Performers Without Borders: Nicaragua

Hello from the lovely beach town of Las Peñitas! We are nearing the end of boot camp, and preparing to move inland to start performing and teaching. It’s been an amazing and productive start for our team so far.

We are a group of 5, and have been working hard creating a 45 minute show, practicing teaching, making the show, doing team building exercises, and rehearsing the show. 🙂 Plus laughing and joking!

We have breakfast at 7:15 and start work around 8. Then we break at noon for lunch,  followed by an afternoon session from 1:30 to around 5:30, leaving just enough time to jump in the ocean and watch the sunset! We’re all taking turns cooking and cleaning, and we’ve been eating well. Muchos beans, rice, and veggies.

Our accommodations is a wonderful hostel called Rigo’s guest house. Rigo has been kind enough to give us the full run of the place for practicing, eating and such. We share the place with a few occasional guests, and a super cute kitten, puppy and chicken. Sometimes we have to stop juggling as the kitten foolishly walks underneath our flying clubs. Sometimes we have to stop when it starts playing with the puppy or chasing the chicken just because we can’t look away from the cuteness. But we always get back to practice quick enough. Creating a whole show and polishing it up is hard work! But also super fun. We have mostly made all new group acts!

One afternoon we had the opportunity to go for a boat ride up the estuary, so we stopped at 3:00, and went adventuring. We traveled with the tide deep up into a mangrove thicket where beautiful birds and radiant green iguanas resided. We stopped at an isolated beach spot on the way back where a sea turtle hatching center was. We even helped release the baby turtles into the ocean! Go little guys, go!

The theme of the show is about 5 travelers arriving in a foreign land. (where did we get that idea?) We are overwhelmed by the sites, sounds and mosquitos! It adds quite the comedic element while still allowing us to incorporate lots of circus skills. I’m amazed at how talented this group is, easy to work with and how much we’ve got done so far. We had our first full dress rehearsal today and the show is awesome! We can’t wait to perform it! Just a day or two away now!

Tomorrow we head to El Berrinche for a few days. A circus arts festival dedicated to promoting environmental awareness. Then we head to the city of León for about a month where the real work begins. Loads of teaching and shows, partnering with local organisations and enriching the lives of so many children! This first part has been amazing and productive and we are all excited to start working/playing with the kids, after all, laughter is the best medicine!

Stay tuned for more updates from team Nicaragua. Hasta pronto!