Bells, morning ragas, tabla drumming, honk honk, ding- a- ling, motors revving, cows MOOOOing, dogs barking, pungent aromas of spices, incense, poop, wood fires, plastic fires, vegetable sellers, chai sellers, temples around every corner, Boat Madam!? Rickshaw Madam?! Hello! Hello! Where you from?!
On the banks of the Ganges River, The Holy City of Varanasi (or Banaras) has been hustling and bustling for 3,000 years! This ancient city is a destination for many Hindu pilgrims, Shiva Devotees, as well as tourists, holy men, yogis, tradesmen, world class musicians, and of course, Performers Without Borders.
After a 40 hour train ride from the last project in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, PWB arrived in the morning in Varanasi on February 1st. We soon settled into our little guest house, that is conveniently located in Nagwa, the neighbourhood where we will be teaching at two schools. We will teach 5 days a week Monday through Friday from 3-5 pm at Asha Deep, and 4 days a week in the mornings at Duniya Education. As well as scheduling outreach workshops and shows with other local schools.
This will be the 9th tour of PWB in Varanasi, India, and also celebrating 9 years of teaching students at Asha Deep Vidya Ashram. This is one of the longest PWB projects running, and you can sure see it in the skill levels of the kids. Many of the young boys love to juggle balls and clubs, and we are very excited to work with them to develop some more club passing skills. They are also very talented at contact staff and poi, and the girls are very passionate about learning more fan techniques and more hula hooping from this year’s PWB super dooper hula hoopers.
We spent the last week evaluating skills and now the teachers have a good idea of where to go from here. Starting today we are focusing on fundamentals, establishing an objective to do a teacher training with some of the older kids this year, and beginning to develop acts. Our training with Asha Deep culminates in a choreographed Spring Extravaganza show that will be a public event at Assi Ghat, a popular public space, for all their community to see. So we have much work to do with these kids!
Our first week teaching at Duniya Education was full of fun! Sara taught ball juggling, while Shouniez taught a lot of Acrobatics and tumbling, and Spades taught staff spinning. The children at Duniya really look forward to every year when PWB comes.
After one week, we are getting used to being in this city. Several of us battled with stomach illness or fever this week, but are now on the mend. This is unfortunately one of the realities of adapting to Varanasi, some sicknesses. When this happens the rest of the team can help to cover classes and we adjust our schedule if we need to. But it usually works out alright, and this is a great benefit of being a team.
Personally this is my third time in Varanasi, and to me the city seems exactly the same as every time, and only I feel different. The old saying of revisiting a place to find that you’ve changed inside, feels appropriate. The city feels more familiar to me, and I feel comfortable with all the little challenges…. or at least more accepting. It’s such a joy returning to the smiling faces of the children I remember from last year, and to see how they’ve grown!
Hindi phrase of the week:
Jeevan me dharia zurrurri hay.
Life is about being patient.
Me tumko dek raha hay.
I am looking at you.
I LOVE YOU BANARAS!
Mika ji
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