crèche with two beds for 6 children and herself.  After such a grueling week of performances and rehearsals, our initial intention behind this mission comes home.  We are here to bring a sense of ease and happiness into not only the lives of the children but also witness the extraordinary commitment to service of one’s neighbor through the daily sacrifices and hard work of community leaders like Nora who do what they do out of love.  It is an honor and privilege to have been able to share this afternoon with Nora, to exchange ideas and laughter, and to learn from her what it really is to be human.

Jamie's Journal
November 9 – Challenges of Urban Life

With already five performances under our belt for over 2,000 children, we are beginning to get a feel for the show and our teams chemistry.  However, we have encountered some difficulties due to the enormous size of our audiences at some of the primary school.  Yesterday, our last performance was in the township of Katlehong at a primary school for over 1300 children.  We performed outside on a soccer field with a chain linked fence behind us for a natural barrier.  As we marched into the stage area, children were pressing against each other to catch a glimpse of the action.  To manage the crowd, teachers had given belts to older students which they used mercilessly on the children to keep them from crushing each other.  It was heartbreaking to see these leather straps fly threw the air and hit children’s faces and arms.  Here we were attempting to bring joy and happiness in the spirit of nonviolence and peace to others while violence is occurring before us and because of us.  Perhaps this sort of behavior is typical for these schools (in fact, today we witnessed a long line of boys getting their hands whipped for being late for school) but it is the last thing we expected or wanted.  In order to avoid the continuation of the chaos, we collectively cut short our show and finished by singing Xhosa songs.  Even though the principal was ecstatic about our visit, we knew better and have decided to be more strict with how the children are treated when we perform giving the teachers clear expectations of how to arrange the audience. 
 
Today, we find ourselves challenged again with crowd management - learning from our experiences but encountering new hurdles.  We arrive at Freedom Park, another township school of over 1,300 children. This time, we explain to the assistant principal about the necessity for a peaceful and orderly performance.  Class by class, students file out into the courtyard and sit down cross-legged along a white line.  Esther reminds them to sit on their bottoms while I improvise clown routines to keep their attention forward.  As the crowd grows and grows, Perry and Selena help out until finally everyone is sitting except for the last two rows of older students who stand behind with the teachers.  We parade in and are amazed to find that our plan is working! The children are sitting low and enjoying the performance with very little pushing and shoving.  The show is crisp and our best ever.  We proceed through the routines smoothly with no incidents until the culmination of the balloon funeral when a foam nose ball appears under my hat resurrected where the “remains” of the balloon were buried.   Then, we make our big mistake.  In our shows, we typically allow the volunteer to keep the nose when he or she is returned to the audience.  We find that this is a nice reward for becoming a clown with us on stage.  However, in the larger shows this only heightens the desire to get a nose causing the children to push forward eagerly.  In the past this hasn’t been a problem; but in our new show, this routine is followed with red noses popping out of my mouth culminating with an explosion of 10 or more foam balls.  Today, this is the straw that breaks our well-planned audience management’s back.  Children flood the stage grasping for balls – pushing and shoving.  Instantly, our performance areas has disappeared as we find ourselves in a sea of children holding our instruments up high and huddled together.  Quickly conferring that it is best to remain as uninteresting as possible while the teachers bring order to the chaos, we decide to finish the performance with a soft shoe dance and a song before parading out.  Although we are disappointed that our management wasn’t successful, at least there was no violence or corporal punishment.  We have also learned an important lesson: don’t give away anything unless everyone can have one!  Furthermore, we are determined to use chairs when possible to give the children a defined space to sit in – a technique that works admirably for the rest of the week.
 

Jamie's Journal
November 8 – A new jalopy!
 

Today is an exciting day for us!  After many frustrating months of relying on our old BMW – waiting on the side of the road for a tow truck, filling up oil every 80 kilometers, listening to the high pitched whine of the securing straps that tie the trunk to the roof of the car, and cleaning the spark plugs each morning – our search for a suitable vehicle has come to a fruition.  Thanks to some timely connections in Joburg with a wonderfully generous and helpful couple, we have found sponsorship of a double cab Toyota Hilux from McCarthy Toyota in Midrand.  The folks of McCarthy Toyota are extremely involved in community service and supporting creative initiatives that address the needs of the people of South Africa.  The donation could not have come sooner.  The streets in Soweto and surrounding squatter camps are unpredictable at best and typically treacherous for the low lying sedan.  But with the bakkie, we are assured arrival at our site visits and in professional style – with Clowns Without Borders painted on the front and sides along with our website and logo: “No Child Without A Smile.”  Bravo to their sense of corporate responsibility and charity! 

