Circus Act II, What is the Point? And the Man who Loved Clowns

Circus Act II, What is the point? And the Man who Loved Clowns

Monday was a crazy day. If everything goes very smoothly, it will still be rushed. Am I crazy to try to do all this? I thought as we walked to the hospital that morning. I planned to obtain permission from the hospital administration for the clowns to come to the hospital that afternoon, participate in the Fistula cases in the morning, coordinate the clowns to come perform, arrange to go down the Nile River to see hippos, and cap off the day with dinner at Charlie and Dee’s with the clowns. Well, here goes nothing!

The first challenge was to explain what a clown was! I tried several words, acting them out, surely looking a bit silly to the first doctors I talked to as I pretended to juggle. Eventually, I figured out that some or most of them knew the word “circus.” Armed with that information, I went into the morning report. After the previous night’s admissions/deaths were reported, I said, “I have an announcement. With your permission, [administrator], a group of clowns from Italy are here… the circus is in town and would like to perform for the patients and their families. Would that be okay? Would you come and encourage your patients to come?” They smiled, looking at one another, and I knew I had my permission.

I hurried over to the Fistula Hospital, calling the clowns’ cell phone as I walked. They were performing at a school that morning, but they were available to confirm that they could come in the afternoon. We had 6 cases for surgery that morning, but after a few phone calls near lunchtime, I realized that I would have to skip the last couple in order to help the clowns find the hospital. I took the Bajaj to the Ghion Hotel where they were staying. I had assumed incorrectly that, being a large group, they had their own transportation. After all, they had ropes and unicycles and suitcases with juggling pins and hats and miniature musical instruments. In fact, they took the public transportation just like I did. What a site!! If I could have gotten this on video, you would fall on the floor laughing. Imagine 8 people dressed in weird black and white striped suits with unicycles and suitcases standing on the side of the road trying to hail the Bajaj’s. Imagine them trying to get in multiple Bajaj’s all destined for the hospital. Imagine the reactions of the other passengers as the strangely-dressed man brings an awkwardly big suitcase and a unicycle onto the small vehicle. A chicken, sure, but why would anyone bring a unicycle onto one of these, they probably thought. I got into one of them near the middle of the pack. I didn’t want them to feel lost once they got off at the hospital gate. Another guy was ensuring that the rest were able to get on other Bajaj’s. Halfway there, I noticed a clown standing on the side of the road with his suitcase. He looked slightly out of place, and a bit confused. I asked the driver to pull over. “What are you doing?” The clown said with an Italian accent, “They stopped, so I got out. Is this the hospital?” I stifled a laugh, looking at the area around which was mainly traditional mud houses and greenery. “No, the Bajaj will stop a lot for any of the people to get out wherever they want. You have to ride to the end to get to the hospital. Here, get in this one and I’ll catch another.” Oh boy. I had not been standing there long when a Bajaj filled with 3 of the clowns pulled up to the road. They were pulling money out to pay the driver when I stopped them. “No, no. This is not the hospital.” Obviously! I thought, looking around again. I smiled, thinking again just how funny this must look. “I just got out cause one of the clowns was standing here looking lost. I’ll catch another, just go to the end of the route! You can’t miss it!”

Finally at the hospital, we walked in the gate. The guard stopped them. I suppose they did look suspicious. I pulled out my white coat and put it on, thinking that this might be the only way I’d look respectable walking around with them. I explained to the guard that I had gotten permission from the administration. He insisted on searching their suitcases, a valid request. I’m sure he was puzzled to see the assortment of things they were carrying!

We chose an open area for the performance, and I led the clowns through the hospital wards, encouraging the patients or at least their families to come and follow the strangely dressed people. Many came out of curiosity. To my joy, nearly the entire patient population from the Fistula Hospital came walking down the road to the main government hospital to see the performance! They were dressed in brightly colored shawls, all carrying their catheters in the open buckets or just leaking on the ground where they walked. They were in a group, so they hopefully did not feel self-conscious about this. The clowns put on a wonderful performance, ad-libbing when vehicles or donkeys needed to come through their stage and through the crowd (we had chosen a road for the open area). The show had a distinctly different feel than the performance in the park on Saturday. Many of the on-lookers had wide eyes, some puzzled, some laughed hard. The audience at the park had mainly been city people, but this audience was mainly from rural areas with minimal exposure to any sort of performance. Several times we were asked, “What is the point?” One rural man got out into the middle of the performing area and started jumping up as high as he could and shaking his shoulders like they do in their traditional dances. The clowns didn’t miss a beat. They started jumping and shaking their shoulders as well. The crowd rolled with laughter at this.

