For the past and the next few weeks, Corinto is host to 2 circuses- one from Managua, Nicaragua and the other from Guatemala. Sunday night after our wonderful island adventure, we decided to head to the circus, this time joined by one of my Peace Corps sitemates, Dave. Now, when I think of a circus at home, I think of going to the Big Apple Circus as a kid-mainly I remember clowns, an elephant, maybe a tiger if you´re lucky and some kind of acrobatic number. Here you do get clowns, but their jokes are definitely a little different-including 10 round Dizzy Bat competition minus the bat. Basically they picked 5 kids out of the audience to put their hands on the heads, their heads down facing the ground and then spin as fast as they could for 15 seconds or so. After the 15 seconds of spinning, the music stopped and the kids needed to stand as straight as possible, which as anyone who has played Dizzy Bat or spun around should know, is close to impossible! While it could have turned out extremely dangerous and harmful to the kids, no one threw up nor got hurt. Because everyone was safe, it was really funny. This circus also included half naked women shaking their bodies. There is not too much else to say about those acts, that´s basically it. The acrobatics were really impressive, while also somewhat random- one of the acts involves a guy in a Spiderman suit throwing himself around the tent on a rope while another has a father and son pair. The father lays on his back with his legs in the air-he spins his son in a few different ways using only his feet…interesting to watch. Before, during intermission and after the show, reggeaton is blasted as loud as possible.
Anyway, you are probably wondering when and how the sex and condoms fit into this circus deal. Because circuses are traveling people, not staying in one place for a long period of time, many of them are at high risk for STDs, including HIV-more traveling means interaction with higher number of people, usually including more sexual partners. Because this is true, my coworker Christian went and spoke to the first circus and then him and I went and spoke with the second circus. Both groups were very enthusiastic about us coming in to give charlas about STDs and HIV. We planned one charla to give each circus, trying to make it as interactive, fun and interesting as possible. I had heard that these groups were fairly vulgar people and more or less open to talking about sex, so we tried to include this in our charlas. When we got to the first circus, they were still eating breakfast so we sat and talked for a little while, then received a tour and the history and future of the circus. To be completely honest, the life of “circus people” fascinates me: the fact that they move around so much, they lead such alternative lifestyles-with regards to raising families, sexual lifestlyes, fashion, views on life etc.. I really enjoyed just talked with all of them, but we were there to give a charla, so that is what we did! We started the charla with an open discussion on STDs and HIV-one of the circuses had really great and interesting questions, while the other started out a little more quiet. Christian lead an interactive activity on how HIV actually affects the body, using the participants as the different players- the body, HIV, white blood cells and the immune system, and algunas sicknesses like the Flu, cough, tuberulocis etc… It´s a great activity. Next we talked about prevention-abstinence is always mentioned because it is the only 100% secure way to be safe…Next (and this is one of my favorite activities) is Basta Con Su Pareja- Be Faithful. To explain this one, we tell the “Chain of Transmission” story. I will post the whole story in the following blog so you can read it if you are interested. We use this story to talk about the importance of being faithful, using a condom and getting tested. I like to bring people from the audience up, give them name tags and make it more of a personal and interactive story. The other people watching the story play out always think it´s hilarious who I pair up together to be the characters. After this story, we did an activity with the steps of how to use a condom, where the group is divided up into smaller groups. It´s a race to see which group can put the steps in order first. Then after putting the steps in order, the group needs to read them out loud while practicing putting the condom on, using a wooden dildo. This is also always a huge hit, especially with a group that is not shy. This is where we ended our charla. All in all both of the charlas went very well, we learned a little about the lives of people who work in circuses and got to meet their pet monkeys and raccoons: very successful day at work.
This sounds great, Kate!!
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