Jamie's Journal
November 7th – The East Rand

We have finally begun the second half of our expedition here in Southern Africa!  Last week, we were joined by New York City-based comedienne, Perry Daniel, who has been thrown into the thick of things with out a moment’s rest.  The team now consists of myself, Esther Haddad, Selena McMahan and Perry.  Tim Cunningham had the wonderful occasion of becoming an uncle and rushed off to Texas to be with his family.  So, a new team with new dynamics and fresh eyes to bring an openness to our experiences.
 
We spent the past week creating a new performance based on the theme of manual labor.  Negotiating our rehearsal time around the afternoon thundershowers that brought spectacular displays of lightning, we managed to develop new routines with brooms and lunchtime breaks that culminates in a “stairway to heaven” with a volunteer walking up our shoulders until she is standing on Esther.  We have also incorporated more African music into the themes with a few dance numbers.  Fresh from a two week hiatus, we were eager to be back in the nose and bringing laughter to the children. 
 
Today, we start our weeklong collaboration with NOAH (Nurturing Orphans of AIDS for Humanity) in the greater Johannesburg metropolitan area.  NOAH has established Arks, or safe havens and support centres, for orphans throughout the Gauteng Province.  They consist of shipping containers that have been converted into classrooms and playrooms and provide support to anywhere between 50 and 500 children.    NOAH has scheduled a very busy week for us with 14 performances for almost 5,000 children!  We will travel almost everywhere in the Gauteng Province – from the gritty streets of Soweto to the shanty towns in the east of Barcelona and Bapsfontein to the remote climes in the northwest beyond Krugerdorp.  At 8:45 in the morning, we arrive in Daveyton, a township east of Johannesburg for our first site visit.  The Ark is located behind a church sandwiched between a wall and about 5 chicken coups packed with hens.  I find that the children, ages 2 to 6,  are equally squeezed into 4 or 5 shipping containers that open out into a courtyard strewn with bird feathers and poop.  Since it is morning, a few of them are still crying after being dropped off by their caregivers for the day.  The Ark manager meets us outside the compound and tells us that there are about 150 children at this one site who have either been orphaned by HIV/AIDS or have parents suffering from the disease.  The Ark provides them with a place of nurturing and care while their caregivers, aunts, grandparents, neighbors, or older siblings can go about their daily work and study.  Esther arranges a performance space for us and the children file out of the containers with blue, yellow, red, and green plastic chairs on top of their heads like a moving forest.  We quickly restructure our show to cater to the younger children and enter with banjo and violin.  For our first performance in the field, it goes surprisingly well – the children who were crying at the beginning of the day now are smiling and waving to us or posing for the camera.  We would love to stay and play some more with them.  Unfortunately, our busy schedule prohibits us from having more intense contact as we must move on to the next location.  This is a pattern for the week that we find necessary and difficult to adjust to after our last two weeks in the field were more intense workshops that enabled us to work closely with the affected children.  However, we remind ourselves that this segment of the mission is more focused on identifying future sites for collaboration as an exploratory expedition.
 
 

Project Njabulo Journals from September-October 2005

Selena's E-mail (further down the page)
Tim's Journal entry ( still further down the page)

Jamie's Journals

October 5, 2005 – Ixopo, Kwazulu/Natal
 
Brrrrr!  Waking to the icy-cold morning here in the highlands of Ixopo, Kwazulu/Natal, we wonder what has happened to the African sun?   Rain hints a sleet.  Rumors of snow.  Wind that bites.  Can it really be almost summer?  It is morning at the Buddhist Retreat Centre – a time of meditation, reflection, and concentration in preparation for Day 2 of our workshop residency at Bhensela Primary School.  I guess these journal updates always begin in the morning with the sun rising somewhere new, bringing with it a new day filled with new moments of wonder and amazement.  In noble silence, we finish our breakfast of porridge and homemade honey on toast and find Sue Hedden, co-director of the Woza Moya Project, waiting for us.  Woza Moya is a community organization focused on HIV/AIDS support in the Ufafa region nearby. They have just built a brand new centre on tribal lands with the help of the San Francisco Buddhist community and are looking forward to moving in soon.  “This weather is perfect for planting aloes outside the new center!” says Sue, cheerfully.  A simple change of perception can transform a bitterly cold day into one of opportunity!
 
