The Magic Begins
Amazed again and again



August 30, 2010

The monsoon rain was blinding as the cab pulled up to my hotel. I dashed into the lobby. In my room I collapsed into the chair exhausted and feeling a bit discouraged. I had thought about this day for the past two months almost every day. And now, after eight hours of teaching the fourteen children at Prerana, I was not at all sure what they had really learned. The day felt so scattered and chaotic. The space was so noisy with someone outside the window using a high pitched, shrill metal grinder most of the day. With much of what I said needing to be translated, I never felt the teaching had any rhythm or momentum. I got up and checked my e-mail. There was an e-mail from Saumya, the woman from Prerana who had helped all day with translating and handling all the logistics. "Today was so great!!! The kids enjoyed themselves so much, learned so much and are all looking forward to the session tomorrow." Looking back, I think my exhaustion and unrealistic expectations clouded my sense of how much really happened for the children.

When I walked into Prerana the next morning -in the midst of a monsoon downpour and stepping over a drowned rat outside the door to Prerana- all the children were seated at their tables, their magic props neatly arranged in front of them and BIG smiles on their faces. "Good morning, sir," they shouted. They were definitely ready for more magic.

We gathered in a circle and played some theater games that everyone seemed to enjoy. The games brought us together as a group and got the kids use to feeling foolish and nervous and doing it anyway. And having some fun in the process.

Then they took turns performing one of the magic routines I had taught the day before and include in the routine a story of their own making to illustrate the magic. Thinking up the story was their homework assignment. They were all good, a couple were brilliant and one amazed me.

The mechanics of the magic was good for rank beginners and the stories were mostly imaginative and engaging. The whole thing was fantastic for first time performances.

But thirteen year old Chanda was the one who amazed me. The day before she was painfully shy, finding it impossible to stand up in front of us and practice one of the tricks, barely able to look me in the eyes. Chanda is slight with delicate features and long slender fingers -perfect for magic. During her performance she began to show a confidence and ability that seemed to come from some buried place inside her. I began to imagine she will be able to use the magic to find and express parts of herself she finds difficult to express. Saumya later told me that the Prerana staff had invited Chanda to join the magic class because she was so shy and perhaps could use the class to come out of herself and find a confidence and personal power she needs to resist the pressures she will face in the oppressive and intimidating world of pimps and brothel keepers. She was very pleased with her performance.

I was thrilled with the performances and the day went from there and just got better and better over the eight hours. I am looking forward to the mid week session and the sixteen hours we will be together this coming weekend. I guess I'm really looking forward to seeing Chanda and the other sorcerer apprentices. I look forward to being amazed again and again.

My first day at Prerana


August 28, 2010

My cab pulls onto Shuklaji Street, I am aware of the looks I am receiving
from the people in the street. Shuklaji is the main street running through
the red light district of Mumbai and I am sure they imagine I am heading to one of the hundreds of brothels in the lanes off of Shuklaji Street. My cab stops at the corner of Shuklaji and Lane #7, where the UN honored Anti-Trafficking organization, Prerana has one of its main centers.

For over twenty years Prerana has worked with sexually trafficked women and their children. Prerana began primarily as a night care center to provide the children with a safe, nurturing place to stay at night while their mothers are working. Before Prerana, many of these children roamed the streets at night or were drugged and put under brothel beds to sleep while their mothers worked on top of them.

Over these twenty plus years, Prerana has grown into a complex effective program providing not only shelter but education, vocational training and counseling to the moms and children. They are putting an end to second generation trafficking for thousands of children. Without Prerana, at least 70% of these children will end up in the sex trade as prostitutes, pimps or drug peddlers. Check out their web site http://prerana.org/ for more details on the wonderful work they are doing . Two quotes from Prerana:

In a community where women are bought and sold like slaves, their children
live in constant danger of sexual exploitation, and at a tender age helplessly
witness their mothers stripped of all dignity at the hands of pimps, customers,
and brothel keepers.

40% of Mumbai's prostitutes are estimated to be children, with girls aged
10-12 being viewed as lucrative commodities.

