Port Au Prince Dec.23rd.Moshe

Yesterday was no thin line along the edges between rich and poverty. Deep into the rough edges: the women’s and young woman’s prison in Pétionville in the morning, and the afternoon teaching six of the juggling kids at the Foyer Lakay down near the port.
Walking through heavy solid iron gates of the prison into a rough dirt and broken yard with prison cells right there, bars facing out, women looking at us as we walk in. We meet the prison director first as she has just been assigned there three days beforehand. She had been a formateur (trainer) for prison guards at the Front National, which I confess I have no idea exactly what that is. Her office is as barren as the rest of the prison, a skeleton of a fax machine, and some ancient computer machinery off to the side of the desk. She takes notes about everything on a yellow steno tablet, that seems to be the extent of officialdom there.

I am with Elizabeth, the child protection officer at Unicef who has been my main liaison this week, and Dalogene Talogene, who has been driving me everywhere in our spiffy Toyota land cruiser.
We go through several blue painted bared doors to access a full sun paved courtyard where the younger woman are hanging out. They all have a large bowl of some kind, plastic or metallic and we are told that they are waiting for their meal. It is 10 in the morning and I fail to ask just which meal it is. There are two men there as well, one holding four new glitter sparkly hoola hoops. The women are mostly sitting in desk chairs lined up along one side of the yard where there is shade.
WE are told it is best to wait awhile until they have eaten. I ask Elizabeth if she knows how to hoola hoop. She did as a kid. A little dialogue of inquiry leads to a few of the more outgoing women to try their hand at it, none succeed. Elizabeth after a few tries gets it going. No big fanfare from the girls but one tries again afterwards. The man who has been holding them doesn’t seem too interested though he obviously has a great rapport with the women as I see him in casual conversations with them.
Finally we decide that I should go ahead because it doesn’t look like the food is going to be ready for a while. It is Saturday and it seems that there are only 3 guards on duty in the whole prison. I have no choice but to play in the full sun, which is bright and hot as it has been all week. This is winter time, I hate to feel the rage of the summer heat. Luckily I have the sunscreen at ready so I douse myself liberally. I am chiding myself because I have forgotten my baseball cap go pug on after the show hat comes off. I can’t really juggle or balance the cigar boxes with my head, nor can I slab sunscreen on top as deep sweat will cause extensive stinging of the eyes. That won’t work, forget the fact that the sun is directly ahead shining right in my eyes, that is relatively a minor inconvenience. The solution comes when I spot one of the women wearing a blue bandana over head pirate style. I realize that I can do the same with my yellow bandana that sits in my pocket.

Elizabeth has warned my that the young women might not be too into the show, demanding to know why they are bringing in a clown when they have yet to see a lawyer or appear in front of a judge. Some are in for no good reason, or do to some corruptive situation. Imagine the worst and you are probably close. The Scottish videographer yesterday was telling me a story of one girl who had yet to appear in front of a judge after 4 months in prison, yet the crime she was charged with carried a three month sentence. He also said that many of them have a quality of life inside then they would outside. Getting food on a regular basis, and some forms of education, courses in cosmetology and the like. This is due to the efforts of Unicef and an Italian organization whose Acronym escapes me now.
I am so impressed by the contentiousness of the Unicef child protection workers and their deep commitment to their never-ending work. When I asked earlier in the week how many young women were in the prison, she turned to ask a coworker across the office “ how many are there at Pétionville now, 30 or 31?”
The show goes great guns. Several of the women jump out of their chairs in excitement after various actions on my part. One woman particularly is jumping up and running into a dance of kinds and howling in glee. I can’t rest playing the moment. After a few of these she gets more bold and engages me directly, we go into an improvised back and forth movement imitation dance where I try but fail miserably to replicate her moves. It is magical, wild and sends everyone into a joyful place.
I play a good forty minutes, ending with singing ‘Love is a Rose’ on the ukulele. It is the first time the whole week that I pull out the instrument but if anywhere’s I feel this is the place. I rock it , sing the second verse with straightforward heart-full voice. I figure that it is important to offer that side for a moment. I can sense that the meal is near when I finish. Some ten of the thirty gather round, one asks for my smoke, referring to the fake cigarette that I had earlier disappeared and sneezed out of my nose. They are all surprised that it is made of plastic and not real, something that I have witnessed quite a few times. I have barely seen any cigarettes being smoked during our journeys. The largest prevalence being the expatriates at the Unicef office, and that was a grouping of three smoking outside the office.

