As I quickly approach the end of my expedition, some adventures are coming to end and some are just beginning. Thanks to the help of organizations like Jakarta International School’s Tolong Anak-Anak and Yayasan Emannuel’s Water Program, I’ve been able to work with such a large variety of students from villages, schools and outreach programs all across Jakarta.
This week started out with the performance with the Cilincing kids in the kampung of Tanjung Priok. I was very excited about this show because I felt like it was a great way to reward these kids for all their hard work, and it was also a great way to wrap up our project in this neighborhood. I picked up 2 buses from Jakarta International School around 8am and began the hike to Cilincing. When I got in the bus, I realized that they had TV screens with a DVD player. I had the drivers swing by my house on the way up and I picked up a few circus videos that I’d brought with me. When I arrived at Cilincing there was a sea of red shirts waiting in front of the kampung. As the buses pulled in, all the kids began to jump up and down shouting with glee. One of the moth
ers told me that the girls didn’t sleep until 11pm the night before and that they were up at 6am, showering and ironing their t-shirts and clown pants so they’d be ready when I got there at 11am! It was great to see all the kids at one time again. So often during the course of lessons the kids would have to miss class because their school schedule continuously changes. We loaded into the buses and I had the videos already playing. The kids were so excited that there were TV’s inside the bus. We drove to Tanjung Priok which was about a thirty minute drive and arrived to several hundred people, eagerly awaiting our arrival. The YE staff was already there and had just finished their Earth Day event, where they planted tree and plants, and taught the community about important ways of taking care of their environment.
We roped off a stage area and started to prepare for the show. I quickly put on my clown gear and gathered the kids in a circle. A few of the girls were very nervous and pulled me away from the circle to ask me a question, “What if we mess up and they laugh at us?” I replied, “If you drop, pick it up and try again. If they laugh, that’s great because you’re clowns! You want the audience to laugh at you.” I watched the girls faces as they processed my answer. “Are you sure kak Dan?” “I’m sure,” I replied and smiles came back to their nervous faces and we joined the circle. I taught the kids a ritual that one of my professors in college would tell us before the show. “Bagus, aman, senang ‘tunjucan!” Good, Safe, Fun show! We said it three times, the first whispering and the last yelling! Then I hit play on the iPod and began the show.
The show was a combination of my show, with their acts from the WWW intermingled in between each of my acts. The audience had a blast and more importantly, the kids were lit up like stars in the sky. The same girls who wouldn’t participate in lessons if the boys were in the room were now running to center ring to show a crowd of around 250 strangers their tricks they learned. And, they weren’t just doing the tricks but they were performing! Smiling, styling, laughing and making the audience laugh with them. It was such a beautiful moment for me as their teacher that it was difficult for me to control my emotions and not tear up a little. What a cool experience! After the show we all came back out on stage and did one final group tada and the audience went wild.
After the crowd had dispersed and the kids had loaded the equipment into the buses, I gathered everyone in a circle again. I thanked the kids from the bottom of my heart for joining the lessons and for helping share their love and joy for circus with the village of Tanjung Priok. I told them that this would be our last meeting until next year, and that I hoped they’d continue to practice their juggling and other circus skills while I was gone. A few of the girls started to tear up a little bit and I told them they didn’t have to be said. They could use our circus experience together to help feel good. They’d now always have these great memories of learning, laughing and performing together and nothing could ever take that away. The kids came around and shook my hand, touched it to their cheek, head, chin or lips and then we loaded back into the buses to return home.
When we got back to Cilincing, the rest of their families were all waiting for the children’s arrival. They all ran out of the buses shouting things like, “there were so many people in the audience”, “it was so much fun”, and “The Buses have TV’s in them!!!” I thanked the ibus and bapaks of the village for allowing me to teach their children and said, “Sampai tahun depan” See ya next year!
Monday was my last day with the Rawamangun children. Instead of having the kids come to JIS to have another lesson, I thought it would be a nice ending if I came to their kampung and performed a show for their whole community. And since these children were just a little bit to young to try and organize a show, it worked out great as a finale! When I arrived at Rawamangun with two JIS students from Circus club, who’d been helping teach these kids along with me, 40 plus children greeted us. I recognized some of the kids and hadn’t yet met many of them. We were invited into the home of an retired JIS Indonesian employee who lived in front of the kampung and was the JIS’s point person for working with these kids. We drank raspberry tea and I explained to her husband how I’d like the event to happen. All I need was an electrical socket and a carpet to perform on. After our tea, I suited up and headed out to the street. All of the kids who were waiting in the driveway of the house laughed and screamed at me and then followed to the community badminton court. It was about a five-minute walk, and the number of children and adults following doubled if not tripled. I hooked up the stereo and we began the show.