We load up the bakkie with our trunk and instruments and ease down winding dirt roads slippery from the night’s rains.  Bhensela Primary School is a typical rural school with about 570 students aged 5 to 15.   No electricity, phone, or, running water with the exception of a pump at one corner.  The toilets are clean but foul with a terrible stench.  Children learn in dark, dusty classrooms as teachers struggle to teach Mathematics, English, and History.  I wonder what future lies ahead these children?  Is there hope for them beyond the poverty and violence that stipp plagues this part of Kwazulu/Natal?  Where will they be 10 years from now?  For now, it is clear that our work is to help them be kids – to laugh, to play, and to believe in themselves – if only for the short time we have with them.
 
We divide the morning into two hour sessions – one with the 5th grade and one with the 4th.  As Esther, Selena, and I wait on a frigid soccer field, Tim streams out from the courtyard with about 50 children running behind him.  The morning wakes up to a hundred feet rumbling by and bright smiles beaming.   Eventually, the children make a big circle and begin warming up.  “Sanibonani,” Tim greets the crowd.  “Yebo,” they answer timidly.  “SANIBONANI!” “Yebo!” A bit louder.  SAAANIIIIBOOONAAANIIII!”  “YEEEBOOOO!”  We move our bodies.  Expansion.  Contraction.  Isolation of body parts.  We squeeze our tushies.  Awoogah!  Awoogah!  We warm up our voices.  A round.  We break off into two groups – Tim and I leading one and Selena and Esther, the other.  The round grows in volume and accelerates.  Hands clap.  Feet stomp.  “Ayeetsa!”  We head to the classrooms where we will be teaching for the rest of the morning.  Warm, both inside and out! 
Most of Tim and my work focuses on cultivating a spirit of play while giving the children an opportunity for self-expression, creativity, and laughter.   Our games and exercises are simple due to language difficulties.  Often, they take on new meanings and forms as the students make them their own.  We begin with a bebox name chanting game.  At first, each child is apprehensive of the new surroundings.  Thabiso softly says his name with his hands in his pockets.  Tim repeats, adding a gesture.  Thabiso returns the movement a little louder.  They bounce back and forth while the rest us beating a rhythm and echoing as Thabiso and Tim grow louder and more confident dance around the circle.  Each child gets her chance to be the star of the game.  The class gives support and encouragement.  Then, we pass an imaginary ball around the circle changing its quality: heavy, hot, a baby, stinky diaper, bowl of putu, black mamba.  This becomes a balloon which we blow up and go on an adventure.  As Tim and I trade of games, the class becomes more comfortable.  They learn trips and slips.  Simple slapstick routines.  Animal character.  And, most importantly, they laugh at and with each other.  Before we know it, our time is up.  One last circle with a song to seal the session.  Though we wish we could have more time, we must let them go so that a new group can participate.  Hello.  Goodbye.  Hello. 
 
At the end of the week, we have met, taught, and played with every child at Bhensela Primary School.  So many faces to remember -  now a blur.  After one last farewell performance in the soccer field, we load up the bakkie and say “goodbye.”  Our faces are pressed against the windows in the back as we pull away.  Waving hands and songs of “Amanze awekho” follow us through the gate.  We do not know what affect this week will have on their lives a month from now let alone 5 years down the line.  Will they remember four clowns and a photographer from Belgium who visited for a week?   Did a spark catch fire in one of their hearts?  A spark of hope or faith in themselves?  No one can predict what the future will bring.  But today, yes, today, one might be bold enough to say that happiness and celebration is alive with the children of Bhensela Primary School. 