When I got out of the cab, Saumya and Vaishali were there to meet me. Saumya and Vaishali are two Prerana workers who will assist me in my work with the twelve Prerana children. Janet and I had come here six months ago to perform for a couple hundred of Prerana's children. That visit led to me coming here today to begin a whole new Magicians Without Borders project. I have made a commitment to Prerana to come every three months and train these children to become magicians. My hope is, like the children we have been training in El Salvador these past six years, the Prerana children will learn not only magic but more importantly they will develop self esteem, self confidence, focus, discipline and a deep sense of personal power and presence. I began to see that happen as the first two days unfolded. Next entry you will meet some of these delightful children as they began to become magicians. Namaste.

At Ajanta with Walter Spink

August 24-26

The emerald parrots swoop and sing through the blooming teak trees as I carefully navigate the steep stairs leading to the Ajanta Caves.Between me and the caves is the Waghora River. In this monsoon season the river is a tumbling torrent of seven water falls spilling into seven pools. The pools are held by immense water smoothed rocks suggesting gigantic Henry Moore sculptures. If this was all there was here it would be enough, but now I cross the bridge and up the path that leads to the great UNESCO World Heritage site of Ajanta.

As I arrive at cave number one Walter is there, carried in a sedan chair by four men -he is still recovering from a hip operation. It feels fitting that this man who has come to Ajanta twice a year for the past forty years should be carried through the site in a sedan chair. Everyone greets Walter with respect and admiration for the work he has done all these years unraveling the mysteries of this amazing place. His art historian friends joke with him that he has studied the Ajanta caves for more years than it took to make them.

Walter struggles up the steep stairs inside Cave 6 to a second story porch from which we could see most of the site in the glorious late morning light. We sit there for an hour talking about this awesome place. We then go on to look at a number of the caves in some detail. I have enclosed a link to a short film of Walter talking about the caves, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZsAbzR1-vk --a few of the shots he is sitting on that second story porch of cave 6.

I will be coming to India regularly to train the children at Prerana to become magicians. I hope on some of these visits to return again to awesome Ajanta, to visit the caves and wonderful Walter. The next morning, a friend of Walter's drives us to Bhushawal so I can catch the train back to Mumbai to begin the work with the children at Prerana http://prerana.org/ I am sad to say good bye to Walter, our visit has been so short, but I know in my bones I will be back.


I am excited and a bit nervous as I head to Mumbai to begin this exciting new adventure of working with these children of sexually trafficked women in the red light slums of Mumbai. I know Prerana is thrilled that I am coming and they will do every thing they can to make my work with their children a success. In my next entry I will let you know how my first meetings with the children went. Namaste.

Monsoon Season in India
A New Adventure Begins


August 27, 2010

Greetings from steamy monsoon Mumbai. So marvelous to be back in India to begin this new adventure of teaching magic to twelve children of sexually trafficked women in the red light district slum of Mumbai. This is my sixth time in India, but I've never been here during monsoon season.
"Incredible India" the tourist posters announce -and so true. Every five minutes I see something I have never seen before in my life or certainly have never seen in Lincoln, Vermont. No wonder I am usually exhausted at the end of the day -taking in so many new things every few minutes wears one out. I guess this is why babies have to sleep so much -- exhausted from "beginner's mind."

My plane arrived 2 a.m. Tuesday morning --four hours late. We sat on the tarmac in JFK for six hours. Air India even served us dinner on the tarmac before we took off. Delicious Chicken Briyani was the 'non-veg' offering. Delightful, attentive, friendly flight attendants in their gorgeous red and saffron saris -making you feel as at home and comfortable as you can on a fourteen hour flight. Fortunate for me, unfortunate for Air India, the plane was not even half full. So I had three seats to stretch out and sleep when I wasn't eating one of the three meals, reading Melville's short stories, or watching the selection of movies.

After the hour taxi ride -the slow descent into the wild and wonderful world of Mumbai and India, I arrived at the Garden Hotel about 3:30 am, checked in and slep for four hours.
After breakfast I headed off to Mumbai's ornate Victorian Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train terminal to catch the train for Bhushawal to meet Walter Spink. Walter is an old friend and major supporter of Magicians Without Borders -Walter funded the film shot by Dominic Howe that is now posted on our website -in six exquisite minutes Dominic captures the mission and feel of our work. Check it out! Walter Spink is the expert in the world on the monumental Ajanta temple caves. He is working on volume seven of the most comprehensive study of perhaps any monument in the world. Thursday I went to Ajanta by rickshaw, Walter would meet me there to show me around.

