Day 1 and onward – Leadership Camp

January 12-17, 2008
No sessions in the AM – we prepped for afternoon circus camp. It was a scorching hot day though rain is expected tomorrow. We had 200 kids (aged 10-20) for Intro to Circus… organized chaos! We demonstrated juggling and stilts, then divided the gang into groups to create some semblance of order. A dozen girls immediately learned to juggle three balls, and it’s interesting – we teach the two ball toss (“Up, Up, Catch, Catch”) before they go to three balls, but ALL the kids intuitively chuck the first two balls from their dominant hand. Then they know when in the pattern to add the third ball. Whatever… it works!

The boys focused on stilts and diabolo. As the afternoon progressed the groups merged and the kids migrated to their equipment of choice. I lead a group of girls to the stilts to bust up the boys club and once the ice was broken, they clamoured for a try.

Best photo op of Camp: a tall young woman in a satin dress (think bridesmaid) kicking up dust on 3’ stilts.

Dean and I and many helpers dashed from station to station to give instruction and support. Halfway through our three-hour session we gathered the troupes for focus games and team building exercises, plus some good old fashioned tag. This tactic both harnessed the wild playground energy and afforded us some time in the shade.

The kids work hard, and there was tons of laughter (plus some shrieking from the gals on stilts) all afternoon. It’s our hope we’ve whetted their appetite – if the rain holds off we have two smaller groups for each of the remaining days, so our student-teacher ration will improve!


Good eats and er, not so good eats
A sample menu:

Breakfast: apple pieces (and sometimes tinned peaches!) plus granola shortly after the rooster squawks at 6am. We do breakfast at M’e Blandina’s in our hut.
Lunch: scrambled eggs, cabbage and papa. Best meal of the camp it would turn out.
Dinner: boiled chicken, rice and beans. Tolerable. Which is not to slight the cooks – the kitchen ladies work their tails off and churn out good stuff, compared to the average Basotho diet. It’s just… BOILED chicken?! Ick.
Snack or meal replacement: buns. Holy smoke these folks consume a lot of carbs…


Showcase #1
Dean, AKA Ntate (En-dawt-eh) Coco and yours truly, as Dame de Nettoyage, hosted the evening showcase. Dean’s kid volunteer was fabulous (though he did admit afterwards he thought she was a he). We clowned and performed in an effort to teach the kids how to be a good audience – this, in anticipation of their own final show at the end of Camp. After our show we showcased ten female 3-ball jugglers on stage.


Cleanliness is next to Godliness
Or something. Anyway, the process here is as follows: sweep the red dirt out, track the red dirt back in. Or if it’s rainy, smear the red mud around with a mucky mop-like device.
We had a good laugh when chicken poop dropped out of our sorry looking six-stringed mop!

Our gear is brown and dusty and so too is our skin. Well, some bits are downright red from the sun – we’re at a high elevation in these mountains and it quickly becomes apparent when you’ve missed a spot with the sunscreen.


Animal Kingdom and The Circus Show
This morning, like every morning, we were woken by the rooster squawking. The extra hubbub turned out to be the 14 baby chicks that appeared overnight. A donkey was lead past our rondavel door while the neighbour’s cow mooed deeply. A scrawny dog showed up, its ribs protruding, to scope out the new additions. On my way to Camp I passed two piglets on the hunt for eats, a runaway cow and three horses tethered to a common patch of grass. The animals have a lot to munch on because the land is green – much greener than last year. It’s the torrential rains we’re getting. And did I mention the rain?!

A mild set back to an outdoor circus camp. The powdery red dirt has become mud, and squelchy mud, at that. Though the temperature cooled yesterday (owing to the TORRENTIAL RAIN) it’s warming up again, resulting in a grey-ish humid day. And it’s our BIG DAY!

The circus show is scheduled for 5:30pm so we’re hopeful the skies will clear. If necessary, we’ll perform in the Hall, but it won’t be quite as magical.

