The circus arrived in Gracias last week! It was fun to see it arrive, because it's just like what I imagine the old-fashioned small town travelling circuses are like. The kids got all excited at school as various trucks pulled into the town soccer field and set up the tent. A bunch of teachers went to the circus one night. Here is a picture of the outside and the rinkydink inside. It was an experience, but mostly the performing was awful. There was a couple of good acts, like the girl who twirled hula hoops and the girl who twirled a burning cylinder on her feet. But mostly it was just pathetic.We arrived on time, but the electricity went out, so the circus didn't start for 45 minutes. They had clowns, a magician, acrobats, and out back we could hear the lions roaring, getting ready for their turn. But guess what!? They never brought out the lions! The show ended without one lion or even an ostrich coming into the ring! We were all very put out, it was not that cheap of entertainment, and the announcer said, sorry, we started too late, the animals can't come out, come back another time.
Well! No fair! The best part of the circs though, which I took pictures of, risking the wrath of the guards, who had already told us we couldn't take pictures, was Zoltan helping the clown. The clown wanted to ride a tall unicycle, but said he needed help from the audience. Not surprisingly no one volunteered to help him, but we all cheered for Zoltan, our ESL teacher to go down and help him. And he was PERFECT. He is just the kind of guy that is great at that kind of thing.
He ran down to the ring and held the unicycle so the clown could climb up it. When the clown was up there, he told Zoli to let go, but as soon as he did, the announcer shouted 'cuidado!!' and the clown looked like he was about to fall, and Zoli ran back to catch him. The clown did this about 4 times, each time letting Zoli get farther away before acting like he was falling, and Zoli would run back and catch him. The final time he did it, the clown just reached down and shook his hand and let him go back to his seat. It was hilarious. Still, there's no replacing lions.