Gandhi once said, "India is in her villages." The rickshaw took me through villages where life goes on as it has for thousands of years. Women walking in threes in an unimaginable riot of color and pattern of sari and dupats (scarves) with stacked gleaming ornate silver water jugs balanced on their heads; earings and bangles, toe and nose rings, and glistening black black hair falling to their waists, and all laughing as they bounce along the dirt roads. Men making chapatis and samosas in roadside stalls, working on trucks and tractors, herding goats and cows. Children every where. In one village a Islamic mosque, Hindu temple and Buddhist stupa all within a stone's throw of one another.

And all around the villages and along the roads the fields are ablaze with monsoon green and flowers of unimaginable shapes and colors, corn and cotton, rice and vegetables of all kinds. And through all of it birds of uncalled-for color -flocks of emerald green parrots, shockingly blue kingfishers and birds I have never even imagined -if I was an Audubon birder with my life list in hand, I would have been madly checking off species as the rickshaw bounced along. The rickshaw dropped me off at "the viewpoint," from which you have a spectacular view of this most awe-inspiring, breath taking, beyond belief that human-beings-could-have-created-such-a-marvel, Ajanta. As they say of the rock hewed churches of Lalibella in Ethiopia, maybe "angels came at night and did the real work." Going to Ajanta through the villages is a perfect way to begin my time here in India.

The next blog entry will give an account of my walk down to the caves through the blossoming teak trees and the magical seven pools filled by seven waterfalls and my day at the caves with wild and wonderful Walter guiding me through its marvels. Namaste.

Thursday May 27, 2010

Mother Teresa in Skopje

Mother Teresa was born Agnese Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje on August 26, 1910. Today I went to visit the Memorial House of Mother Teresa. The Memorial is build on the site of the old Sacred Heart of Jesus Jesuit Church where Agnese Gonxha Bojaxhiu was baptized the day after she was born. The memorial is a simple place inside with a few of her personal effects -- the bed from her childhood home, the sari she wore as a Missionary of Charity, her rosary beads, her hand written prayer book, many pictures of her with Popes and Presidents, a picture of her receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and others of her working and praying with her fellow sisters in Kolkata (Calcutta). The handwritten draft of the Constitution and Rule of The Missionary Sisters of Charity that she wrote down in 1946 is there. On the roof of the memorial there is a small light filled chapel.

Seeing her original hand written thoughts, her vision of the life she felt called to live, was very moving. These movements, these great realities that take form in the world, begin in the imagination, in the heart, in the soul, on a piece of paper and then they find their way into form in the world. She was seeing her vision and putting it into words. Then it became the life of going out into the streets of Kolkata and caring for the sick and dying, one by one. Then it became a religious order of sisters and brothers around the world serving the "poorest of the the poor." This great life began in her imagination -this is where the voice of God is heard. The Inquisitors attacked Joan of Arc dismissing her vision with, "This is all in your imagination," to which she replied, "That is how God speaks to us." I believe it was Kurt Vonnegut who once said , "We are what we imagine ourselves to be, so be careful what you imagine your self to ber." It all begins in the imagination, First the dream image in the night and then the day world of struggling to live it out.

As I said in an earlier blog entry, this trip to Macedonia is a return to the roots of Magicians Without Borders. A return to where it began. A return to where it was first only a glimmer of a vision, a slowly forming dream that had not yet emerged from the dark. That would happen months later. I am amazed when I think that we have now performed for 400,000 refugee and orphan children these last nine years. What was an image in my heart has become a reality in the world. There is something amazing about that at the moment. Being amazed at the hand written constitution of Mother Teresa's was about this mystery and magic of the imagination -where do those images come from and why do some of them take form in the world and some of them, many of them, wither on the vine or die in the dark.

I need head off to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to finalize the details for some performances in Roma refugee settlements over the next few days. I will end with a couple of quotes from Mother Teresa, so simple they could be dismissed:


Do not wait for leaders, do it yourself, person to person.

Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love,
a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.

In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things
with great love.

Magic in Macedonia

Wednesday May 26, 2010
Magic was in the air today.

I took a cab to the outskirts of Skopje to Sumnal, (check out their Sumnal facebook for pictures of the magic show) a center that works with Roma children. Elez was on the street waiting for me when the taxi pulled up in front of Sumnal. Elez is a Roma man who has been working at Sumnal since it began in June 2004 and arranged for me to come to do some magic for the children . Elez was smiling and clearly happy to see me. "Welcome to Sumnal, thank you for coming. Our children are very excited to see your magic."