As I was performing, people walking by joined the crowd to see what was going on. Not only was there loud music playing, but there was an expat clown performing in their village. After the show, we took lots of pictures together and then circled up. The kids had a few songs that they wanted to sing for us and afterwards one of the moms pulled me aside and told me that here son and daughter had prepared a special song to sing to me. The daughter because to shy to sing in front of such a large crowd but the boy sang a beautiful song in English called “Thank you, my teacher”. It was such a sweet moment.
We then followed the kids back to their kampung so that all the kids could show us their houses. To get to the kampung, we had to climb a ladder over a wall. I tried to figure out why there was a door or gate to get back into the village but no one could give me an answer.
The kampung was possibly the worst living conditions I’ve seen all year. The houses were all connected under tin scrap roofing with very little sunlight able to get through. And since there were only a few light bulbs supplying light, it was very dark. We walked through the village and the kids introduced me to their uncles and aunts and showed me were they slept, and watched tv and did their homework. When we came out from the housing unit, I realized why there was not entrance into their village. They were living in the back yard of a lumber plant. I’m not sure if they were squatting or actually renting the land. A few of the children had houses outside the kampung, so we climbed back of the wall and and walked to their houses. By this point, it was getting dark and the two JIS kids that were with me were in the middle of IB Mock Exams, so we headed back to south Jakarta.
Tuesday I traveled to Pulo Kandung, a village in northeast Jakarta. Pulo Kandung is another community that Yayasan Emmanuel works with. When we arrived to Pulo Kandung, the village was much different than others I’d visited. The entire kampung was built up about five feet off the ground. The boardwalks between houses consisted of any kind of scrap wood they could find. Even though this community is built on stilts, they still suffer from bad floods and continuously have to repair their flooring. When I walked to the edge of the boardwalk and looked over the side, the green bushes were filled with trash, playing cards and clothing that had fallen from the drying racks. Mita, the YE point person, explained to me that when the area floods, the trash all rises and flows into their homes and community areas.
After walking through the kampung and taking a few pictures of kids hanging around, I was showed to my performance and lesson space. My performance space was the community musholla and as I arrived, an event was just finishing. I have often taught in mushollas, but had yet to perform in one. I realized that I would be wearing clown shows for my show, and it is disrespectful to wear shoes in a religious building. I found the head of the mosque and explained to him what I was doing, and asked him if it would be okay to wear the shoes inside. He hesitated for a moment before I pulled the shoes out of my trunk, then he started laughing. “You’re going to wear those?!?” He said that if I cleaned the soles of the shoes first, it would be fine. So I cleaned them, and then set up for the show.
By the time I’d finished setting up, a crowd of around 50 had gathered. As I was passing out clown noses, I realized that there were no men in the musholla, but instead they were gathered around the doorways and looking through the windows. I invited them to come in, but they preferred to stay outside. After everyone had a clown nose and was ready for me to start, I began. The kids and women loved the show, and I even caught a few of the men laughing from outside the room.
After the show we broke up into three groups and learned spinning plates, scarves and flower sticks. It was interesting in this village how involved the mothers were in the learning process. They wanted to play just as much as the kids and they were very helpful with assisting the younger ones when they didn’t get it right away. After about an hour of workshop, we packed up and headed on, leaving behind us a village full of smiling and giggling boys, girls, women and men.
Wednesday morning we went to a village called, Bintaro Baru. On the way south to Bintaro, Mita asked me if I was comfortable working with the kids on my own, because she had other things she needed to do. She explained that she’d have her cell phone in case there was a problem, and that put me at ease. A problem that often happens in some of the more rural villages is less a problem with the children, but with the Ibu’s(adult women) pushing and shoving and not really listening to directions. Luckily at this village there were none of those problems.
There were about twenty kids when I arrived and we pulled a carpet in middle of the outdoor living room. I decided to perform on the edge of the street, because I was sure that would attract attention from passers by. And today, there were plenty of people. It was the last day that the government was supplementing oil for this village. So everyone was lined up, with large buckets and oil tanks, tying them all to a string, and then pushing them down the rope like an assembly line. I ask why this was they last day, and was told, “we don’t know. For years they’ve come every month, but now, they won’t return.” The people were very concerned how they were going to afford this oil at regular price, and how they’d do without it.
I could tell the kids were getting antsy waiting for me, and the loud music had already drawn a crowd of nearly a hundred. So I decided to start. I preformed the show, balancing things from around the village on my chin. I expected the show to be less received than others because of the stress in the air, but it was almost the opposite of what I expected. The adults were laughing and screaming just as loudly as the children and when I finished it was difficult for me to explain to the adults and teenagers, that I only had enough equipment for the twenty kids to play. The workshops went great and many of the older audience stayed to enjoy the laughter coming from the circus area. After we finished I thanked the kids and headed back to Pondok Indah to teach the JIS kids Circus Club.