One of the young prison women offers her thumb to me. I meet it with my thumb. Our thumbs touch with light pressure and then she rotates it and I do the same in the other direction in some sense of handshake. This starts a slew of thumb shakes that develop into more and more elaborate handshakes. Then there is commotion in the next yard where the older women have gathered in line for the meal. That is the signal for our time to depart as well. I gather my things, and Talogene takes my suitcase for which I am truly grateful for I suddenly become aware that my body is a little wobbly and I am pretty much drained of energy.

We are 5 going to Foyer Lakay in the afternoon, the morning trio has been joined by Tim and Sarah. Brendon has a deep stomach ache and Elisa volunteers to stay with him in case it gets words. He is definitely looking pale. Elizabeth, joins us, and of course Talogene is driving.

This is our second day that we have an afternoon training session there. We had one at the beginning of the week where we had the most amazing time working with about thirty of the young men land one young woman living there. The Canadian Clowns without Borders have been coming there for something like 4 years, and a good number of them are quite proficient in their juggling. They are highly motivated to learn new things and were quite excited to get up on stilts as well. It is vacation time now, and many have gone home to their families which is a great thing, Most of them are street children who have elected to move out from their home for a number of reasons. Unicef’s big focus is on reinsertion, working to get the kids moving back towards a normal lifestyle. So that so many are going home for the holidays seems to be a good thing.

We have a great afternoon working with about 10 of the Lakay jugglers. WE do a lot of juggling, and we get many of them up on stilts. We also get Elizabeth up on stilts, and Talogene tries his hand at juggling. We all start together in a circle under the roof of their cool open air gathering place. What seems to be flies at first turn out to be a most ferocious brand of mosquitos. Even a strong wind blowing fails to halt their agressive attacks. We move the activities into the afternoon sun where the mosquitos won’t follow. It is a relatively cool day. We split the group into two working a stilt walking station and a juggling station. We are all excited by the enthusiasm and quick learning that the Lakay group embody. I am teaching the juggling, and one juggler in particular, Franz, is quite accomplished and is absorbing every ball trick I can throw his way.

Moshe

Port au Prince Dec 22st.Moshe

Internet access is relative to the clouds in the sky, as last evening there was no connection available from the satellite.  The whole crew worked hard yesterday, stories of hiking up a hill and crossing a river of raw sewage on foot to get to a community and perform for some 400 very enthusiastic residents of a shantytown clinging to the crumbling rocks.  I was not there and I will let them tell their story, hopefully soon.  I was busy else where performing for some 900 children and their families for La Maison l’Arc en Ciel, who work with children affected by HIV-Aids. It was quite something with a hot sun right high in the sky and glaring into my eyes.  Typing in the early morning cool, my last full day in Haiti.  Today I will go perform at the young woman’s prison, and in the afternoon go work with enthusiastic jugglers of the Foyer Lakay;  the  home for the street children where Clowns Without Borders-Canada, especially Jacko, has been going for the past five years.

Here are a few photos from yesterday’s show.

Port au Prince Dec 20th.Moshe

Another three show day. Quite a strong day. Experiencing the intensities of Port-au-Prince through the air-conditioned windows of the Unicef Land Rover is definitely a voyeuristic experience. One can barely believe let along describe the experience, the density of humanity on the streets, the constant activity, and the chaos of the traffic. People are selling everything and everywhere’s on the side of the street. There is trash everywhere, piles of it on street corners. Some streets are paved, some are not. There are sudden unexplained breaks and dips in the road that cause all vehicles to slow to a crawl, to twist sideways to navigate past mounds of trash. Broken down vehicles in the middle of the street being repaired right there. If there are traffic laws, it is unclear if they are ever followed. We were caught in a crawling traffic jam on the main 4 lane road that curves around the port. I glance across the concrete barrier to see a line of cars traveling in our direction, they have just taken over one of the opposing lanes. Cars then meet head on and somehow navigate around each other. Other cars hump the sidewalk to create another line of traffic. Pedestrians are constantly darting in and out of the gigantic mess. One of the traffic jams is caused because one of the lanes has been shut down by a huge mound of trash that has been dumped on a street corner, for who knows how long. Of course, car horns are constantly pumping up the cacaphony. These words don’t even start to do the scene justice. Unfortunately the security norms don’t allow me to roll down the window to photograph, but it is perhaps better this way.