 October 1, 2005 – Pigg’s Peak, Swaziland

I awake to the morning crows of roosters. The air is hazy. Dust, soot and smoke from dirt roads, tailpipes and fields burn my lungs but bring beautiful sunrises each day. We are all a bit sluggish this Saturday. Our bones and muscles still creaking from our busy schedule in Mbabane. At 9:00, Sibusiso comes by with a smile and a bounce in his step. Confronted with the reality of HIV/AIDS everyday, he manages to bring laughter and good spirits into each and every encounter – the clerk at the local Score Supermarket, children playing football in the streets, even the elderly women who embroider t-shirts at Designing Hope’s Malanda Community Centre. Sibusiso embodies the spirit of clown at its finest – receptive and open to what is happening in the moment with a twinkle in his eyes ready for fun. He is a member of a local Red Cross Clown Project that uses clown to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS prevention. They are our first African clowns we have encountered - a group of nine performers who have recently studied with a Swiss clown basic routines and clowning techniques. Sibusiso is eager to learn more and push the group in a more professional direction. Eventually, it is his dream to start a Clowns Without Borders chapter here in Swaziland that will spread laughter through performances and workshops. Perhaps the next phase of Project Njabulo will involve training this group and performing collaboratively throughout Swaziland as an international and multi-racial troupe….
We spend about an hour making juggling balls for his clown school and teaching basic juggling techniques which he will share with others. Filling the juggling balls with rice, we realize that some children may merely choose to eat them when hunger overcomes interest in juggling. It is a fact that cannot be ignored when poverty is so extreme. We load up our BMW with 6 performers and workshop materials (it really is becoming a clown car!) and head for the Malanda Centre. The centre is a community hall and embroidery workshop for women and children who are affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Funded by Designing Hope, a South African and French based initiative, infected women create beautiful multi-colored tapestries, pillow cases, and t-shirts with the slogan “I love you, positive or negative.” We have commissioned five women to make shirts that say “Bahlekisi Abangemancele” or “Those who bring laughter without boundaries” the closest siSwathi translation of Clowns Without Borders. They work feverishly knowing that we must leave very early the next morning for our long drive back to KwaZulu/Natal.
Outside, there are many youth milling about enjoying the morning sun. These are the poorest of the poor. Some have no parents nor homes to go to at night. The Malanda Community Centre is a place they can get some food, play football, and just hang out with each other. Their clothes are well worn and ragged, smelling worse than our costumes after a week of performing. Faces light up as they remember us from our performance here on Thursday and quickly gather around. At the same time about 30 children and toddlers amble out of the hall finishing up snack time. An informal visit evolves into an hour long workshop – Tim and Selena work with the younger ones while Esther and I teach the youth. We throw juggling balls around a circle in a set pattern singing a song about HIV/AIDS that they wrote. The focus and concentration is remarkable as the patterns, turns, and rhythms get more complicated. After a short break, we teach them basic acrobatic moves from our show: the worm move, counterbalances, and two-highs creating a spirit of cooperation and togetherness. Over my shoulder, I see Tim and Selena marching around in a circle with the younger children clapping their hands and singing a song improvised by Tim. Call and response echoes in the dust they kick up with their little stamping feet. Suddenly, we realize that the sun has risen high in the sky and become very hot. Where did the time go? It is already noon. A morning flown by busy clowning, teaching, and celebrating community. We say goodbye to the children reminding them that there is an afternoon performance at the Red Cross Center. They promise to come and salute us with wide grins and thumbs up. “Hamba Kahle!” “Go well!”

September 30. We are presently in Pigg’s Peak, a small lumber town in northern Swaziland after an extremely busy time in Mbabane, the Swazi capital, working with SOS Children’s Village. We are grateful for a bit of a respite (only 2 shows a day) before heading back to KwaZulu/Natal for our first 5 day residency with the Woza Moya Project and Buddhist Retreat Centre in Ixopo. Nevertheless, we are thoroughly enjoying the rigor of our time in Swaziland as well as the opportunity to work with such amazing loving people. Swaziland is much different than South Africa. Instantly upon our entry into the country we recognized the loosening of racial tensions and the accompanying reduction of violence and crime. There is a greater awareness of HIV/AIDS in the country as well with a high profile of colorful billboards promoting condom use and AIDS awareness that one never sees in South Africa. However, Swaziland is still a very poor country with one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the world – 44% of the population. After one of our shows in Mbabane, a local chief’s brother tells us that everyone knows someone with the disease. It is a scourge that rips the lifeblood of our nation, he explains. Yet, the siSwathi people seem remarkably resilient and faithful. Over the last 5 days, we have performed 15 times for over 4,300 children and adults in malls, schools, colleges, township streets, and drop-in centres meeting people who encounter the devastation due to the disease and poverty on a daily basis. In fact, one woman blanched at my mention of “devastation” in a talk back after a show because the difficulties are a daily occurrence and so much a part of the lives of everyone that people sometimes take it for granted. But we see it every day. In the desperation of primary school students starved for entertainment and emotional nourishment, clamoring for attention and begging to be taught a magic trick or sung a song. In the despondency of street children who are faced with the uncertainty of where they will sleep or find food to eat. In the smiles of the 110 orphaned children living in the Children’s Village who mimic our performance days later and create their own routines while waiting for dinner. In the persistence of the 20 youth who wait outside our guest cottage each afternoon for another workshop in juggling – faithfully bringing their three balls back in order to learn another move. In the gentle greatness of Obed, the SOS outreach and youth worker, who faces each daily task with commitment, acceptance, and humility. These people and communities give us the faith and energy to continue spreading joy and laughter as we encounter new horizons each day. They are our fuel when our legs do not want to dance and our heads long for sleep. They ignite our hearts as the clown leaps into life. Their smiles and waving hands echo long after we pull away heading for the next site.