Thursday morning I woke and boarded a JIS bus to head out to their elementary school on the other side of town. It was important for me to perform at this school for many reasons. Mainly because I wanted to show all these children that there were many different ways to give back to our society and that believe it or not, there are also many different career opportunities that kids just like them (me) can do and be successful. The show was a wonderful success and I was glad to make the connection with the Principal and Vice Principal of this school. After the show, the Vice Principal took me across the street to a low income Indonesian high school that they often work with. I sat down in the head masters office and tried to explain what it was I was offering and that I was only asking for a place to perform and an audience. When he realized we weren’t asking for money, he was very excited and scheduled me to perform there next week!
Thursday afternoon, I picked up my two IB theater clowns that have been working a lot with me, and we drove out to Jakarta’s Central Cancer Hospital, Dharmais. I tried to warn the two high school seniors what it would be like inside the hospital. How important it was to be aware and respectful, and that if a kid didn’t laugh, that didn’t mean they weren’t funny. Maybe the kid didn’t feel like laughing, maybe they were enjoying just watching but they were in to much pain to laugh.
Once we got inside and started going into the rooms, I think the HS kids understood what I was talking about. They followed my lead very closely and made a few really great moments. There was one point in one of the rooms that absolutely broke my heart. If the kids weren’t too sick to sit up, I would let them hold a spinning plate stick and I’d help them spin it. After I helped one of the boys, he was so excited and couldn’t stop talking about the other kids at his house. He kept asking me, “Om, Kamu bisa ke rumah saya? Ada banyak anak disana juga. Tolong dateng ke rumah saya.” (Uncle, can you come to my house? There are lots of children there too. Please come to my house.) I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to tell him yes, and then never show up, and I didn’t want to tell him no and hurt his feelings. This boy was so ill, it didn’t seem like he was going home himself, and it felt like his insistence on inviting me to his house was a way for him to be home in his head. I told him that I’d love to come to his house, but that I had to go back to my house in America in just a few days, so I wouldn’t be able to make it this trip. But I told him, when he sees all those kids at home, he should tell them stories all about the clowns at the hospital, so they can enjoy this experience too. After about 45 minutes the rooms, it was time for us to leave. I ask the two students what their experience was like, and they were so happy to have been a part of this visit. I was glad they had been a part of it too.
Friday morning I drove north again with Yayasan Emmanuel to the village of Teluk Gong. It was a very hot day and when we opened the car door, the putrid smell of human waste rose from the river in front of the kampung. One of the YE team members could see the look on my face, and pointed to a platform over the river with two half-wall stalls. “Those are their public toilets for the entire kampung. There is no running water or sewage in any of the homes.” I took a closer look at the platforms and they were simply holes, in which the waste went directly into the river below. The team showed me to the home that I’d be performing in. The venue was a storefront and a space about 2 meters by 3 meters had been cleared for me to perform in.
All the kids gathered around and put on their clown noses. They all enjoyed the show. However, the girls did not want to participate in the workshop. I couldn’t figure out if it was because they were embarrassed to play in front of the boys, or if they were just simply not interested. When the workshop was over, the girls came up to me and ask if they could show their dance that they’d been working on. We found a cd player and let the girls perform their dance. It’s funny how these girls chose to use the same popular song, “I think I’m Sexy” by Indonesian equivalent to Fergie or Britney Spears. Their dance was a replica of the music video and seemed mildly inappropriate for pre teenage girls to be doing in such a conservative culture. But, the mom’s were all watching and clapping and thought it was great.
Saturday was our JIS and OMC circus day. Last week, I gave all the kids CWB t-shirts and sure enough, today all the OMC kids were wearing their shirts. We practiced group and partner activities today. Instead of juggling alone in the corner, I urged kids to juggle in partners or practice stealing. The kids working on diablos worked on passing with a group and the plate spinners started putting together a routine. This was our last practice before the JIS Spring Fair where the kids would have their final performance. I tried to express how important it was that no one stress about this performance. I explained to them much like I did to the Cilincing children, we’ve worked hard and learned a skill, and now it’s our turn to share this skill with this audience. As long as we have fun sharing it, they’ll have fun receiving it. The kids were all excited as we put together our finale act of partner acrobatics and group pyramids.
Another finish to another great week. It’s hard to believe that next week will be my last! I’m already beginning to create plans for another trip next year.
Hidung Merah Circus Logo created by Maybelline Chow
My final week in Jakarta was filled with new ventures and culminating events. My time in Jakarta flew by so quickly, it’s hard to believe that I’ve been here for 10 weeks!
