Saturday, August 7, 2010

clowning in iquitos

oh my, it´s only the 4th day and I am exhuasted. Day 2 was a clown parade through the shit and trash filled streets of Belen. Day 2 we started with the dance, music, and art workshops, house painting, and clowning. So far we have been to an orphanage, market, a home for pregnant teen-agers and their babies, a home for children with HIV, an adult mental institution, and a couple other places for children. (Day 3 and 4 were more workshops, painting, and clowning which is the norm schedule)

One night I got to have dinner with Patch and 3 other clowns, which was great. At some point I thought of the old question: if you could have dinner with anyone in the past or present, who would it be? Wow, how fortunate am I to be able to fulfill the possibility of such a questio! Of course if I could pick someone out of fiction, it would probably be Zorba the Greek, who Patch and I talked about while painting a house. We also discussed how until this year no medical school in the world has taught a course on compassion--what should be the most fundamental aspect of being a doctor or healer. He has challenged medical schools in 68 countries and only one--a university in Lima--has taken him up on the challenge, so he will be helping develop the course. We also talked about a community he recently visited in Portugal called Tamera, who has been intentionally living life in a communal way and experimenting in living without jealousy for 40 years. cooooooool.

Last night we did karaoke, which was of couse hilarious. They have both english and spanish songs with words---the only problem with the english is that they don´t have the actual music, just a cheesy keyboard/synthesizer thing. So needless to say, singing Born to be Wild is just not the same without the psychedelic music behind it...I also sang Pappa Don´t Preach.

in short: making lots of good friends. Sweating lots. Eating lots of fried bananas and drinking amazing jungle juices like cocona and passionfruit. That´s it for now! xo Ro

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