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Guess who spent the day at the circus today?! Yep…ME! I went on an organized trip with SAS to the Cico Picolino circus school here in Salvador. It was amazing! A couple of us have been anticipating this trip for quite some time and it turned out even better than I thought. Our tour guide, Paula, gave us information about the circus school on the bus as we drove to the school. This particular school has 250 students at one location and 100 students at another close by. The thing that amazed me most about the school is that it is for the street children. These are children who either leave their families to work and decide to abandon them and live in the streets or just do not have families at all. Out of the kids that do have families, it is very likely that their parents are alcoholics. Any money that the kids make and bring back home to the family gets used for alcohol, so this is why some decide to leave their families and survive on their own. Also – crack is a recent concern that has become more of a problem for kids than other drugs. Street kids tend to sleep during the day and stay awake at night because nighttime is so dangerous in Salvador. Many of them are malnourished. So…kids have the opportunity to come to the school, primarily in the evening and late at night. When they arrive, they get a sandwich and then after a few hours of instruction/playing, they receive some soup. Attending the circus school prevents them from spending the entire night on the streets and also provides the children with a little bit of food. In addition, it gives the children some discipline in their lives and helps them to develop social skills. All, or nearly all, of the instructors at the school were once students at the school because they were street children when they were younger. The tour guide mentioned that this school can be a stepping stone to get kids into another educational program; although, some kids never leave the school. Here’s a little fun fact…In Brazil, the school days for both private and public schools only last half a day! Since the country as a whole has a low literacy rate and such high crime, I don’t understand why the government doesn’t make laws to require education to a certain age and to extend the school day.
Okay, now for the fun stuff! The school is made up of 2 tents and one small row of tiny rooms that don’t have any windows, but they do contain some tables, bathrooms, and water. The school was extremely simple and the circus equipment was not anything new and extravagant. We split up into groups of about 8 people and went to different stations. I was expecting to sit and watch kids do all kinds of crazy circus stuff, but there were actually no kids there because it was early in the day. The instructors demonstrated some awesome things for us and then we were sent to our different groups to learn some techniques. My group started on the Spanish rope. It’s the one that hangs from the ceiling and you have to shimmy yourself up the rope and put your hand or ankle through a little loop. Someone at the bottom swings the rope in a circle and you move your legs as you spin in circles. It was so cool! Actually, everything we tried was just awesome! I did end up with some minor rope burn on my ankle, but other people ended up with burns worse than mine. Next, we moved on to the juggling station. The sacs we used to juggle were pretty old looking and some of them were leaking. They were filled with sand, not beans or little beads like the ones we have at home. The instructor and I became buddies because I knew how to juggle so he was trying to teach me other types of juggling. We did two person juggling with three bean bags and then he taught me how to juggle with a partner and toss the bean bags back and forth. That doesn’t really make sense, but do you get the idea? My friend Becky got a little video of us when we were doing that! After that, we made our way to the trapeze! We didn’t swing or anything, but we stood up on the bar and did some kicks and other little tricks and then we ended up hanging down and kind of turning our bodies inside out for a nice little pose, haha. Next stop = the tightrope! There were 3 different levels that we could try and we all did all of them. I can’t balance enough to do it without a spotter, but some of the guys in our group did awesome! The instructor at that station showed us some different poses to do while we were on the tightrope and he helped us each do them on the tightrope that was about 4 feet off the ground. Our last stop was the springboard/trampoline. We did a variety of jumps and then we got into the flips. Fun! You could definitely tell that I have never been a gymnast, though! Haha. The only thing our group didn’t get to do was the unicycle because we ran out of time. Bummer!
Now doesn’t that sound like lots of fun!? It was definitely worth the money we spent for the trip. We all enjoyed it. Don’t worry, I got lots of cool pictures that I’ll post at some point!
Bran --- the instructors would have absolutely loved you! I definitely thought of you when I was doing all the stuff – especially the juggling, haha.
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