September 27, 2005, SOS Children’s Village, Mbabane, Swaziland

We wake with the rising sun. Roosters have been crowing the dawn for the past two hours. It isn’t easy to ignore their call. Bleary eyed and groggy, we prepare for the day. Selena cooks porridge with sautéed apples as each one goes through the motions of waking up our bodies and minds. There is a knock at the door. Obed, the SOS outreach coordinator, enters with a quiet morning smile to tell us that it is time to go. The slowness of our movement switches into a hurried readiness. Brush teeth, clean plates, get dressed, put on make up, load the trunk, check the props, and we are off in the kombi to Mbuluzi High School. The road is long and bumpy. We pass through town and out towards the hills. Goats and chickens pick through piles of trash on the side of the road. Children walk to school in their uniforms. Taxis loaded with people rumble by on their way to work. Suddenly, we are outside of Mbabane and in the rural countryside. A bus scoots passed our vehicle forcing us to close our windows to prevent dust. It is dry and hot even at a quarter to seven in the morning. Great hills of brown rock loom overhead in the shadow of the mountain. A small river – the Mbuluzi river – flows behind us waiting for the rains. I try to keep my eyes open and mind clear as I grapple with drowsiness. Silent in the kombi, we turn off a dirt road onto an even bumpier driveway heading towards the school. Mbuluzi High School was formerly a boarding school for girls although they have recently permitted coeducation. Jacarandas decorate the school grounds with brilliant purple blossoms. The principal rings the bell calling the students to the auditorium. Three hundred and fifty students, mostly girls, file in. They begin their day with a song and a prayer. Then it is time for the clowns and for laughter. We enter playing “Nomeva” on the banjo and violin. I lead with a jive dance, swinging my hips and flirting with the students. Esther follows with Selena in tow on the bucket drum. Finally, Tim, laden down with the trunk upon his head, enters. We process onto the stage and the audience begins to clap to Tim’s urging. He takes of his head to bow. Shrieks of laughter at the sight of his mohawk. We immediately know that this audience will be a special one. Tim’s juggling produces applause at the new tricks he has learned while teaching workshops to neighborhood youth. A final trick and the focus is on me acting tough with my suspenders. I shake my hand feeling so cool but my hand has other ideas. It floats up suspended in the air. No matter what, I cannot get it to behave. With exasperation, I shove it down which only causes my leg to pop up. The audience is loving the craziness of it all. In a climax, I manage to thrust my hand in my pocket and the mood instantly changes. A bottle of bubbles slowly emerges. Blowing kisses and bubbles, Tim, Esther and I make our way through the audience. It becomes a courtship routine. Audience members take turns blowing their own bubbles until we are distracted by a new problem. Selena has been left alone and starts eating the bubbles. She gets tipsy. Hiccups. Tim blows the whistle and I carry her off. Immediately, we shift gears and start reading a newspaper. Excluding Selena, we focus on the affairs of state with intensity. Suddenly, the newspaper is snatched from above as Selena jumps off Tim’s shoulders triumphantly. Furious, we become a three headed monster and advance snarling and growling. She scrambles through our legs causing us to fall and summersault after each other. We turn over into a worm and give chase. Audience applauses at the change. Selena sits on our creature and four clowns fall flat on the floor. The routine continues as a human sling shot propels Esther into Selena’s arms and the newspaper lands back with Tim. Esther and I retreat to the prop table to gather horns for sound effects as Tim and Selena continue to play. Hats fall off. Newspapers are ripped and then magically renewed. A chase erupts and we all add to the chaos. Horns honking, students whipping their heads around to follow us. Esther and I collide into a dizziness. Selena rolls up the newspaper into a telescope and wham: we enter the butt tunnel. Looking through each other we share the telescope and search for a volunteer. A beautiful girl with braided hair and a bible in her lap is chosen. Esther and I bring her up onto stage and after confusion with our bows proceed to show her our accidental magic. A handkerchief goes into Esther’s hand only to reappear in my mouth. Then it comes out of our volunteer’s ear. She pushes it through Esther’s hand and it is gone. I look for it but they find it first poking out of my pants. They pull and pull as the silk is attached to a blue one and a red one and a yellow one and a green one until finally, with a great yank, my underwear pops out. The audience goes wild. I frantically stuff it back into my pants and sit next to our volunteer, utterly embarrassed. To cover for me, Esther pulls out a yellow balloon as consolation. After much difficulty, we become a human pump and blow it up with great enthusiasm until it explodes. Silence. Tim and Selena join us. We survey the destruction with tearful eyes. Our balloon is dead. A whimper grows into bawling anguish. To Esther’s violin, we march – Tim, the volunteer, myself, and Selena – in a funeral procession. Our hats come off. The balloon’s remains go into Tim’s hat and are placed on the trunk as a dais. I move forward clearing my throat and begin to address the audience in gibberish. “Dearly beloved…kaput…amen!” The story of our dear balloon. We put our hats on and gesture to the volunteer to give Tim his hat. She lifts it up and to her gasp discovers a red nose sitting on the trunk. We celebrate the miracle. A new clown is on stage with a new nose. We dance to kwela music. Humor reborn from our sorrow. Laughter from grief. The rest of the show flows with rippled laughter through the audience. We close with a rousing chorus of “Amanza wekho” or “there’s no water,” a traditional song popularized by Miriam Makeba and parade of to clapping hands. Back in the kombi, we retreat back into the city. A little more awake, we are ready to face the rest of the day – a preschool, primary school, and Waterford College, an international baccalaureate in the evening.

