San Antonio Colonia
Uncle Andy "Paco" the clown, Ulises (one of the new clowns) and I went to San Antonio Colonia with the team today. San Antonio is a colonial where roughly a 100 families moved to escape the drug wars. It’s essentially a small town of refugees. Several of the kids had previously been sponsored by several of the team members so several team members were excitedly looking forward to meeting the kids that they sponsored. When we arrived at San Antonio, I was not aware of the situation of each family. So, it amazed me to see that each house is creatively put together with found things as people do their best to create a livelihood out of things they can reuse for other functional purposes. An example would be old wooden wheels were included as part of a fence.
As soon as the clowns disembarked the vans, kids started pouring over to the Colonial (essentially a blue tarp with folding tables and plastic chairs under it) and became excited to see the clowns. One of the little girls that us when we arrived stuck to me like glue for most of the day. As I was reviewing pictures after the day, you can see her in almost all of my pictures.
Another little boy in a red shirt was pointed out to me by the American doctor. He is 2 or 3 years old but lost his mother suddenly due to an illness that took her in less than a day. He watched the clowns in a kind of awe, almost suspicious, but he was definitely interested in the clowns.
Anyway, part of the team went through the streets to help advertise the free medical clinics and the activities. The food truck was due later in the day so we did not announce that to people. Ulises went with me to hand out stickers and to invite people to the clowns and clinic. As we would go through various streets, kids would pour out from all over to see the clowns. I would look across the street to see kids watching the clowns pass by. A couple of the families that stuck out were a group of little boys clear on the other side of the street who were waving at the clowns. I did a silly clown run down the street (making other people watching laugh) and then gave both little boys and their mother a smiley face sticker. As the translators explained what was occurring I was about to run over to the next house to distribute stickers when the kids called me back to say good-by. I said good-bye and blew them a kiss which one of the little boys reciprocated. So cute. So, when he arrived at the colonial, he would call out "Payaso, Payaso!" and come over to me to have a mustache painted on our touched up before engaging in other activities. But every time he would call out "Payaso, Payaso" I would return the greeting with "Mi Amigo!" (My Friend). His picture is below:
Anyway, another of the kids that stood out as we were inviting people, was a house we stopped by with an open door. The translators were shouting at the house (at the invitation of the neighbors who stated they would like clowns). A little boy answered and saw the clown. He immediately shouted "Aaah" while smiling....clearly pretending to be afraid of clowns (and possibly surprised by seeing a clown outside the front gate). So, I shouted that I had a sticker for him. He responded by saying "Oh" before doing his most "cool walk" down the lane to get his sticker. The rest of my time on the street, he would shout to get my attention and to wave at me. The other family that stood out is a bit more humorous in that we were walking as a group when our translator realized that he was turned around and forgot to take a turn. So, we had to turn around as we were walking towards a dead end. However, as the group turned around a couple kids came up and wanted stickers. So, the clowns and a team mate provided the stickers and then walked over to find their parents & invite them. The American team mate & myself can speak enough Spanish to be dangerous. So we said a lot of words - no idea if it was the right one. Apparently, Ulises thought it was close enough because the only thing he added was "It starts at 11 am" in Spanish. As we turned to join the group, we realized that we had lost the group and it was just the 2 Americans who can barely speak English and my "clown-in-training" who can understand some English but couldn't really communicate with me. We decided to keep walking straight & luckily Danae realized we were lost and came and found us. But it did make me laugh.
When we returned back to the Colonial, I painted several kids' faces. Unfortunately, I left a mirror for the kids to see their faces at the hotel. So, I had to resort to taking pictures of every kids face and letting them see it on my camera. Good news is, I got a picture of almost every kid that I met today. We did a bit of balloons and face painting before starting our show. The kids got into the clown magic tricks but not so much into the "Chicken Dance."
Following the show, the clowns left with a group to visit a gas station for a bathroom break. While I was in the bathroom, I had managed to get my wig caught on a screw which, luckily, only cost a couple strands. However, a later bathroom group visited the same gas station. About every person came to tell me that their bathroom visit took a bit long because everyone wanted to see where Isabella accidentally left a couple strands of wig hair in the bathroom.
When we arrived back from the bathroom break, we pulled up to the Colonial to see a giant crowd of kids and as we piled out, the kids all began to cheer for “Paco” the clown. It was pretty cute to see Uncle Andy’s fan club. We finished the rest of the day with face painting and balloons. At one point, my shadow, the first girl I had mentioned, called to me from a house literally right next to the Colonial. Turns out that's where she lived. I missed getting a picture of her waving at me from the window - but it was super cute. Instead, I was able to catch this picture where she is standing in front of her house, sticking her tongue out at the camera. :-P