I started out the week by performing for an Indonesian high school called, SMA 82. I was introduced to this school by the vice principal of JIS Pattimura Elementary school last week. I arrived at the school about 20 minutes before my performance time. As soon as I arrived, it started pouring down rain. Which posed a slight problem, because my performance space was the open-air courtyard. The English teacher showed me a few different spaces that I could use indoors. We decided that the library/multi purpose room was the best place to set up. Around the time the show was about to start, I started looking around and all the students were still in class. I walked over to the teacher’s lounge where they informed me that they started exams late, so they’d be about another hour. I sat down in the teacher’s office and chatted with some of the teachers about what I was doing in Jakarta my plans to come back next year.
When it was getting closer to the actual dismissal time, I made my way back to the performance space and turned on the circus music to draw the crowd. It was a difficult place to collect audience, because I was performing after school and the students were eager to leave. It didn’t take long for me to attract attention when I walked out of the library and into the courtyard with all the students. I was greeted with the usual, “Badut!!” and “Mr. Bule!!”(“Clown!” and “Foreigner!”). After a few minutes of goofing around in front of the library and through the halls of the school, I decided that it was time to start the show!
A group of around 75 students had gathered in the library. I hadn’t realized however that the ceiling in the library was leaking. So the students were gathering around puddles of water to watch the show. I tried to start with my usual gag, “come close to the stage. Ah! Too close, back up!” shtick, but these guys weren’t having it. The first time I asked them to back up, one of the girls looked at me and said, “Basa tau!” (The floor is wet, you know!) I realized this bit wouldn’t work today and skipped on to my introduction. I talked about my project and what I was doing, where I was from. I also explained to the kids that I’d be returning to Jakarta in the spring would be happy to teach at their school so they can join me reaching out to their communities at risk and in need. Many of the students looked very interested.
After the show, I thanked everyone for their time and a large group of students stayed back to talk with me. They wanted to know more about the project. One of the kids asked me, “Why are you doing this?” It occurred to me that in a society where people are struggling to make a living and climb out from underneath the choke hold of poverty, social work and outreach is not a common career. It was at this point that I realized that, in fact my ability to work in this field was a gift from the background that I come from. I didn’t go into the details of my new understanding with the 16 year old. I did however explain to him, “Terima Kasih.” In Indonesian this phrase means thank you. However, literally it means receive and give. I told him that I had received a lot from Indonesia as a child growing up there. I believe that Indonesia played a big role in sculpting part of whom I am and it was my turn to give back. The group of 10 or so teenagers didn’t say anything after I finished explaining this to them. After a brief moment of silence, where the students were seemingly deciding whether or not to buy into my philosophy of terima kasih, one of the girls spoke up. “Can we really come and teach with you in the villages?” I said, “Of course, next year when I come back, if ya’ll are still interested, I can come here for a few weeks after school and teach you circus, then you can come with me to different parts of the city to perform and teach.” This proclamation cause an eruption of chatter between the teens and they all seemed very excited for the spring to come quickly.
Tuesday, I made my way to a very small four-room schoolhouse called, SD Unwanul. This was a school that was kept open due to the help of Yayasan Emmanuel. When I arrived at the school, the gates were closed and locked and it was a hot afternoon. During the five minutes I waited at outside for the head tutor to get there, I was already drenched in sweat.
The woman arrived with a key and opened one of the classrooms. Inside the room was a little bit cooler, simply because it was out of the sun and there was a small oscillating fan in the corner. Shortly after we sat down and I explained how I’d like things to work, children started arriving. The kids were all very excited and the majority of them brought along with them at least one sibling. I decided to flip things around today, and teach the workshop first, because there seemed to be a consistent flow of new kids. We broke up into three groups and the kids began to play. The small classroom quickly became too small to accommodate everyone, so I had the plate spinners and flower stickers move out side, and the scarf jugglers stayed inside. We played loud circus music and laughed as loud as we could. Some kids decided they were less interested in learning circus skills and more interested in dancing. I thought that was great!
After the group of 20 turned into about 50, I decided to start the show. The kids had a blast and after the show, my contact at the school told me that she’d never seen all these kids laugh and smile so much all together at the same time. That made me feel great.
I spent Wednesday morning at the Immigrations office, renewing my visa. Even though I was almost ready to go home, my visa was up before I was to leave, so I had to spend the time to renew it. In the afternoon, I taught my last class at JIS. The students were all very excited about their show with the OMC kids on Saturday. We went over some of the acts that they’d be performing for the show and they went well. I reminded the nervous ones to just have fun.
Thursday I performed for the JIS Middle School. This performance was another way for me to thank JIS for all their support and also a treat for me. I was a student at JIS starting in my middle school grades and many of the teachers that taught me, were still around. I also wanted to raise awareness of the need to give back to our communities. The show was a blast with nearly 600 laughing and screaming kids.
