March 5, 2008

With each new week, comes a new adventure and this week’s adventure was filled with exciting beginnings and wonderful progress! Along with continuing all the previously started projects, I began teaching another group of children on Monday from an economically devastated region of east Jakarta called, Rawamangun.

I began Monday by teaching the JIS IB students clown. It has been very fascinating for me to watch these seniors in high school embrace a completely new technique of acting. In the first few classes, they were timid to trust the work and not really sure that what I was teaching them was legitimate. However, after just a few weeks they’ve all began to understand what it means to “clown” and they’ve started to be very funny! I think its only a matter of time until they are ready to join me in performances around the city at different events.

After finishing with the IB students at JIS, I made my way over to the third floor of the Wantilan Center (Multi Purpose Room) and set up the space for the Rawamangun children to arrive. JIS has been incredibly helpful in assisting in this project. Several days a week, they’ve arranged for buses to pick up my students and bring them to JIS. The kids enjoy this because JIS is a big and beautiful campus and it works well for me because JIS also makes available their supplies, like mats and air conditioning. Before the children and their mothers arrived, I briefed the JIS students who had come to help. I explained to them the plan. I was going to perform my 20-minute show and then we’d break up into two groups. And, they’d get a chance to teach these kids the skills that they’ve been working so hard to learn themselves. The students were a bit cautious when I told them that I’d let them run the workshops, but I reassured them, that I’d be right there beside them and would give any and all the assistance that they needed. I believe that a large part of this trip is also teaching how to give back, so this was an important day for me.



When the busses arrived, I watched from the third floor as the children poured out into the parking lot. Looking up at the tall buildings and around at the enormous sports fields all surrounded with beautiful foliage. As they all climbed the steps and entered the room, Ibu Madrik, the point person for the Rawamangun outreach, confronted me. She was very apologetic because, originally I had suggested that they only bring children over the age of 8 years old, but all of the younger brothers and sisters wanted to come too, and the mothers! I told her, “the more the merrier” and assured her that it was just a suggestion and that we’d have fun no matter what the age or quantity of the children.

I introduced myself as they came in the room. Requested that the kids take off their shoes and leave their bags at the wall and join us on the mats. Already, the children were ecstatic to take off their shoes! They all jumped on the mats and rolled around for a few minutes, enjoying the freedom of a soft floor. When everyone had found a seat on the mats, I gave my JIS student assistants a handful of clown noses each and explained to everyone. “Everybody gets a clown nose, Tapi, harus di pakai!”(But you have to wear it!) The kids all began rolling on the ground with excitement! As the each got a nose, I followed behind with a garbage bag, to toss the wrapping from the noses. A few of the younger kids had issues opening the packages, and it was nice to see the older kids immediately help the younger ones, even before they’d opened their own.

While the kids and adults were all still buzzing with excitement over the clown noses, I slipped behind the chalkboard to put on my clown gear. As soon as they all noticed I was doing something behind the board, they all became very quiet, as if they were trying to hear what I was doing. I pulled my hair up, but on my clown nose and pants. And, as I pulled my clown shoes out of the trunk, the kids could all see them and they burst out in laughter!


I performed my show and everything went well. One memorable moment was, when I asked a young girl to come on stage and help me get the spinning plate off the stick, she jumped up, but with her was her little brother. And in fact, she wasn’t interested in helping me, but her five-year old brother was, so she accompanied him to the stage and stood beside him as he followed all the direction and fell for all the tricks. It was a very sweet moment.

The workshops were phenomenal. It was really great to see the JIS students, who I’d only taught a few weeks earlier, teaching spinning plates and flower sticks. They were using the same tips and hints that I’d given them, and they were really making great connections with the kids. It also helped that a few of the JIS kids also spoke Indonesian well, so they were helping each other translate and solid teaching teams developed. This afternoon was not only a great success in giving the children an afternoon that they won’t forget, but it was also successful in giving the JIS students a chance to share with children younger and less fortunate than themselves.



Tuesday was another busy day for Clowns without Borders. I performed a show at JIS for all the students during their lunch break. As always, JIS rolled out the red carpet and had a sound system, mats and a tent top to perform under! The loud music quickly drew a large crowd and I began the show. I started out by explaining to the kids that I was an Alumni of JIS and told them why I was in Jakarta. I talked about the JIS Circus Club on Wednesday and about the different opportunities they all had to get involved with my project. I performed the show to an ever-growing audience and when it was over, I got surrounded by students with questions and comments about my performance.




