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.