Friday was a busy day. JIS arranged for a bus to pick me up at my house in the morning and drive me to Bogor, a town south of Jakarta. In Bogor I met with another JIS Alumni named Emmanuel. After graduating from JIS in 1996, Emmanuel chose to forego a university education and open an orphanage for a group of children that he’d worked with as a JIS student. Since then, his organization has grown into 2 different orphanages, a water and food program, a tutoring program and a support system for almost 1,500 economic orphans. When I spoke with Emmanuel, he explained that in western Java, the majority of orphans are not biological orphans. Meaning, they still have one or both living parents. However they are sent away from their home to beg on the street or seek refuge at an orphanage because there family is unable to support them. Instead of housing these children in his orphanages, Emmanuel created a program to support them living in their own homes, giving them educational, medical and financial support.
Today I worked at his toddler orphanage and at one of his tutoring locations where many of the economic orphans attend. It’s always interesting “performing” for toddlers. We ended up just playing and laughing together. I showed the kids a few tricks and played a few of my gags on some of the older kids, who’d come from the other orphanage to help out with the little ones. After the improvised “show”, we pulled some of the juggling stuff and played. I had all the kids stand in a circle and I ran around and spun plates and let them hold them sticks. We played games like, scarf costumes, where the kids used the juggling scarf to make a costume and character, like bank robber or cowboy.
After a few hours at the toddler orphanage, we drove to SDN Sukasari. This was another small schoolhouse, a little larger than the school on Tuesday. Emmanuel and a few others took all the kids in two classrooms and worked with them on their English and Math while I set up outside in the courtyard. I handed out clown noses to all the kids and they had a blast learning the English words for them as well as taking turns with their friends, putting the nose on, and then laughing hysterically at each other. The loud music and foreign face wearing a red nose and “sepatu bebek” (duck shoes) attracted a crowd from the street to join the courtyard and watch the show. I tried to get the group of kids from the street to join and sit in one group with the rest of the kids, but they weren’t having it.
After the show we pulled all the circus stuff out of the trunk and I set them free to learn and play together. Some of the kids were having a very difficult time juggling, while some of them were getting it on their first or second try. I tried to extinguish any hard feelings by telling the kids about when I learned how to juggle. “It took me weeks, literally weeks, to learn how to juggle. But I didn’t give up, and now I can juggle anything u put in my hands.” One of the kids jumped up and quickly handed me three sandals. After I juggled the sandals, everyone applauded and them continued practicing. When it was time to go, I thanked everyone for their participation and loaded up on the JIS Bus to head home.
Saturday was my last day of the project and it was certainly filled to the brim. In the morning we had a show at JIS with the One more chance students and the JIS circus club students. It was JIS’s big spring fair and it was hot and humid outside. Because of the big event, the traffic patterns were all jumbled around and I wasn’t able to drive up to the school in my car to unload all the gear. Luckily, I got a hold of some of the kids and they all met me at the drop zone and carried all the stuff to the performance space. There had been a special stage set up for us, however it was a 4X8 platform with a pavilion over it. When all the kids saw they stage, the started to freak out because there was no way twenty kids could perform together in this space. I sent one of the JIS kids on a mission to find a few wooden stakes and some string to rope off a performance space in front of the stage and I had the kids lay out all the props on the platform so that they would be easy to grab.
After the stage was set up and the props were organized we all sat in a circle and talked about how the show was going to look. While the kids had been practicing their acts for a few weeks, it was a rare occasion to have all the students from both groups in the same practice space since the first day. After we came up with a show order, I reminded the kids that this was a culmination of our class and that all they had to do was go out on stage, and show everybody how much fun they’d had learning these skills. If they could do that, the show would be a success. And, it was a success! I started out with some of my loud shtick to attract an audience, and then I balanced the ladder on my chin so that people that couldn’t hear me could see this ladder swinging around in the air and come over to check it out. After there was a decent size audience, I turned the show over to the kids and they had a blast. They worked together and created a show for an audience that was thrilled to watch them perform.
When the show was finished, I spoke to the OMC kids about next year. I asked them if this was something that they were interested in continuing next year, and they said they were very interested. They were also very interested in coming with me to some of the kampungs to help teach the younger children. I told them that we would definitely work a way out in the spring for them to join me on some of my trips around the city. We said our good byes and I head to my next show.