Our circus area is under a canopy of trees; one tree holds the trapeze bar. There’s lots of room for staging the show, corralling the kids and seating our audience. And the Hall? The students performed their pre-show showcase in there this week, and last night, in lieu of the scheduled traditional Canadian camp fire, we hosted a talent show and dance party. The rain will do that…

Anyway, the Hall is great – there’s a stage, plus plastic chairs for the audience. But after heavy rain and all day traffic, it’s dusty, and anyway, the mountain scenery behind our circus plot is stunning!


Speech Writing and Sponsor Letters Class
I mentioned in my earlier post that Dean and I were asked to lead this session twice each morning. Well Dean ditched early on – first to repair stilts, then to sleep off a violent bout “stomach problems”, and today, fully recovered, he’s run into town to check email and pick up some groceries. Turns out it’s a one person job anyway – I get each group for one and a half hours during which time the kids either write a letter to their sponsor, or if they don’t have one, a speech. But take note: just because a kid doesn’t have a sponsor doesn’t mean they don’t need one. With High School comes school fees, and in many cases, a need to board. Plus shoes and a uniform… all costs that could well keep a student out of school. It’s when we’re face to face with the kid and their story that the choice to help is a no-brainer. A Starbucks a day equals the annual fee. Easy math eh?

I began each class by handing out loose leaf and pens. And because leaders typically find themselves speaking in front of people, I decided to ask each student to present themselves to the class and share some basic personal information. It was a mild jolt to realize that 20% of the kids had to estimate their age.

I’d go on to outline the format of a speech on the chalkboard (that whole vertical writing thing is tricky!) and the students would hunker down to write. A few of the younger ones wrote in Sesotho but mostly letters and speeches would be drafted in English and re-written in careful handwriting for a final copy. The letters, both sent and received, are so important – the kids cherish their mail.

Margo: one young woman is taking French and wanted a French pen pal. I volunteered you, and have her first letter to you in my bag…


And so, The Show
The rained stayed away and we dragged the gear from the Hall to the outdoor site in short order. The line up was posted on big sheets of paper and each kid was given a scarf to sport, for a touch of colour and distinction. (We also colour coded them by act – the stilt walkers wore red, the juggling crew wore blue and the singers wore yellow. Slightly genius. Might have worked better had we been able to remember which colour meant what.) The scarves were a huge hit and, like last year’s green tees, helped to make the performers feel special.

Chairs were hauled outside for teachers and staff and the locals gathered in a clump to watch as well. We were on a tight timeline as the show preceded dinner and those hard-working kitchen ladies are a force to reckon with.

Stilt walking, magic, trapeze, juggling, skipping, mask, puppets, yo yo, diabolo, plate spinning and singing, with Dean as the host. With so many kids, it felt chaotic but everyone had a ball and the show was deemed a success. We were graced with a gorgeous sunset and then we stormed the Hall for the final dinner.

The next morning, clean up and send off day, Dean and I were tickled to see dozens of kids sporting their scarves in various creative styles.


Off Roading On Our Day Off
If only I could adequately describe the bumpy red dirt road we take home…

Our dinner in Hlotse took longer than we’d planned on (C’mon: how long can a cheese and tomato sandwich take? 90 minutes, that’s how long…) and then the skies opened so Dean put his driving skills to test on the half-hour ride home. Dramatic lightning illuminated the mountains as we endeavoured not to hydroplane. When we finally turned off the paved road onto the trail, it had been pouring, hard, for over an hour. Our wee Chico slithered in the mud and we narrowly missed smashing into the boulder that for some reason, is and always has been two-thirds into the width of the road. Why not just move it, you ask. Yup, good question. In any case, we made it safely and were relieved to turn in to M’e Blandina’s yard of corn stalks in one piece.

Jo’burg Airport and other misadventures

We’re tired, and the flight, though uneventful, was long. But we’re in Jo’burg and ready for the last leg of our journey – a one hour flight to Maseru, Lesotho.

Alas, it is not to be: after two long and painfully slow moving line ups for Passport Control, we missed our flight. Oh-oh. Note to self: a two hour layover in Africa is not sufficient. The next flight, four hours away, is full. The flight after that is the next day, Oh-oh, again. We’re expected and have no contact numbers, just a rough sense of where our meeting spot is in Hlotse.