The shows are again Christmas celebrations that have gathered the kids together. The first show this morning was at the Gheskio clinic, a large hospital setup that was quite full of people, waiting rooms full of folks, hallways full of people. Of the children I performed for, some 100, plus numerous parents, 1/3 were Aids patients, the rest were in situations of domestic servitude. Like most of the places I am performing this week, the clinic is a partner with Unicef’s child protection services, and today is a very special day. Some of the kids are dressed in their Sunday best. I perform on a shaded lawn that has been decorated with clusters of balloons. The children have a great time, there is plenty of laughter. The doctors and attendants are just as thrilled to see the children so happy. After the show, I pull out my bubble bear to blow bubbles for them. They have never seen bubbles, and any mystification is quickly overcome by the desire to pop them. As there are some mothers with infants on their laps, I don’t let the situation get out of hand, instead offering them an opportunity to blow bubbles. I only get submerged by the kids, until a doctor comes in and helps to organize the scene.

The second show is at a hospital way out on the outskirts of Haiti, in what seems no man’s land, there is really little built around there. Except for this huge huge building complex, which is the new American embassy.  I can’t really figure out why they are building it, since there is already a huge building down by the port…

The third show is at the Foyer Maurice Sixto where I arrive a good hour late due to the traffic jam. It is in the Carrefour area which is quite a dense neighborhood and quite large.  When I walk onto the stage, I am amazed by all the screaming.  The audience is mostly adolescent girls and they treat me like the Beatles at Shea stadium, some 250 of them all in Blue uniforms.  Needless to say, it is a great show full of laughter, and screaming, and applause. wonder of wonders.  Photos to follow but it is dinner time, so I must sign off…Tim will be writing hopefully later this evening, and I will go through my photos and try to post some.  A bientot….

Port-au-Prince Dec 19th. Moshe

Sitting on the white painted balcony of the decaying grandeur of the Olaffson Hotel. Sounds of the other clowns playing hot dice drift in from the next room. Today is the first day I am doing solo shows separate from the group under the auspices performing in places that Unicef partners with here in Port au Prince. Tim has replaced me in the 4 person show, so that we have a two pronged effort going now. Between us we did 5 and 1/2 shows today. We are all a little shell shocked from the intensity of the work and the intensity of the city.

I played three shows today, all three christmas celebrations that brought together parents and children. The first this morning at the CES school for mentally challenged kids,

then back at the Foyer Lakay which houses some 100 street kids, and the last show for the AMI street children’s program. It was an incredible day, and the yawns of exhaustion have set in. The shows were wonderful, there was magic in the air, and there are many stories that deserve telling. The foyer Lakay was the most amazing as some 300 plus parents and kids had gathered.

The young adults offered some awesome performance presentations.

I was honored to participate, and I must mention the work that Clowns without Borders Canada has been doing with these youth for the past 5 years. Lots of juggling going on, and great energy.

Moshe

day 1 au Port au Prince

A single trumpet cuts through the playful chaos–it is the tune of “Silent Night.” Here in Port au Prince it seems that nothing is silent, ever. The closer you get to the ocean, the more crowded the streets become; a cacophony of voices, diesel trucks swerving to avoid children and potholes throwing puffs of black exhaust into the second floors of the tin and block buildings, the oppressive smell of sewage seeping up from the cracked streets–nothing is calm nothing is bright.

But it is ironic, the juxtaposition of hearing this song played by a boy at Foyer Lakay (a home for boys rescued from the streets of Port au Prince) a song about silence and peace during the holiday season and the constant motion of this city. And though the walls of Foyer Lakay block us from the destitute slums of Port au Prince, we can see in the eyes of our audience unspeakable experiences living in these streets. At the same time though, we see a certain joy a sense of excitement and peace with their surroundings.

These boys have just seen our performance and now we’ve split up, Sarah playing music with the band, Elisa and Brendon running stilt training and Moshe and Tim practicing with the jugglers. All of them have been training with Clowns without Borders-Quebec for years and the second we presented them with our juggling equipment, for example, they showed us their expertise.

These boys possess a drive to succeed, grow and have fun. We played for two hours, practiced our skills and then left in our UNICEF vehicle very content that we had been able to connect with and meet some of the circus prodigies trained by our partner organization (CWB-Quebec).

This is just day one and we fall asleep tonight excited to share joy and laughter the rest of our time here in this ironic place of deep deep poverty and also intense joy and play. Christmas is just a week away and Port au Prince is abuzzz in anticipation!

Tim C.