September 17. We have only been in South Africa for two weeks and already incredible experiences of joy and laughter fill our hearts each day.  We are presently resting near the sea shore in southern Kwazulu-Natal after a packed week of 8 shows for about 3,000 children.  The ocean’s roar and whistling wind sweeps through our backpacker’s dorm as we take advantage of a moment’s of peace before diving back into performances and workshops.  A chance to reflect on the week and share our stories. Here is the first installment of our weekly update from the field.  More to come!
 
Njabulo Project Week One
September 6 – Johannesburg, Northern Suburbs
 
After months of planning and preparing, our team is assembled together for the first time in Johannesburg.  It is welcoming to be back in South Africa.  The sooty smell of burning grass mixed with car fumes and blooming boganvillias.  The toot-toot of the minibus taxis.  The call of “meelees” from the street corners and the whizzing of Mercedes, Land Rovers, and bakkies.  We are staying in Parkwood, an upscale suburb in northern Johannesburg at my grandfather’s house.  He is presently in the hospital recovering from surgery but has opened his doors to us as we rehearse our show, Njabulo.  The gated and electric-wired house provokes conflicting emotions – the old South Africa mingled with the new.  There are four of us.  Tim Cunningham and I are joined by Belgium clown, Esther Haddad, and US clown, Selena McMahan.  Selena is a recipient of the Watson Fellowship to study humanitarian circus and clowning around the world.  She has been traveling throughout South Africa for the past month establishing contacts with potential collaborators in Durban, Cape Town, and Johannesburg.  Hopefully, the fruits of her work and further outreach will result in the beginning of a South African chapter of Clowns Without Borders.
 
September 7 – 10 – In search of a vehicle
 
Our week is spent rehearsing, gathering materials, solidifying our itinerary, and meeting with South African based organizations involved in the campaign against HIV/AIDS.  One of our primary goals is the securing of a vehicle for our expedition of which we are partially successful.  In order to assure that Project Njabulo will be able to continue for the next 3 to 5 years, Clowns Without Borders needs a vehicle suitable to transport our gear, team, and workshop materials over rough township and rural roads.  As a result, we are looking for the donation a 4x4 or the financial sponsorship to be able to buy an old Land Rover.  We meet with representatives from Europcar, the South African Business Coalition Against HIV/AIDS (Sabcoha), and the government sponsored campaign, Khomanani.  While we impress others with the mission and purpose of Project Njabulo, things are tight here for everybody.  It seems that unless we are extremely lucky, it will take more time and greater exposure before we achieve this goal.
 
A short term solution.  As my grandfather returns from the hospital, he generously donates the use of an old 1980s BMW for the duration of the expedition.  While it is small and has low clearance, with a jerry-rigged roof rack for our clown trunk and some tight squeezing in the car trunk, we hope it will last throughout the next 3 and a half months.  As if it weren’t generous enough, he also throws in the petrol sponsorship with the use of a gas card – a donation that allows us to send $1,000 back to the United States to help out with the Katarina Hurrican crisis.
 
