Laughter is a great work out too! You know the feeling when you laugh so much it hurts your facial and stomach muscles?
Let laughter be part of your daily physical, mental and emotional exercise regime and feel the endorphins racing through your blood. The matron at the Tuberculosis hospital in Matatiele, where we performed last Tuesday, said “It is good for the patients to laugh - it exercises the lungs”.
Matatiele has a touch of magic. Whether that has something to do with the snowy mountain range that surrounds it or the fact that it is the hometown of our very own clown, Sbo. One thing is for sure – our partner there was an amazingly committed organisation called Petals Day Care Centre. It is a pleasure to work with such an organisation as it makes our work so much richer and efficient. Tapping into their extensive network enabled us to bring laugher and joy to some very rural and impoverished areas.
The drive to schools on Wednesday was spectacular (see photo). It was a long dirt road, with the mountains of Lesotho on the horizon - their tops painted white with snow. It is the drive that Sbo and I will take every day next week when we return to facilitate our ten-day Njabulo intervention programme. As we got deeper into the rural areas, I began to recognise the classic image of Eastern Cape life – the scattering of turquoise rondavels amongst vast open space and sky. Compared to Kokstad, the schools were small and simple; a few buildings, a grassy space and under a thousand children. The teachers and children watched the show with wide eyes and smiles. It is even clearer that they have never seen anything quite like a clown show before! Once it was clear that we weren’t serious actors with a serious message, and instead clowns with a license to thrill and be silly, the laughter flowed freely and thoroughly at our expense!
Matatiele has a touch of magic. Whether that has something to do with the snowy mountain range that surrounds it or the fact that it is the hometown of our very own clown, Sbo. One thing is for sure – our partner there was an amazingly committed organisation called Petals Day Care Centre. It is a pleasure to work with such an organisation as it makes our work so much richer and efficient. Tapping into their extensive network enabled us to bring laugher and joy to some very rural and impoverished areas.
The drive to schools on Wednesday was spectacular (see photo). It was a long dirt road, with the mountains of Lesotho on the horizon - their tops painted white with snow. It is the drive that Sbo and I will take every day next week when we return to facilitate our ten-day Njabulo intervention programme. As we got deeper into the rural areas, I began to recognise the classic image of Eastern Cape life – the scattering of turquoise rondavels amongst vast open space and sky. Compared to Kokstad, the schools were small and simple; a few buildings, a grassy space and under a thousand children. The teachers and children watched the show with wide eyes and smiles. It is even clearer that they have never seen anything quite like a clown show before! Once it was clear that we weren’t serious actors with a serious message, and instead clowns with a license to thrill and be silly, the laughter flowed freely and thoroughly at our expense!