Saturday 19 April 2008

Send in the clowns

Friday night bought with it more random excitement in Siguatepeque....the circus came to town!!!

Under the guise of going for Noel's birthday we went to the circus. I was so excited it was untrue....I was like a 5 year old child on Friday, almost counting down the hours until it started! Children in my class had told me what to expect as they had already been and my excitement level was unnatural! There were to be lions jumping through rings of fire...and an ostrich (we never did see the ostrich). Jorge told us to expect big cats and a chicken as it is a Honduran circus.

As it happened, it was a circus from Mexico and was fantastic - so much fun. It was like going back in time - run by a couple of families who did everything, the magician collected the tickets, the tightrope walker was on the gate, the giant circus tent was lit up outside, a small ring in the middle and wooden benches (or more expensive plastic chairs) around the edge. There were dancing ladies, a magician, a juggler, tight rope cyclist, a ribbon hanging down with a girl wrapping herself up and doing acrobatics, small children jumping on a trampoline (including a very small boy doing a Micheal Jackson impression on the trampoline, no idea why, but was very funny and somewhat wrong to watch!), clowns telling jokes in Spanish...and the lions!

Oh so funny. The lion was very thin, but sort or healthy and ran round inside a large cage instead of the ring, jumping over tables etc - very much as they would have done in the 60's. Then, they lit a ring of fire for the lion to jump through! The first time the lion jumped successfully and the second time it just looked at the ring and had to be convinced through with pieces of meat. It got through and then sat on the table the other side...leaving it's tail sat in the burning ring! No one seemed to notice and we were all shouting - in English!! Very funny, but not so much for the lion!

I just sat and laughed the entire evening, I had SO much fun!

Another random highlight was when a 2 month old baby lion was bought out in the interval for the children to stroke and have their photos taken with....what happens? Yup, the gringos and their friends get up for a photo and to hold the lion! Eduardo from my Grade 1 class was there and so I took him with me to meet the lion.
Left to right: Brett, Enoc, Amanda, Esther, Dave, Marlon
Mark, Samuel, Me and the lion, Eduardo and Noel

What else would you do on a Friday night?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't know how you know about circuses from the 60s; I remember them for real with lots of lions and tigers in a big cage doing tricks, and elephants walking through the town in a procession, each one holding on to the tail of the one in front!! Glad you had such a good evening. Back to school tomorrow; I don't want to go!! Take care, Love Barbara x

Anonymous said...

umm - what else could I do on a Friday night . . . drink several glasses of good red wine and fall asleep - lovely!
Elaine xx

Anonymous said...

ps love the lion pic - glad you had a good time
E x

Anonymous said...

Hi
Thank- you for telling me what you have done Lots of Gemma and Sylive

xxx

Anonymous said...

WOW - haven't been to a circus in YEARS, mainly because the British ones seem rather boring compared to yours, they've all gone a bit PC here. You aren't going to smuggle the lion cub into class tomorrow are you?
Take care, God bless.
CHAT

Unknown said...

sounds like you had fun!, never been to a circus, mainly coz of the clowns! bit scary.
back to work tomorrow, (how many wks time half term?!)
love Katie