September 10 – On the road
 
On Saturday, September 10th, loaded down with juggling balls for workshops, a strapped down trunk that hums with the speed, plenty of bags stuffed with clothes and documentary materials, we set off for Kwazulu/Natal traveling through downtown Johannesburg, the southern townships and out into the open highveld.  Our first night is spent in the foothills below the northern Drakensberg at a beautiful lodge called Montusi Mountain Lodge near Bergville.  Eugene, one of Selena’s contacts made at a Cirque du Monde workshop in Cape Town has invited us to visit All Out Adventures – an outdoor circus adventure course for that has an outreach program called Circus Adventures for underprivileged youth in the surrounding villages.  Not only providing us with complementary lodging in an extremely comfortable chateau amidst gorgeous environs, Eugene’s aunt who owns the lodge scavenges in the restaurant’s kitchen for bread, fruit, and a plate of cheese for our ravenous team.  Circus Adventures is run by an American acrobat and trapeze artist, Chris, and funded through their corporate gigs.  We are quickly learning that interest in circus arts is growing in South Africa though clowning is still a rare phenomenon.   The next day, Chris throws us up a high ladder and through some high flying trapeze routines to our endorphin filled, shaky legged delight. Little do we know that we are merely guinea pigs for an upcoming shooting of Fear Factor!  Nevertheless, we depart with hearts a still thumping with promises to return in October on our way back to Johannesburg for a performance for their outreach program.   
 
September 11 – Makaphutu Children’s Village
 
It is evening at Makaphutu, Mother of Putu (a traditional dish fed to orphans by the village’s founder) in the Botha’s Hill rural area of Kwazulu/Natal.  We are staying in the residences with the children who come from a myriad of tragic backgrounds – abuse, abandonment, rape, and the death of their parents due to HIV/AIDS.  There are eight “cottages” that house about 15 children each arranged by age and gender situated on a hill over looking the Valley of 1000 Hills.  As we pile out of the vehicle, we are greeted with smiles and waves by many of the children who are outside playing in the courtyard.  A favorite pastime is pushing smaller kids in milk carts down the sidewalk as if they were sledding on concrete.  Being our first contact with children after months of planning, we explode with playful energy.  Foam clown noses disappear and reappear behind ears, floorboards, and faucets.  Esther and I improvise an entire clown show involving a closet and a bed and “bedtime” to the shrieks of young girls’ laughter.  Tim’s mohawk produces gasps and giggles as he passes a rugby ball to some of the older teenage boys.  Selena sits under a table quietly playing with a shy boy who only joined the village a couple days ago, rescued from physical and sexual abuse.  The children are most delighted by the sleight of hand magic.  A simple trick spreads across the entire complex as Tim and I are made to perform over and over again.  Little do they know that when we return next week, we will be teaching them how to do it themselves!
 
Our home for the evening is the lower floor of the last cottage shared with eight girls ages 8 to 12.  We sings songs while Precious, an older teenager who lives at the village for her own solace and because she loves the children, prepares dinner – curry chicken, beans, salad, and rice.  After a delicious desert of granadilla yoghurt and strawberries, we tuck in early – four clowns upon four mattresses squeezed into a small guest room adjacent to the common area.  Our wake up call is 5:30 with three shows scheduled in the morning before a two and a half hour drive to Eshowe in the heart of Zululand. 
 