After they finished their 45 minute formal performance, they took smaller items, puppets, and musical instruments through the wards to perform for the bed-ridden patients. Here, even one of the student health workers was hesitant to allow the clowns to visit. “What is the point?” we were asked again. He felt like perhaps they were making fun of the patients. “This is their job. Their job is to make people laugh. It is good for health too!” I explained. When he understood, he became very excited to watch and escort us to see his patients. The puppets climbed and fell down many IV poles, across many bedrails, shook many hands, ran into many windows and doors, and did acrobatic moves on patients’ beds. The clowns did a wonderful job of respecting the patients but also introducing them to a thing called silly laughter. One elderly gentleman was laughing before we even got to him. His family surrounded his bed, smiling broadly as they watched their sick loved one now heaving with laughter. Through the rest of the week, whenever I walked by him lying in a bed outside the surgical ward, he would greet me with a loud, “HEY!” waving with both hands and a grin on his face. He knew I had brought the clowns, and I was a hero ever after.

The Hippo Man

Since this was one of our last days in Bahir Dar, we wanted to take advantage of the Hippo Man, a guy who lives on the Nile River and takes tourists to see hippos for a small fee. I had arranged it the day before, but we had to run to get there in time, taking several Bajaj’s to the edge of town and walking through Bahir Dar University. Austin, Melissa, Ryan, and I took Memar (Charlie and Dee’s 9 yr old they are adopting). We joked around, Ryan chased Memar several times and carried her like a sack of potatoes, to her delight. The Hippo Man showed us the small tidy cinder-block house he lived in just on the banks of the Nile. Afterward, we piled in a metal boat with 2 men who paddled for us. We floated leisurely down the river, enjoying the lush scenery. Papyrus, tall hills on one side, distinct fields, paths with people and animals walking along filled our view. We went down a few rapids and around a few bends until, suddenly, we noticed that there were hippos right in the middle of the river where we were! We stayed near the edge, giving them ample room as they tend to be very territorial creatures. There were 6 in this bunch, but in the distance the Hippo Man explained that there was another group which was enemies to these 6. We stayed, watching as they dove under, surfaced, lifted their huge mouths and opened wide for us (unfortunately, they do this very quickly so our pictures have something to be desired). We enjoyed this glimpse of God’s creation, glad that we were safely on the banks and not swimming near them!

Dining with Clowns

We were exhausted after a full day and tempted to just go home for the night after seeing the hippos, but only for a minute. How often do you get to have dinner with 8 Italian clowns… in Ethiopia?? Dinner was wonderful, especially since I hadn’t been able to eat anything since breakfast because I was trying to coordinate their coming to the hospital. However, I have to say that the entertainment was even better. Have you ever wondered what clowns do when they’re bored? Surely, they didn’t get into their professions by being dull people. When they started to get restless, someone pulled out a huge bag of balloons, and they spent the rest of the night making ridiculous animals and objects, acting out stories with them. Their first animal, proudly made by one of the clowns for Memar, the 9 yr old Ethiopian, was a pig. Only one problem: Ethiopia doesn’t have pigs. “Aaeeeennt, strike one,” someone across the room yelled. The clown threw his work of art up in the air in mock surrender. “That’s kinda like when we acted out a whole story about chickens earlier and were flapping our arms with our hands under our armpits, only to find out at the end that people weren’t laughing because that’s not how they act out a chicken here. Here you have to move your head and chest like a chicken who’s strutting along. No wonder they weren’t laughing! And now I just made a pig… which doesn’t exist for them!” I guess there is a culture barrier to comedy as well.

As we all walked back to our house that night (which takes a good 30-45 minutes from Charlie and Dee’s), Ryan slung his arm around me and asked, “How’s my Facilitator today?” Exhausted. Happy. Tired of smiling. But oh so grateful for such a full day of laughter.