Ross at the Circus School

2/26/09

 

On our third day in Morocco, we visited children at a Circus School just outside of Rabat, where we are currently staying. When we got to the school, we broke into small groups and went into the classrooms to work with the kids. This, as it turned out, was very difficult as very few of us speak French…well. The language barrier wasn’t a problem for long though, and soon everyone was working and interacting with the kids very well. We brought some extra cameras with us for them to use, and taught them how. As soon as we did, they were off, and some came back with amazing photographs. When we went to see the pre-school kids, they were very enthusiastic to have their pictures taken, and then swarming us to see what we’d taken of them (Kenny was nearly knocked down multiple times). After visiting with them, we met the whole school in the courtyard, so that they could teach us some games. The first one we played consisted of everyone running around the yard in a swarm when the teacher yelled “Boouunchh, booouunchh!” Then, he would call out a number in English, and we immediately had to group ourselves into groups of that number. Those without groups were out, and so on until there were only two kids left standing, the winners.

            After a few hours of playing, snapping pictures and running around in the hot sun we were served a delicious lunch in the cafeteria there. After that we played a name game with the kids, which didn’t really work because we couldn’t really pronounce many of their names and vice versa. Then we played another interesting game that consisted of singing “Africa! Yo! Yo!” and then running into the middle of the circle, dancing, then doing several pushups while everyone counted them. Then all some of the boys went outside where they practiced their tricks on mats. It was amazing! All of them were doing flips in the air, juggling and tight rope walking. We were all very surprised when the smallest, youngest boy in the group held another boy twice his size and at least a few years older then him by holding his hands out while the other boy stood on them. After many exciting hours we had to leave. Everyone came outside and waved to us and everyone is very excited to return to the school tomorrow.