September 12 – Gwadzu-Zenex Primary School, Botha’s Hill
 
Morning comes too quickly.  Roosters crow and the sound of little feet patter about preparing for the new day.  The sun rises blood red over the hills swelling through the dust of coal fires.  Only a little time to meditate on the day’s task and our intention for compassion and loving kindness through laughter.  A quick breakfast of corn flakes and it is time to go.  As we pack up our car and change into our costumes, a bakkie (pickup truck) donated by the Rotary Club begins to deliver the children to their respective schools.  There are four primary schools in the area that the Makaphutu children are divided up into – Gwadzu-Zenex Primary School is our first show.  Finally, the “bus” driver tells us to follow him along the rough and jagged township roads towards the school.  Upon our arrival, the principal, Mr. Bongani Zaca, greets us in his office.  A well-dressed and business-like man, he explains that we must wait 45 minutes before we can start the show because the children are about to take their midterm exams.  He fears that upon seeing us in full regalia the majority of them will blindly mark their tests “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” at random just to get it over with so the clowns can begin.  Attempting to be as inconspicuous as possible, we hide behind one of the classrooms to tune our instruments and warm up our bodies.  However, news travels too fast and soon Esther and I are playing music on the violin and banjo while Tim and Selena eccentric dance for a crowd of about 100 laughing boys and girls.  Finally, Mr. Zaca lets us know it is time.  We strike up the band (violin, banjo, and bucket drum) and march out into a mass of 800 students to the clearing of a concrete soccer field designated as our stage.  Our performance goes remarkably well for a first time affair.  The setting is beautiful.  So many wide eyes and open mouths breaking into grins and sporadic laughter punctuated by a communal uproar from time to time.  Quickly, a thrust audience becomes a ring.  Occasionally, we catch sight of a familiar face in the audience of a Makaphutu child waving.  We open slowly with a bubble routine giving the children a chance to get accustomed to four white clowns dressed in ragtag costumes.  Magic follows slapstick.  A soft shoe dance and a horn orchestra to “Blue Danube.”  Juggling and, finally, an acrobatic routine culminating in a two-high with an audience volunteer standing triumphantly upon Tim’s shoulders.  We bow and then break out into “Qhude,” a traditional Xhosa and Zulu song popularized by Miriam Makeba as we dance with the students to our parked car ready for two more shows.  Unfortunately, Mr. Zaca tells us that circumstances have arisen at the other schools and they cannot accommodate us.  We must settle for one performance. But, what a show, and, hopefully, more to come as we discuss with the principal the potential to develop this relationship into greater interaction and emotional healing next time.          
 
 
There doesn’t seem to be an end to the need for laughter and healing here.  Often, I wish there was more time or at least more of us to reach out everywhere.  For every one village or school we visit there must be at least a hundred or thousand that we pass by.  Nevertheless, each connection has great potential in its own right.  The potential to transcend suffering and human difference finding insight in our capacity for love. 
 
May you be happy and peaceful,
 
Jamie McLaren Lachman 
Project Njabulo Director
Clowns Without Borders-USA

Selena McMahan's E-mail October 8th

It's been amazing performing so much – for crowds of hundreds of kids
and the crowds just roaring with laughing. Just exploding. It's the
kind of audience that I know it feels amazing to be in – when you
totally lose control of your laughter.
These kids have never seen anything like us. Our audiences have been
almost entirely black kids in poor rural areas and for them to see
white people acting so silly is huge. To see adults crying
hysterically over a ripped newspaper or popped balloon is also huge.
To have us give them so much attention and play with them is too in
itself huge.
The more time we spend traveling around the more I realize how much
suffering these kids are going through – so many parents dying of
AIDS. In Swaziland 42% of people who get tested have HIV, and probably
in actuality it's even higher. In South Africa fewer people get
tested, the statistic is about 25%. So much poverty. The schools are
poor – no electricity, dirty outdoor toilets, broken windows. Some
kids can't afford a school uniform, that have to go to a community
center to get a meal. We are working through a lot of organizations
that help kid run households (like say a 15yr old taking care of three
younger siblings) with housing, school fees, food, and so on. Some of
the organizations have family-like foster care for orphans but the
trend is more towards helping them stay in their own community.
So the kids really have a lot of sadness at home. And our impression
of them during and after the shows– laughing, running, jumping,
smiling, just totally bubbling - is very one-sided. We don't see what
it's like before we get there and after we leave.
Right now we're staying at a Buddhist Retreat Center near a town
called Ixopo (beautiful hiking trails on sloping hills and valleys
lightly scattered with rondavel houses and cows and goats, amazing
vegetarian food which is a treat after all the meat people have cooked
for us, and single rooms to ourselves!) – the center has an outreach
program called Woza Moya (Come Spirit) which is one the nicest
program we've worked with. It's co-run by a white woman named Sue who
speaks fluent Zulu and Tisi who is from the area. Of all the programs
we've worked with it feels integrated into the local community,
accepted and appreciated in a way some of the others aren't.
We've stayed here for a week doing workshops at one of the local
primary schools – taking two grades a day so that we work with all the
kids. Playing movement and comedy games – being silly and getting them
to be loud and let everything out. Just an hour or so with each group.
The kids are so great. So much better behaved than kids in the States.
I mean I can think of only two "trouble-makers" our entire trip. They
focus so well, and since they speak hardly any English and we speak
hardly any Zulu, it's great how quickly they pick up the games.
I spoke with one of the teachers the other day about how our workshops
are going and she said they are so thankful we're doing it. That the
kids are so happy this week. and indeed you could hea