Tuesday after school, the OMC students arrived at JIS ready to work. We started out the class by stretching and warming up. The OMC students have shown a strong interest in tumbling and acrobatics. It was great to see how committed the students were to pushing themselves in their stretches. After we were all warmed up, we began the basics of tumbling. Everyone learned front rolls and continuous rolls. Even the larger and less agile students were giving it everything they had. Then we partnered up and began work on handstands. The biggest hurdle that these students had to over come was the issue of strength. The majority of them were not strong enough to hold their own body weight upside down, but luckily we were on mats, so when they fell, it turned into laughter, which filled the room with great vibes.

After our tumbling unit, I opened up the box of juggling equipment, and gave everyone “Open Circus Time”, where they could practice whichever skills they chose. I also brought acrobatic ladder to class today. There were several students who were interested in what it was and how to use it. I gave everyone a quick demo and explanation. I also tried to warn them that if they really liked it, then they’d have to put some time into it, telling them how it took me several weeks to just stand up right on the ladder. A few of the older boys gave it a try for about fifteen minutes. Some of the kids were juggling clubs already! This was only their third lesson! A few of the girls worked on their handstands the entire open circus time and many of the students wanted to revisit some of the partner acrobatics that we learned last week.

All in all it was another wonderful day with the OMC students. I’m looking forward to where these student’s skills will go!

Wednesday was our JIS Circus Club. There were only about five students again today and we’re trying to spread the word so that the program becomes more popular. It’s a difficult time of the year for JIS students because of all the IB exams sports commitments, but we are having a blast with the five regulars! These students are learning quickly also! In fact today, I taught two students how to pass six rings together. Another great improvement in their skill level!

Thursday, I traveled to Cilincing again. The traffic was not as bad today, because it hasn’t been raining so hard this last week, so the streets weren’t as flooded as usual. The streets were, however quite a sight to see when they weren’t covered in several feet of water. They were all torn up and the potholes were even bigger than we’d imagined as we were driving through them in the floods. There were one or two construction trucks sitting on the side of the road. It appeared as though they were trying to raise the level of the road, and fill in the potholes, but there were miles of damaged roads and two lonely trucks, so I imagine it will be quite a while until the roads are taken care of properly.

Once we arrived at the kampung, we were greeted with the usual rush of children, bright smiles and high fives! Today there were mounds of shellfish all over the kampung. Everyone in the community was opening the shells and preparing the meat to be sold. When they took the meat out of the shells, they piled the shells into a different pile. These shells get pushed into the ground and make up the majority of the ground that is walked on in this kampung.

The musholla was occupied today, so we went back to the first small room that I performed my first show in two weeks back. We all sat in a circle with Mita, and called roll. Anyone is allowed to participate, but they have to sign up the week before, so that there are not an overwhelming number of kids. Once everyone was accounted for, we split the boys and the girls. Ask the girls to come back in 45 minutes and began class. Many of the girls sat in the corners of the room watching, and it didn’t seem to bother the boys, so I didn’t make them leave.

We started out class by juggling and the majority of the kids could juggle scarves! When we moved on to juggling balls, we realized that there weren’t enough juggling balls for all the boys. Before I could even turn around to the girls who were watching, they all started tossing their balls to the boys who didn’t have them. It was really nice to see how we’ve developed a climate of sharing and kindness. After we finished juggling, the boys returned the balls to the girls, and we began our first clown unit.

The first exercise that we learned was called, “Clown Statues”. I started out by asking the students to explain some qualities of a statue, and then to explain some qualities of a clown. After we’d decided what a clown statue was, I called out different emotions and then the kids create a clown statue of that emotion. The boys really got into it, and the more they laughed at each other, the bigger and sillier they got. Then I taught them the a classic clown act called, “Dead or Alive”. The kids got a kick out of all the slapstick humor and I think they really enjoyed performing for each other.


After the boys time was up, I invited all the girls to come up and start class. At first, none of the girls would try anything. I realized, that they were embarrassed because the boys were watching them, and as soon as I asked the boys to leave, the tension was immediately alleviated. The girls had more difficulty juggling, so instead of pushing the skill that they had just watched the boys get so easily, I introduced to them some different partner juggling tricks.

The girls committed to the clown unit even more than the boys! Their clown statues were huge! They couldn’t stop laughing at each other. I taught the girls a different clown act, because “dead or alive” had a lot of falls and butt kicks and I thought it would be uncomfortable for them. So, instead I taught a clown act called, “stay right here”. As we learned the clown act, the group mysteriously grew larger and larger as other kids got home from school. I almost made them leave, but everybody was having such a great time and figured as long as there was enough room, it would be fine.


We ended classes and said our goodbyes. As I waited for the rest of the Yayasan Emanuel team to be finished with their work, I sat out in front of the kampung and chatted with the kids. A few of the girls wanted to sing their songs for me. Some of the boys wanted to show me how much they’ve improved in their juggling. Once the team was finished with their work, we packed up the cars and waved good-bye. Another fabulous day in Cilincing!


It’s been a great week and I’m ready to start another week!