April 20, 2008

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.

I performed the show and it went fine. It was difficult to get students to come on stage and participate. I think because it was a high school atmosphere, there was a lot of ego and pride that was being protected, so they didn’t feel comfortable coming on stage. There was one kid who was having a blast coming on stage, so each time I need a volunteer, if no one came up, I just pulled the same kid and he worked as my assistant for the show.

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.



Before I left, one of the Ibu’s of the village pulled me aside and told me that one of the girls had made a gift for me, and would it be alright if I stayed a little longer, cause she was just wrapping it up as we spoke. I said of course, and we gathered back in the field, now that it had stopped raining. While we waited for the girl to return, we all sang popular Indonesian songs together karaoke style and told jokes to each other. When she returned, she gave me a picture frame and in the frame was a water colour painting of me in my clown paints and red CWB t-shirt, along with several other kids also wearing clown pants juggling and walking on balls and doing all the things that we’d just learned. It was absolutely wonderful and I will cherish it for a long time to come.

What a fantastic was to end a wonderful project! The last ten weeks have been life changing for me and I can’t believe they are finished already! I’ve learned so much traveling around Jakarta performing and teaching for the amazing people of Indonesia. I am already planning my return trip in January 2009 and I hope to stay even longer and reach even more people next year!