Torbeck Dec 17th. Moshe

Torbeck Dec 17th

Our last show here in Torbeck was our best. We played at a large orphanage called Pwoje Espwa (project hope) for some 650 children and caretakers under a large metal airplane hangar structure that was full of church pews. The kids were fully engaged and there was great explosive laughter filling the space during much of the show. We clowns were as thrilled by the response as the kids were by the show.
We were a little concerned on Sunday as to where we were going to play today. Due to a little communication mix-up, Father Sadoni, our most wonderful host who has been organizing our shows, had nothing planned. He thought we were leaving today, and all the schools had let out for Christmas vacation. However a little networking and phone calling led us to Father Mark and Projet Espwa which he started some ten years ago. When we drove in, we were all immediately impressed by numerous buildings and surrounding facilities. We passed a series of garages in front of which were parked several very large solar ovens, where we found out later they bake all their bread.

From our opening musical procession to the big chase scene where little Elisa chases, and then gets chased by Brendon and Sarah on big stilts, the focus was absolute, and the children were eating every moment up with delight.
Yesterday’s shows, one for the St Paul school’s Christmas celebration, and for the local community right here in the rectory yard in the evening were good fun too. The St Paul show started as a celebration with the younger kindergarten children singing songs, and doing little dances for their parents. There were some 100 people present. Slowly however the neighborhood found there way over to the presentation. We enjoyed watching the cutest groups of little children in their Sunday best go up to sing. By the time it was our turn to go on, quite a crowd had gathered, some 3 to 400 people.
We have been playing with the neighborhood kids late afternoon and evening here in the yard of the rectory. We have been teaching juggling, stiltwalking and even a few clown routines. The children have been asking when we would be performing here. So by the time we performed last night they were quite ready. As can often happen in Haiti, the show at St Paul started later than planned, and with all the school presentations, it was pretty much dusk by the time that we got back to the rectory.
Pere Sadoni, ever resourceful, with just a handful of 40 watt energy saver bulbs created enough light for us to play, and we had a very nice show. We have learned so many things in our one week here in Torbeck, and that was just one of them. How much you can do with so little, and how much a little something can mean a lot. Tomorrow early we take the flight to Port au Prince where we will be active for the next week. Tim Cunningham who arrived there today will be joining us. He will replace me in the show, and Pere Fanfan has set up a whole program of shows for us to play. I will take my solo show to a different set of spots to perform. Mariavittoria, the child protection officer with Unicef, has arrange for me to perform in a number of the organizations they partner with including a girl’s prison and a home for young adults with HIV.
Like many big cities around the world, there has been extensive migration from the countryside to the urban areas. Tensions run high in Port au Prince I am told, and no doubt we clowns will encounter a whole new set of experiences. We took this afternoon off figuring that we have been working hard all week, and will no doubt be doing the same. I wish I could be posting more photos of the show, but there just haven’t been opportunities to take out the camera. There really isn’t a way to get the camera out without stealing focus from the show. However we took a walk to the beach late this afternoon, and we were rewarded with a most beautiful sunset.
Moshe

Torbeck, December 15th - Sarah

This morning we visit the children’s ward of the general hospital in Les Cayes. The term “ward” is kind of an exaggeration - the entire hospital is one long T-shaped room, and the children’s area is the short top of the T. There are about eight crib-like beds lining each wall, close together. Most of the beds contain very small, sick children, and next to the beds are a lot of mothers, one or two fathers, a bunch of siblings and a few nurses.

In Haiti, many people are afraid of going to hospitals because they associate them with death. Often, because of this fear or from lack of money or a combination of these things, people put off going to the hospital until their illness progresses to a point at which it’s difficult to treat. And even if you go to a hospital, you have to pay for all of your own food and medical supplies, so there are people in hospitals who are starving, not being treated because they cannot buy the medicine.

Everywhere we go in Haiti, people ask us for food, money, dolls, games, presents. Partly because they are hungry and have very little. Partly because white visitors in Haiti often do hand out food, money and presents. Partly because of millions of complicated reasons I don’t fully understand and can’t fit in a reasonably-lengthed blog entry. As we travel through Haiti I feel like many people we meet have some resentment towards us (because we come from such a privileged country? Because of all our country and our ancestors have done to put Haiti in the state it’s in today? Or is the resentment an illusion created by my white privileged guilt?) I feel the need to be constantly “on” and playful in order to redirect these interactions of asking and refusing, turning them into exchanges of culture and laughter, winning people over. There is sometimes a big barrier to cross in order for the interaction to be mainly person to person, and not all American to Haitian, rich to poor, white to black …

We are visiting the hospital to bring people a little laughter and relief, and want to avoid as much as possible having to say no to requests for food, money, the clothes we are wearing. In preparation for the visit we tone down our costumes: people we meet might ask us to give them any extra layers we are wearing, or any item of clothing that looks fancy, like the fluffy blue skirt I usually wear in the shows. We carry no money, and only props that can fit in our pockets, plus some quiet musical instruments. What we are prepared to give today is music, and play, and funny – that’s all. It is a weird process. We are steeling ourselves in preparation for encountering intense suffering and need.