Somehow, a feat we attribute to our willingness to wait in yet another line up, the ticket agent issued us boarding passes for the supposed full flight, no doubt meaning some other poor soul got the boot.

But wait: a sudden concern… our bags are overweight, quite dramatically. Oh no, we’re fine – the consulting ticket agent (read: guy who hangs around but doesn’t actually service anyone) is standing on the scale. Now THAT’S funny.

We arrived, albeit a tad late. Our rental car was waiting and at the risk of sounding whiny, we were disappointed to see that it has no sound system. Last year the kids had a ball dancing to CD music at the end of each day! Now that we’ve seen the Leadership Camp schedule however, it’s likely none of us will have an ounce of energy left to dance at the end of the day.


Letter writing and circus skills

Each morning of Camp the students rotate through sessions such as Gender Equity, Self-Image Development, Goal Setting and HIV/AIDS and Health. Their afternoons will be spent with such groups as OYAP (HIV/AIDS education), PSI (HIV/AIDS testing) and S&D Circus Activities, as we’re known on the schedule. We’ll be teaching trapeze, acrobatics, stilt walking, clown, mime, puppetry and juggling to students age 10-20. Our new responsibility is Speech Writing and Sponsor Letters class, one of the morning sessions. Stay tuned for more on this endeavour!


The trapeze tree

You know it’s meant to be when, for the second year in a row, I find a suitable tree in the Camp’s circus area. This area, Pitseng, is beautiful: mountainous, rocky and lush. The vegetation is diverse but there just aren’t a whole lot of big trees. So we’re lucky to have found level(ish) red dirt ground for stilt walking AND a strong enough tree from which to hang the bar. This same area will provide us with shade in the afternoons and will serve as the performance area for the final student show.


And so it all begins tomorrow…

As I write, Dean is sleeping off a belly ache. We’re hoping it’s simply the change of diet plus the travel, and nothing more. Later today, when we return to our rondavel, we’ll finish stringing the diabolos and Dean will repair the one stilt that needed help. We’re impressed with the condition of last year’s gear – the Raphoka Primary School principal tells us they enjoy circus on Fridays, so while the stuff’s being used, they’ve taken good care of it. They even made an inventory list down to every last juggling scarf and hacky sack. Which is great, as we’re borrowing some of their stuff for this year’s group!

The next six days will be full, and I’m unsure whether we’ll make it to town for internet access. Rest assured I’ll post again as soon as I’m able!

Getting there takes ages!

22 hours, to be precise. And there has to be humour in our airport follies... WHY is the Air Canada Arrivals Lounge so strangely located? False starts and lousy directions aside, it's quiet in here and Dean's snoozing. The computer access is handy too!

But for the multiple shuttle rides between terminals here at Heathrow, the first leg of our journey has been uneventful. Our in-flight movie was Stardust - a star-jammed flick I'd never even heard of. Soon we'll snake back through security and board the plane for an 11-hour flight to Jo'burg. From there it's the tinker toy hop to Maseru, the capital of Lesotho, followed by a short drive to Hlotse.

The mountains of Lesotho are stunning, and we can't wait for our first glimpse of them!

January 6 departure!

Our New Years event was a hit and it's time to prepare for Lesotho. We leave on Sunday, a mere 95 hours from now. We've scored Maple Leaf airport lounge passes from our dear friends Carl and Jen, so the nine hour layover in London will be not only tolerable, but downright enjoyable. Who doesn't like leather couches and free snacks?

Higgins Brothers have generously donated juggling gear again this year and we're taking materials to repair the stilts, should they need it. And we'll sew hats like crazy between now and Sunday so the clowns will truly shine!

We have some errands to run too - we need first aid stuff, water bottles, books and a new backpack. Oh, and we need to book a rental car. We're flying right into Lesotho this year rather than Jo-burg, so our drive to Hlotse will be much shorter. I hope Me-Blandina (our landlady) will be as happy to see us as we will be to see her again!

Please tune in to our adventures, as I hope to post while we're there...