I went out to a village southwest of Jakarta called Pamulang. I have a friend who lives in a complex behind this village and she asked if I was interested in performing for those kids. And, of course my answer was yes, so she picked me up in a van and we drove out to and set up the show. Our original plan was to perform in the field in the middle of the village, however the rain had a different plan for us. Another one of the community members that lived in the complex behind the village suggested that we perform in her front yard. It was all covered from the rain and she had electricity for my boom box. We all rain to her house in the rain and I set up in the driveway. The kids had been waiting for hours now, because of the traffic slowing my arrival and the rain delaying our start. So, they were very excited and ready to start the show. The show attracted people on the street to gather around the entrance to the driveway with umbrellas to watch the action.
After the show, I asked the kids if any of them would be interested in participating in a workshop. Almost every single boy jumped up and gathered in three groups as requested. I noticed that very few of the girls were going to participate, but I chose to not make a big deal about it, hoping that they’d join in after they realized there was no threat of being laughed at. Sure enough, about ten minutes after the boys began to play, the girls started taking turns and playing as well.
As I quickly approach the end of my expedition, some adventures are coming to end and some are just beginning. Thanks to the help of organizations like Jakarta International School’s Tolong Anak-Anak and Yayasan Emannuel’s Water Program, I’ve been able to work with such a large variety of students from villages, schools and outreach programs all across Jakarta.
This week started out with the performance with the Cilincing kids in the kampung of Tanjung Priok. I was very excited about this show because I felt like it was a great way to reward these kids for all their hard work, and it was also a great way to wrap up our project in this neighborhood. I picked up 2 buses from Jakarta International School around 8am and began the hike to Cilincing. When I got in the bus, I realized that they had TV screens with a DVD player. I had the drivers swing by my house on the way up and I picked up a few circus videos that I’d brought with me. When I arrived at Cilincing there was a sea of red shirts waiting in front of the kampung. As the buses pulled in, all the kids began to jump up and down shouting with glee. One of the moth
ers told me that the girls didn’t sleep until 11pm the night before and that they were up at 6am, showering and ironing their t-shirts and clown pants so they’d be ready when I got there at 11am! It was great to see all the kids at one time again. So often during the course of lessons the kids would have to miss class because their school schedule continuously changes. We loaded into the buses and I had the videos already playing. The kids were so excited that there were TV’s inside the bus. We drove to Tanjung Priok which was about a thirty minute drive and arrived to several hundred people, eagerly awaiting our arrival. The YE staff was already there and had just finished their Earth Day event, where they planted tree and plants, and taught the community about important ways of taking care of their environment.
We roped off a stage area and started to prepare for the show. I quickly put on my clown gear and gathered the kids in a circle. A few of the girls were very nervous and pulled me away from the circle to ask me a question, “What if we mess up and they laugh at us?” I replied, “If you drop, pick it up and try again. If they laugh, that’s great because you’re clowns! You want the audience to laugh at you.” I watched the girls faces as they processed my answer. “Are you sure kak Dan?” “I’m sure,” I replied and smiles came back to their nervous faces and we joined the circle. I taught the kids a ritual that one of my professors in college would tell us before the show. “Bagus, aman, senang ‘tunjucan!” Good, Safe, Fun show! We said it three times, the first whispering and the last yelling! Then I hit play on the iPod and began the show.
The show was a combination of my show, with their acts from the WWW intermingled in between each of my acts. The audience had a blast and more importantly, the kids were lit up like stars in the sky. The same girls who wouldn’t participate in lessons if the boys were in the room were now running to center ring to show a crowd of around 250 strangers their tricks they learned. And, they weren’t just doing the tricks but they were performing! Smiling, styling, laughing and making the audience laugh with them. It was such a beautiful moment for me as their teacher that it was difficult for me to control my emotions and not tear up a little. What a cool experience! After the show we all came back out on stage and did one final group tada and the audience went wild.
After the crowd had dispersed and the kids had loaded the equipment into the buses, I gathered everyone in a circle again. I thanked the kids from the bottom of my heart for joining the lessons and for helping share their love and joy for circus with the village of Tanjung Priok. I told them that this would be our last meeting until next year, and that I hoped they’d continue to practice their juggling and other circus skills while I was gone. A few of the girls started to tear up a little bit and I told them they didn’t have to be said. They could use our circus experience together to help feel good. They’d now always have these great memories of learning, laughing and performing together and nothing could ever take that away. The kids came around and shook my hand, touched it to their cheek, head, chin or lips and then we loaded back into the buses to return home.
Monday was my last day with the Rawamangun children. Instead of having the kids come to JIS to have another lesson, I thought it would be a nice ending if I came to their kampung and performed a show for their whole community. And since these children were just a little bit to young to try and organize a show, it worked out great as a finale! When I arrived at Rawamangun with two JIS students from Circus club, who’d been helping teach these kids along with me, 40 plus children greeted us. I recognized some of the kids and hadn’t yet met many of them. We were invited into the home of an retired JIS Indonesian employee who lived in front of the kampung and was the JIS’s point person for working with these kids. We drank raspberry tea and I explained to her husband how I’d like the event to happen. All I need was an electrical socket and a carpet to perform on. After our tea, I suited up and headed out to the street. All of the kids who were waiting in the driveway of the house laughed and screamed at me and then followed to the community badminton court. It was about a five-minute walk, and the number of children and adults following doubled if not tripled. I hooked up the stereo and we began the show.