We enter the room very quietly blowing bubbles, Moshe strumming the ukelele. We move down the room in pairs, playing softly, watching for a smile or a nod, waiting to be invited in to play more. Some of the mothers start to laugh and ask us to dance. Brendon and I try our hand at a popular Haitian style of dance, the konpa. More laughs. A tiny child in a bed waves a fist and Brendon waves back at it, plays peek-a-boo. The baby has light skin and reddish hair, signs of malnutrition. Moshe and Brendon team up playing chords on mandolin and ukelele while Elisa and I do a comic dance. The room is friendly – a crowd starts to gather at the joint of the T. Moshe and I do a couple of magic tricks. Elisa and Brendon sing to a quiet child at the end of the room, whose mother says is going to die. A woman tells Moshe a dirty joke in French and all of the adults laugh.

We exit with a song and dance, waving good-bye at the door. Two women did ask me for money. It seemed like a common problem right now is that no one can afford soap, and they want to wash. But there has been some joy, laughter and relief in the room. It feels like on the whole we were received not so much as rich Americans as as silly human beings.

In the afternoon we have a show for a youth group in Les Cayes. We have been finding time every day between shows and workshops to rehearse and re-rehearse, and each time we do the show we find more in our character relationships that make the moments really pop. Brendon’s character has turned into a cool hipster who plays well with Elisa’s firecracker enthusiasm … I am sharp and nasal in contrast to Moshe’s soft goofiness. This is our best show yet, and what starts as a modest audience grows into a crowd as more and more people come into the courtyard from the street to watch throughout the show. Although we are dusty, hot and tired, the mood is high as we ride home through the darkening streets.

Sarah Liane Foster

Torbeck Dec 15th Elisa

As clowns we must live a contradiction during our stay in Haiti.  The work of the clown is about sensitivity and openness but at the same time I find we have to shut down emotionally in order to sustain our two-week expedition.  A mother asking me to take her child home and another mother telling me her baby girl is going to die doesn’t affect me like it would in another place and time.  Haiti is my lesson in human adaptability.  I’m amazed at how my clown partners and I are able to act stupid and dance wildly on two show days in the severe heat and culture shock.  I’m even more amazed by the Haitians we met who are able to laugh with us when they don’t have money to clean their clothes or feed their babies.  I’m learning that laughter is hope.  Sometimes, I admit, I’ve been a little skeptical about our work as clowns.  But today, in the pediatrics’ ward of a hospital, I witnessed a sparkle of hope in a mother’s eye as we sang her and her daughter Lean On Me.

Elisa

A few photos from yesterday’s show

Torback Dec 14th

The hurricane overcast skies have dissipated to reveal clear blue sky day.  A two show morning for two elementary schools, the first Saint Sauveur in Les Cayes, the second for the Saint Paul school nearby here in Torbeck. More than 200 kids at each of the shows,  all of them in uniform. They are thrilled, and so are we as the show has coalesced into a more solid unit. We have started to identify a bit more just what makes these kids funny bones tick.

Squeals of laughter when I ask my young volunteer in the sponge ball magic routine to make a magic face. He imitates my big teeth exagerated grin, and all his little schoolmates are loving it. Then they squeel in delight when I pull the mini harmonica out of his ear and a whole multitude of red sponge balls jump out of his hand as he opens it. Big laughs for the slapstick of a chase scene as Elisa chases Sarah and Brendon who are both on stilts.  Many more moments but my  energy has been drained by performing in the full sun of the morning the first show.  Luckily the second show there is a big big tree in the front of the school, and although the ground is dirt, uneven and full of pebbles and small rocks, there is enough shade to allow for a large semi-circle for all the kids, and for us as well.

It is evening now, kids are playing in the rectory yard outside, and just outside the open window there is a tutorial class going for an advanced electrical circuitry class.  I hear the man’s voice talking about resistances, motors, generators, volts and circuits. Practical stuff as I hear the generator in the backyard powering us up.

Tomorrow we will go to the main hospital in Les Cayes in the morning for a visit.  it is a hard place Sarah explained to me yesterday. She visited it last year.  A lot of people are in rough shape.  The patients have to buy their own everything, medicine, drips, whatever is needed. That eliminates a lot of the population from what I understand.  But I haven’t been there, and i will no doubt find out a lot more.  We will go armed with a ukulele, a mandolin, a bunch of bubbles, small tricks, love, and a lot of humor which we will keep in reserve offering it up to those who are wishing to receive.

It