30th June 2009

I had so much fun today!

We have our Sports Day on Sunday, and one of the sports the children are competing in is Gymnastics. So we invited the Lalibela Circus to come and work with the students, to encourage them to practice and to give them some tips. Yes, you read that right. The Lalibela Circus. Nearly every big town in Lalibela has a circus, apparently, and there are Regional and National competitions, too. Of course, before I moved here, if anyone had asked me whether Circus was big in Ethiopia, I would have laughed, but it’s really popular.

I first realised this in Addis when walking along Bole Road last October. Suddenly, I could hear music, which is not unusual as many cars drive round promoting films or conferences at an ear splitting volume, but then I thought I could see two people walking along the road on stilts. I had clearly had too much sun and was hallucinating. But no, as they came closer, I realised that there actually were two people walking along the road on stilts – followed by people doing forward rolls and backflips and leaps and all kinds of things. They were all followed by a big car with two booming speakers on the back.

Lalibela Circus doesn’t quite have all that (I haven’t seen them walk on stilts, for a start), but it has a band of around 10 incredibly talented people aged from around 13 years old, I would guess, to mid twenties. They do all kinds of flips and jumps and acrobatics, but they also do drama and sketches to teach people about HIV and Aids, and other traditional practices considered harmful (such as child marriage).

They also create human pyramids! When they came a few months ago and did a display for the children of our school and the nearest government school, and the local community, there were many grown men with their hands over their eyes as one girl climbed up three people to do a handstand at the top of the pyramid!

This time they did do a little display, but mostly they worked with our children. We were slightly late arriving (as usual) so it was a bit frantic trying to set up, and then we noticed that loads of other people – adults and children – were walking over to our school and settling down to watch the show. A and I soon realised the government school were holding their Parents Day celebration, and everyone had decided what we were doing was a lot more interesting so they wandered over. Oops! We tried to dissuade people, but gave up eventually and just stuck Ab on crowd control duties.

The Circus set up their mats in the compound and Grade 2 were bought forward to have a go. I was proud that quite a few students had a go, even if they could only manage a front roll, and we saw some students do some really exciting acrobatics. Some children were very shy and content to watch, no matter how much we tried to encourage them. I guess it’s a little intimidating to have your whole community watching you as you attempt to do something you’ve never even seen before.

This kind of activity can also be especially problematic for the girls, who are wearing dresses and risk all kinds of modesty mishaps while hanging upside down. Some put trousers on underneath their dresses, which offers them some protection. We do have some athletic kit for them to wear for Sports Day though – just normal trousers and tops donated from a school in Scotland, but it means they can take a full part in the gymnastics without worrying.

Of course, as so often happens, when Grade 1 were allowed to have their go, we had to fight to keep them back! The two Grade 1 teachers were stationed either sides of the mats to give students a quick swish of a stick as they got too far forward in their excitement. (yes, yes, we shall talk about the whole stick swishing stuff at some point …)

Not all students could back up their enthusiasm with the skills required and there were some very funny moments as children skidded off the mats or got themselves in a tangle of arms and legs. One particular boy was struggling with a backwards roll so one of the boys from the circus lifted his legs to help him over. Except the student decided that this was his cue to take his hands off of the floor, leaving the Circus guy supporting his whole weight by his ankles!

Nobody was hurt, though, and I must confess to spending a few moments during the sessions thinking ‘hmmm – can you imagine the risk assessment I would have done for this back home …!’

It was very clear that the children had gained skills from the Circus lesson, but the really great thing was that as we drove away, circus mats and instructors piled into the back of the car, the students who had finished their lessons for the day were still around, practicing forward rolls and handstands and all sorts. That was the aim of the game!