As I was performing, people walking by joined the crowd to see what was going on. Not only was there loud music playing, but there was an expat clown performing in their village. After the show, we took lots of pictures together and then circled up. The kids had a few songs that they wanted to sing for us and afterwards one of the moms pulled me aside and told me that here son and daughter had prepared a special song to sing to me. The daughter because to shy to sing in front of such a large crowd but the boy sang a beautiful song in English called “Thank you, my teacher”. It was such a sweet moment.
The kampung was possibly the worst living conditions I’ve seen all year. The houses were all connected under tin scrap roofing with very little sunlight able to get through. And since there were only a few light bulbs supplying light, it was very dark. We walked through the village and the kids introduced me to their uncles and aunts and showed me were they slept, and watched tv and did their homework. When we came out from the housing unit, I realized why there was not entrance into their village. They were living in the back yard of a lumber plant. I’m not sure if they were squatting or actually renting the land. A few of the children had houses outside the kampung, so we climbed back of the wall and and walked to their houses. By this point, it was getting dark and the two JIS kids that were with me were in the middle of IB Mock Exams, so we headed back to south Jakarta.
Tuesday I traveled to Pulo Kandung, a village in northeast Jakarta. Pulo Kandung is another community that Yayasan Emmanuel works with. When we arrived to Pulo Kandung, the village was much different than others I’d visited. The entire kampung was built up about five feet off the ground. The boardwalks between houses consisted of any kind of scrap wood they could find. Even though this community is built on stilts, they still suffer from bad floods and continuously have to repair their flooring. When I walked to the edge of the boardwalk and looked over the side, the green bushes were filled with trash, playing cards and clothing that had fallen from the drying racks. Mita, the YE point person, explained to me that when the area floods, the trash all rises and flows into their homes and community areas.
After walking through the kampung and taking a few pictures of kids hanging around, I was showed to my performance and lesson space. My performance space was the community musholla and as I arrived, an event was just finishing. I have often taught in mushollas, but had yet to perform in one. I realized that I would be wearing clown shows for my show, and it is disrespectful to wear shoes in a religious building. I found the head of the mosque and explained to him what I was doing, and asked him if it would be okay to wear the shoes inside. He hesitated for a moment before I pulled the shoes out of my trunk, then he started laughing. “You’re going to wear those?!?” He said that if I cleaned the soles of the shoes first, it would be fine. So I cleaned them, and then set up for the show.
By the time I’d finished setting up, a crowd of around 50 had gathered. As I was passing out clown noses, I realized that there were no men in the musholla, but instead they were gathered around the doorways and looking through the windows. I invited them to come in, but they preferred to stay outside. After everyone had a clown nose and was ready for me to start, I began. The kids and women loved the show, and I even caught a few of the men laughing from outside the room.
After the show we broke up into three groups and learned spinning plates, scarves and flower sticks. It was interesting in this village how involved the mothers were in the learning process. They wanted to play just as much as the kids and they were very helpful with assisting the younger ones when they didn’t get it right away. After about an hour of workshop, we packed up and headed on, leaving behind us a village full of smiling and giggling boys, girls, women and men.
Wednesday morning we went to a village called, Bintaro Baru. On the way south to Bintaro, Mita asked me if I was comfortable working with the kids on my own, because she had other things she needed to do. She explained that she’d have her cell phone in case there was a problem, and that put me at ease. A problem that often happens in some of the more rural villages is less a problem with the children, but with the Ibu’s(adult women) pushing and shoving and not really listening to directions. Luckily at this village there were none of those problems.
There were about twenty kids when I arrived and we pulled a carpet in middle of the outdoor living room. I decided to perform on the edge of the street, because I was sure that would attract attention from passers by. And today, there were plenty of people. It was the last day that the government was supplementing oil for this village. So everyone was lined up, with large buckets and oil tanks, tying them all to a string, and then pushing them down the rope like an assembly line. I ask why this was they last day, and was told, “we don’t know. For years they’ve come every month, but now, they won’t return.” The people were very concerned how they were going to afford this oil at regular price, and how they’d do without it.