Inside, the children were sitting around tables in the second of two rooms in the small building (a clean, well furnished space funded by the Swiss Embassy). They were studying from books and being helped by a number of women in red uniforms. They were all very curious when I came in . As I began setting up my strange looking props and preparing for the performance it became increasingly impossible for them to continue with their study. In twenty minutes more children arrived and we began the show, there were about forty children in all.

The children spoke very little English (many of them were studying Macedonian because "they only speak the Roma language at home with their parents, " Elez told me). In spite of language and with a little help from Elez translating, the children were eager to be my assistants and the
show brought much laughter and delight. They were very expressive and responsive in their sense of awe and wonder as silk scarves vanished in flames or sponge balls multiplied in their hands. There was a wonder-full sense of magic in the air.

I ended the show, as I often do, by holding up a long white strip of paper. "Imagine this is your life," Elez translates. "Sometimes it is a very good life, you have friends and family, you are healthy and in school and everything seems wonderful. What are some of those wonderful things?" I ask. "My father," two or three children say. "My mother", "Food", "My grandparents," were some of the things they yelled out. "But some times our life is difficult," I say. "Sometimes we are sick," and I begin tearing off pieces of the white paper. "Sometimes a friend or someone in our family is sick," I say. "What else can make our life difficult? I ask "Someone in my family is sick," one child repeats, "Some one dies", "A friend says something that hurts me," "We are sometimes hungry," they list difficult things. With each thing they list I tear off another piece of the white paper. Holding up the handful of torn pieces I say, "Sometimes our life feels bad, like it is in pieces. But, maybe with hope and imagination, love and courage our life will come back together into a whole again." I open my hand and take out still torn pieces of paper. I look up at them disappointed. "Sometimes it takes time," and I open my hand again and still there are only torn bits of paper. "Oh, I forgot something. Everywhere we go in the world there is a saying something like, "Our suffering is like bread and it can make us stronger and more beautiful," and I slowly begin to eat the torn bits of paper as if it is bread. They look in amazement at what I am doing. Some start to laugh. "Maybe when our life comes back together after the difficulties, it will not be the same as before, but now it will be even stronger and more beautiful like this. As I say this I begin to slowly take a forty foot paper rainbow streamer from my mouth. The children squeal in delight as the paper seems to come for ever from my mouth. The show ends with laughter and applause.

After I packed up I sat down with some of the Roma children and talked about the show. They told me all the tricks they liked the best and one of the women said "They will be talking about his show for ever." We have heard a version of this from teachers and workers around the world, "They will be talking about this show for many months, you have fed their minds and imaginations," an Afghan elder told us last year in a refugee camps on the Iran-Afghan border.

A little boy named Hashmet asked me if he could have the colored rainbow streamer. "My mother is sick in the hospital and my father and I are going to visit her this afternoon. I would like to take it out of my mouth or from my sleeve and that will make her feel very good. That will make her laugh and feel better," he said with a delighted grin in his eyes. I gave Hashmet the rainbow streamer and he stuffed it into his backpack. Magic was alive at that moment in so many ways.

Elez walked me to the door to catch the taxi back to the center of Skopje where I am staying with some friends I met on my first trip here nine years ago, the trip that inspired me to begin Magicians Without Borders. As Elez and I walked through the other room I noticed all the desks and chairs and other furniture were covered with newspaper. I asked him why and he pointed up to a swallow's nest attached to the center light fixture in the ceiling. There were baby swallows looking out over the edge of the nest. "It is good luck if a bird builds its nest in your house. We will leave it there until the babies have flown away." At that moment, I knew I was no longer in Kansas, Toto. I felt as delighted as I imagine those children did when they saw that rainbow streamer.

I felt surrounded by magic as I rode back to Skopje. I felt filled with all the magic I had just seen. My tricks were some of it but the magic in Hashmets heart as he stuffed the paper in his backpack thinking about his mom in the hospital and the swallows allowed to live in the light fixture seemed like the real magic this morning at that Roma center on the outskirts of Skopje. Another day when I learn more about magic. Another day when I feel I get so much more than I give.

DAY 1-2

The first day was mainly spent acclimating and entering the action-packed environment. The group (aka magic troop) got to know each other, and the got down to planning our journey.

