Our show Amaphupho Akho, or Life Dreams, has routines with doctors, hairdressers, cleaners, detectives and more. It is sprinkled with magic tricks, juggling and dancing. So far, the children (and teachers) are loving it! Sipho and Sabee make the craziest doctors, and Sbo whips up the crowd with her amazing juggling skills. If I had to choose two words to describe our shows so far they would be: hilariously chaotic. And I mean that in the best possible way! These children have clearly never experienced anything like this before and their excitement is contagious and at times, explosive! It is important within a clown show to have a strategy for crowd control, especially when we are performing to audiences of over 1000 excited school children. We take our noses off and address the situation before someone gets hurt. If we have our noses on, we are still clowns and therefore not taken seriously! Then the show can go on. As clowns, we are not there to bring tears. We are there to lift spirits and, through laughter, take each audience member out of the stresses and troubles of their lives, if only for a moment.
It is always deeply moving and humbling to hear testimonies of this. After a show yesterday, the principal shared with us the story of the young boy we had chosen as a volunteer for the Umlingo routine. He was probably 8 years old and HIV positive. The principal told us about how recently he has been very sick, with splitting headaches and poor vision. He did not attend school last week as a result. When he came to school yesterday he was suffering from another terrible headache. Unknowingly, we chose him to be the volunteer for a routine and although he was withdrawn at first, he warmed up and began to enjoy himself - even making us look like the fools that we are! After the show, the principal asked how he was feeling now. His headache was gone and he bounced away happily.
Warm hugs from a frozen Banana.