I could tell the kids were getting antsy waiting for me, and the loud music had already drawn a crowd of nearly a hundred. So I decided to start. I preformed the show, balancing things from around the village on my chin. I expected the show to be less received than others because of the stress in the air, but it was almost the opposite of what I expected. The adults were laughing and screaming just as loudly as the children and when I finished it was difficult for me to explain to the adults and teenagers, that I only had enough equipment for the twenty kids to play. The workshops went great and many of the older audience stayed to enjoy the laughter coming from the circus area. After we finished I thanked the kids and headed back to Pondok Indah to teach the JIS kids Circus Club.
Thursday morning I woke and boarded a JIS bus to head out to their elementary school on the other side of town. It was important for me to perform at this school for many reasons. Mainly because I wanted to show all these children that there were many different ways to give back to our society and that believe it or not, there are also many different career opportunities that kids just like them (me) can do and be successful. The show was a wonderful success and I was glad to make the connection with the Principal and Vice Principal of this school. After the show, the Vice Principal took me across the street to a low income Indonesian high school that they often work with. I sat down in the head masters office and tried to explain what it was I was offering and that I was only asking for a place to perform and an audience. When he realized we weren’t asking for money, he was very excited and scheduled me to perform there next week!
Thursday afternoon, I picked up my two IB theater clowns that have been working a lot with me, and we drove out to Jakarta’s Central Cancer Hospital, Dharmais. I tried to warn the two high school seniors what it would be like inside the hospital. How important it was to be aware and respectful, and that if a kid didn’t laugh, that didn’t mean they weren’t funny. Maybe the kid didn’t feel like laughing, maybe they were enjoying just watching but they were in to much pain to laugh.
Once we got inside and started going into the rooms, I think the HS kids understood what I was talking about. They followed my lead very closely and made a few really great moments. There was one point in one of the rooms that absolutely broke my heart. If the kids weren’t too sick to sit up, I would let them hold a spinning plate stick and I’d help them spin it. After I helped one of the boys, he was so excited and couldn’t stop talking about the other kids at his house. He kept asking me, “Om, Kamu bisa ke rumah saya? Ada banyak anak disana juga. Tolong dateng ke rumah saya.” (Uncle, can you come to my house? There are lots of children there too. Please come to my house.) I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to tell him yes, and then never show up, and I didn’t want to tell him no and hurt his feelings. This boy was so ill, it didn’t seem like he was going home himself, and it felt like his insistence on inviting me to his house was a way for him to be home in his head. I told him that I’d love to come to his house, but that I had to go back to my house in America in just a few days, so I wouldn’t be able to make it this trip. But I told him, when he sees all those kids at home, he should tell them stories all about the clowns at the hospital, so they can enjoy this experience too. After about 45 minutes the rooms, it was time for us to leave. I ask the two students what their experience was like, and they were so happy to have been a part of this visit. I was glad they had been a part of it too.
Friday morning I drove north again with Yayasan Emmanuel to the village of Teluk Gong. It was a very hot day and when we opened the car door, the putrid smell of human waste rose from the river in front of the kampung. One of the YE team members could see the look on my face, and pointed to a platform over the river with two half-wall stalls. “Those are their public toilets for the entire kampung. There is no running water or sewage in any of the homes.” I took a closer look at the platforms and they were simply holes, in which the waste went directly into the river below. The team showed me to the home that I’d be performing in. The venue was a storefront and a space about 2 meters by 3 meters had been cleared for me to perform in.
All the kids gathered around and put on their clown noses. They all enjoyed the show. However, the girls did not want to participate in the workshop. I couldn’t figure out if it was because they were embarrassed to play in front of the boys, or if they were just simply not interested. When the workshop was over, the girls came up to me and ask if they could show their dance that they’d been working on. We found a cd player and let the girls perform their dance. It’s funny how these girls chose to use the same popular song, “I think I’m Sexy” by Indonesian equivalent to Fergie or Britney Spears. Their dance was a replica of the music video and seemed mildly inappropriate for pre teenage girls to be doing in such a conservative culture. But, the mom’s were all watching and clapping and thought it was great.
Saturday was our JIS and OMC circus day. Last week, I gave all the kids CWB t-shirts and sure enough, today all the OMC kids were wearing their shirts. We practiced group and partner activities today. Instead of juggling alone in the corner, I urged kids to juggle in partners or practice stealing. The kids working on diablos worked on passing with a group and the plate spinners started putting together a routine. This was our last practice before the JIS Spring Fair where the kids would have their final performance. I tried to express how important it was that no one stress about this performance. I explained to them much like I did to the Cilincing children, we’ve worked hard and learned a skill, and now it’s our turn to share this skill with this audience. As long as we have fun sharing it, they’ll have fun receiving it. The kids were all excited as we put together our finale act of partner acrobatics and group pyramids.
Another finish to another great week. It’s hard to believe that next week will be my last! I’m already beginning to create plans for another trip next year.
