Part II Mexican Family Fun

El Circo y El Acuario

At some point during our orphanage volunteering we asked Rafaela what it was that she felt we could do that would have the biggest impact. It wasn’t like she didn’t appreciate what we were doing with the English lessons for the younger students. Nor was it like we felt inadequate in our performances although we did at times wonder if we were making a difference. She responded that taking the children out into the community on Sundays would give them real life experiences that they are deprived of within the walls of their group environment as loving as they have made it to be.
Sharon, Nicole, and I had over the months made the trip to the water park. We had taken three girls to the movies. We had taken three kids shopping and to the beach. We had chaperoned a trip to Burger King with the motorcycle club. In each occasion we walked away from the experience on a high. Afterwards the three of us invariably stopped for lunch somewhere and downed a beer or two and reminisced about how some of the kids had lit up in ways that we hadn’t seen in our trips to the orphanage.
The past two Sundays we decided to take children somewhere. Since none of us has young children, we had to conjure up ideas that might be appealing to 5 – 9 year olds. Night time activities failed to make the cut, so the Venados games disappeared from our options. At the corner of a main intersection that we drove by during each trip to the orphanage, a circus had set up their tents and displayed their stars on garish signs that depicted scantily clad women with whips to train tigers. A buff Tarzan whirling through the air offered a counter enticement to attend.
I have attended cheese ball circuses in Corvallis. I hated them. But when you are dealing with children who think that the playground at Burger King is special, a circus with animals and whirling through the air trapeze artists and clowns, it has the possibility to blow parentless children away. It did.
Since we attended the circus during the Christmas holidays, we had a bevy of chaperones. Our daughter Lauren and her boyfriend Bobby, and Aly, a 15 year old daughter of our friends Bruce and Leslie, Nicole, Sharon and I brought four girls to the circus. Now this is not a Barnum and Bailey’s extravaganza. It is a tent with a possible 100 seats or so. If you looked at it through the eyes of these girls, it impressed you. Trapeze artists started the show and performed flawlessly. Clowns came out and drew laughs from the audience as the crew tore down the trapeze apparatus and replaced it with the tigers’ stands and cage.
The tigers scared the children. Those animals are humongous. But this eighteen year old young lady ran them through their routine. She was also the only woman that performed on the trapeze. She proceeded to dazzle us throughout the afternoon. The subsequent fillers as the crew tore down the sets and put up new ones focused on dance routines. Each dance troupe had three guys and multiple girls. In each of the routines the girls’ outfits lost fabric. By the end of the afternoon even I was embarrassed for them. OK, not really, but I did have some concern about how the girls felt about their sex. It may have provided me with some insight as to why the women at Venados games conduct themselves as they do.
Trained Clysdales horses with performers jumping onto them provided some thrills. When the master of ceremonies solicitited volunteers from the audience to run and jump onto the horses, we became entranced. The volunteers each had harnesses to prevent injuries. As it turns out, they really wore them so that the circus could use them for comic relief. Whenever a volunteer would run to jump onto a moving horse, someone would jerk them off into the air and twirl them around. Frankly, it was funny. I am glad that I didn’t volunteer though.
I’m not sure if I can do justice describing Tarzan’s act. A sheet hung down from the top…..not a big top, but taller than I want to hang from a sheet. A crew would pull him up and down as he performed sensual and graceful acrobatic maneuvers. The adult women were embarrassed. It was a bit much. But a circus is a bit much. Through the eyes of our orphans, it was spectacular.

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The following Sunday we took all but one of the same girls to the aquarium. Finally, we found entertainment without a blatantly sexual theme. Making sharks sexy is not going to happen. My expectations for attending an aquarium exceeded nonexistent. But when a little girl sits in your lap as she watches spellbound at an enormous fish bowl as sharks glide around with a snorkeled swimmer teasing him, now that is entertainment.
The trained seal lions and seals impressed all of us the most. Lacking Spanish did not detract from the enjoyment of watching these silly animals perform. Nicole, Sharon and I agreed that of all of the things we have witnessed with the children, we would love to repeat this trip with more other children.
Our most comical moment occurred when Nicole purchased some potato chips for the girls. One of the four selected very spicy Doritos. Nicole, who speaks much better Spanish than Sharon or I, expressed some concern that the child may not realize how spicy her selection was. After she convinced Nicole that she knew what she ordered, she proceeded to pour hot hot sauce over her chips. Each of the girls did the same. This hot sauce reddened each of their faces and fingers. None of them winced. We are such gringos to think that Mexican children can’t eat spicy food. No problema.
Sundays are tricky at the orphanage. Some of them have parents or relatives that visit. Sundays are the only days that they can visit. When we have entered to pick up whomever Rafaela has selected for us to take on these excursions, other children are in the foyer to meet with relatives. It is obvious that they are disappointed that they are not allowed to go out. They have visitors who can’t afford to take them to these places that have admission charges. We are working with Rafaela to have more of the children involved with our future trips.