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At the beginning of last week I commenced a four-hours-a-day, two-week circus course provided by the Polytechnic here in Christchurch. A catalogue of the skills that we learnt, or at least tried to learn depending on our own individual strengths and weaknesses, includes:
- Unicycling
- Stilt-walking
- Partner acrobatics
- Tricks on the trapeze (i.e. not flying trapeze)
- Juggling
- Rolabola
- Trampolining
- Tightrope-walking
- Rope climbing & tricks
- Diabolo
- Globe-walking
- Plate-spinning
It’s been one of the best things I’ve ever taken part in. From an athletic point of view, an artistic freedom point of view, a social point of view. Read the rest of this entry »
Case study#2: Twenty-something Malagasy guy in rundown cafe in Antananarivo, January 2004
I was sitting in a nice restaurant in Tana one evening having dinner with the head of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) I was working as a volunteer with. He took me out to dinner on a few occasions as he enjoyed the company and conversation, and probably also enjoyed the opportunity to be indulgent to someone. During one of the stories that the NGO head was telling I scanned the room behind him with my eyes, just… I dunno, I wasn’t bored but I was just suddenly curious about the other characters who were making up the scene in this fancy place. As I did so my eyes fell on this one guy who was sitting at the end of a long table of happy, laughing diners, who consisted partly of members from Madagascar’s most internationally-noted musical group at that time. He was looking my way as well and smiled. I smiled back.
Later in the evening I went to the toilets, there was just a one-person room for use by men and women, and when I came out saw him waiting outside the door. He gave me a nice Hi, which I reciprocated as I headed down the stairs back to the table. About 40 minutes later I made a second trip to the toilets, and lo and behold he was behind the door the second time I came out as well. Only this time he followed his Hi with asking me if I’d like to do something with him the next day. Read the rest of this entry »
Now I’m going to present to you what I call the “case studies” of the top 3 places of no return that I have experienced. My original intention was to lay all three out in this one post, along with my thoughts and analysis of them, but after writing out the story of the first one I decided to just leave this post as the story alone, and do the same for the others. At the end of them I will give my discussion on what went on and what I did that was useful and what I could have done better.
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Case study #1: Older Korean businessman on Air Madagascar flight from Johannesburg to Antananarivo, December 2003
On my first visit ever to Madagascar I travelled Air Madagascar from Johannesburg to the capital, Tana (short for Antananarivo). It was an interesting experience, watching how long it took the cabin crew to do their manual safety procedure demonstration in three languages - the exact same demonstration repeated in French, Malagasy, and English; or for that matter, how long it took for any announcement to be made. Another point of interest was how much free alcohol was being served with the lunch. Instead of an accompanying little foil-covered pottle of water or apple juice with our meal, we were given a half-sized bottle of red wine each. What’s more, we would get an instant, service-with-a-smile replacement of another half-bottle of red wine once we had finished the one we had been drinking. I didn’t finish my first half-bottle. The fifty-something man seated beside me made it up to four. Most other people consumed two.
The flight continued and at some point later on I started to get curious about the mumbling this man beside me was making, it was in some Asian language I couldn’t quite catch and I thought that if it was Japanese maybe I’d be able to talk to him a bit and see if he was alright. He appeared to speak neither French, Malagasy or English.
“Excuse me, where are you from?” I asked, turning around to face him.
“…….(indeterminate sounds)………Japan, I from Japan.” Read the rest of this entry »