While walked through the uniquely lively streets on Mumbai we were, frequently, not surprised that we had lost Tom. He was a block behind us doing a few coin tricks at a corner. There is no end to peoples excitement. A crowd appears swiftly, cheering, laughing with faces of anticipation. So far, the peoples reactions span from terrified to elated. It's a remarkable experience to witness and to be a part of.

DAY 3-4

We took a sleeper bus from Mumbai to Fatehpur. The bus ride was long and bumpy. Some of the magic troop slept, others did not. It is very arduous to get off an all night bus ride only to realize that there are no toilets, there were bed bugs and its cold. Being ill-equipped (commode wise) we boarded the taxi jeep, as all strong travelers do. We arrived at the hotel resort in Fatehpur an hour or so later.
ENTER: Walter Spink, the unparalleled historian of the well known Ajanta caves. It has always been an honor to personally know Walter, he is such a great man. While there, we performed serveral shows. The first at a local Muslim grade school. The girls were very shy, but loosened up when Janet did her routine "goofy miming antics". The show was fantastic, the magic touched many people. Our presence was that of celebrities and everyone wanted their photos taken with us.
Walter has been sharing some of his knownledge of the history of the caves. From Walter's friends he has made over the years, we have had the opportunity of them inviting us to their homes to visit with their families. We have had the pleasure of meeting women who kindly offered to do exquisite traditional henna on our hands. One of the beautiful women doing the henna turned out to be a very traditional Muslim. We were grateful to realize that behind close doors this womens borders no longer existed. After having a wonderful evening of drinking chai, dancing with the children, we noticed how this women put on her burqa before even stepping out of the kitchen. The walls we were in that night protected her from being surpressed.

Greetings and warm regards from the below zero mountains of Lincoln, Vermont.

This is our first blog entry. Magicians Without Borders is starting a blog so that we can let folks know what we are doing while we are traveling.

Two weeks ago we returned from a couple of wonderful weeks in El Salvador and Guatemala. During the first part of January for the last five years we have hosted a week-long sleep over Theater-Art-Magic Camp in El Salvador for thirty five children from Santa Ana. This is a marvelous, much anticipated week for these children who live in grinding poverty surrounded by brutal gang violence. To spend a week in a beautiful, safe place laughing and learning in a delight for them. The Closing Circle was filled with tears of joy and gratitude for a wonderful time. There will be a detailed accounted of Campamento 2010 on our web-site.

After Campamento we took Maricela and Astrid to Guatemala. They have been studying magic with us for the past six years. We took a seven hour bus ride into the Highlands of Guatemala where Maricela and Astrid performed for thousands of Mayan children living in the villages near Lake Atitlan. They were a marvelous inspiration to the thousands of children who squealed with delight at their magic and comedy. In October we took Peter and Zumba, two of the boy magicians to Guatemala and they performed for thousands of school children in the Guatemalan Highlands.

These are the first of many trips we hope to take with our Salvadoran magicians who are now performing regularly around El Salvador in orphanages, hospitals and pre-schools. We are very proud of the hard work they have done to become skilled and delightful performers.

INDIA

Tomorrow we head off to India for two weeks. There are at least a dozen shows scheduled so far in Mumbai and in the villages around Fardapur. Walter Spink, the world renowned Indian Art Historian and scholar of the Ajanta Temple Caves, has set up the shows around the village of Fardapur and is funding a film of the entire trip. Walter has hired Dominic Howes from Rickshaw Productions to shoot the film. Go to www.americalistening.com/about to learn about one of Dominic's award winning films.

The shows in Mumbai have been set up once again by our friends Kalyani and Dhanu who work with the street children and orphans of Mumbai. We will be performing in Muslim, Hindu and Christian orphanages, the largest orphanage for mentally ill children and young adults in Asia, for the children of commercial sex workers and for many other children in the slums of Mumbai. We are grateful to Walter, Kalyani and Dhanu for supporting our work in India, we could not do it without them.

During our time in India, Mira Verner-Lust will document the trip and the making of the film. Mira will post a written and photographic blog entry as often as internet access is possible.

We are excited that Mira will be launching our blog. We look forward to your feed back and any comments, questions, suggestions you might have as we travel though India bringing magic and laughter to thousands of children.

Thank you for your support. Without your support we would not be able to bring magic, laughter and hope to many of the world's most forgotten children. Thank you!!