Middle East 2010 tour

We’re looking to take a smallish group – no more than 6 people at a time. The tour will last for about 2 months sometime in 2010, but people needn’t necessarily go for the entire trip.

We’re looking for people with solid circus skills, ideally able to teach the kids a few things as well. As much as I’d love us to be traveling with a full trapeze rig, it’s not possible – shows are usually on a dusty bit of ground, whatever’s available, without much time to set things up, bar a few minutes to get costumes and face paint on. In Iraq we used magic, juggling, clowning and stilts, as well as parachute games – you can learn the games when you get there, if you don’t know any. Obviously the shows also used very little language, although odd bits of Arabic got incorporated as we learnt them.

But at least as important is a sense of humour and the ability to deal with living with others, sharing rooms, working hard, sometimes seeing extreme poverty and violence. I don’t want to patronise anyone, but before deciding whether you want to come, it’s important to think about how you’d deal with all that and whether you’re someone who does deal with stuff. Peat was once involved with a project where someone couldn't cope and jumped out of a window. We’d hate to lose anyone that way…

Palestine and Israel are certainly safer than Iraq but clearly there are still bombings, gun battles and so on. Again, without wanting to patronise anyone, the safety aspect has to be considered carefully. It’s a bit less of an unknown situation than Iraq, in that quite a lot of foreigners have been to Palestine doing solidarity work of various kinds and it’s only been in quite extreme circumstances that anyone’s been seriously hurt, eg, trying to prevent house demolitions or rescue kids from gunfire.

Having said that, I can’t tell you it’s safe – you only have to read the mainstream media. We’re not setting rules about who can and can’t come, but anyone with dependent children, etc, ought to think especially long and hard.

You’d be responsible for arranging your own medical travel insurance and we’d ask you to sign a disclaimer in case of anything bad happening to you. Boomchucka isn’t an organisation which is sending you on the trip; Boomchucka is you and whoever else goes on the trip.

I’ve focussed on the negatives so far, because they’re important, but I should also say, it’ll be an incredible experience. In Iraq the kids had never seen anything like us. The girls, especially, were amazed to see a 9-foot-tall multi-coloured woman. It brought out the clown in them again when a lot of them had forgotten how to be children.

People told us the kids hadn't laughed like that since before the war. Sometimes you felt high on the sound of them all laughing, on seeing the weight visibly lift off their parents’ shoulders. No matter how bad we felt when we got out of bed and we were tired and a bit burnt out, the first “Boomchucka” of the morning, yelled back at us by dozens or hundreds of little voices picked us up.

I confess I had doubts when I got back to Iraq after the invasion and saw the material desperation – not enough blankets, medicine, food, but a lot of organisations were doing those kinds of things and that wasn’t something we could realistically offer, but play and laughter, so desperately needed, were things the Iraqis themselves weren’t well able to provide. As well, people in Palestine, as in Iraq, are isolated, and it’s important for them to meet people from outside, share laughter and tell their stories, which we can bring back to our own world.

Things to Think About:

Women’s Issues

Women can get a lot of hassle from Palestinian men. It helps if you dress in a tent and appear to be completely shapeless and you definitely get less shouted at with a headscarf on, partly because people are less certain that you’re a foreigner that way. There are loads of arguments against wearing them as well, which I’ll happily discuss at great length with anyone that wants to, but whatever, you need to dress modestly – that goes for men as well.

At the same time it seems really important to have women in the group. We found last time that the girls loved seeing a woman on the stage. As they get less and less freedom, seeing a 9 foot tall woman in a shiny frock made them really happy and they were more willing to join in parachute games and stuff when there were women there.

Time

September 2010 for one or two months,
People can come for a part or all of that, which we can work out between us all. We want to work in some places every week for the whole time, teach the kids more stuff, so it will be a good thing to have a turnover of performers bringing new skills and acts to them. We want to get them doing a show at the end because applause is good for them.

Old info but worth reading...
As well, based on last trip’s experience, we’ve decided everyone has to have an out-of-country break every three months at least, ideally every two months. It’s really hard work to be in Iraq sometimes, in endless traffic jams and constant danger and burnt out clowns are a nightmare.

Money

No one gets paid. We’re raising money as an organisation, which will pay for the translators, drivers when needed, equipment we have to buy out there and so on, but we’re asking performers to raise their own transport and living costs, flights to the Middle East/Iraq/Palestine/Israel/Lebanon and overland travel in, possibly accommodation, spending money etc. In special cases we might be able to vary that, for someone we really really want, who really really can’t raise their own fare or something.

Food.

Middle East/Iraq/Palestine/Israel/Lebanon/Gaza
Iraqis, when they can, eat a lot of meat. It’s possible to remain vegan or vegetarian if you don’t mind a lot of tomato and onion and rice, though bear in mind that the rice will be cooked in chicken stock and might well have stray chunks of flesh in it. Chicken is not called meat and if you say you don’t eat meat, that’s the default alternative. If you’re a meat eater, Iraqi food is gorgeous and an essential part of hospitality which Iraqis are so proud of.

This can be awkward. We worked out ways of avoiding meal times so that people wouldn’t try to give us their last egg and we wouldn’t have to either offend them by saying no or eat their last egg.

Applications

We’ve created an application form this time – it seems a bit formal, but it’s the best way to cover all considerations. If you’re interested but would like to know more or discuss something, email circus2iraq@gmail.com
IF you are interested in coming along as a photographer or documenter of any kind, please still fill in the relevant sections of the form, adding links where we can see your previous work, and what you hope to achieve with us:)

After some discussion we feel that applicants should ideally be living in Europe to join us, we now have the opportunity to train together at Clown School in Bristol before setting off the the Middle East. This gives us all a chance to meet each other, play, learn new skills and put an amazing show together. It's been working really well for a couple of years, but practically applicants need to be able to attend.

To the lovely people from further afield that want to Cirque, we suggest setting up a group near where you reside and Boomchuckering away...we can offer you support and suggest places to visit.
The spirit of Boomchucka is to just do it!!! groups from every continent touring the Middle East would be awesome, and would be made more than welcome by our friends in the Middle East.