Fun In The Park

Just a funny story about today.

So I got up a little early today, early for a Sunday at least, and went to a different church by myself. It was called the English Fellowship Church and guess what language they spoke! It was great to finally understand a sermon, the minister was really good, he had tons of energy and a lot of it seemed more like philosophy than religion. At the same time it was really strange to see all these people with pale skin and angular faces like my own. I wasn't exactly confident in my English skills, which I think I can take as a good sign, but I talked with the minister after the service and asked about the youth group Will had told me about (Will was the exchange student with my family here earlier this year, he gave me a bunch of good info about this church over the phone the other day, thanks man!) The group wasn't meeting today which I was kind of sad about but I talked with one of the kids who helps lead it and it sounds really good. I am looking forward to next Sunday.

After church I went back to the house to grab my skateboard then headed to the park. Alex had been practicing Caopoeira (a brasilian martial art) there in the morning so we met up. When I got there it was just him and one of the guys from his Caopoeira group. They had the slack line set up and were just messing around. If you havn't read the post where slack line is explained, I'l give you a brief idea now. Its a flat nylon chord, about 2 inches wide, that you tie between two trees really tighly and walk on. Its like a tight rope but it bends much more, hence slack line.

So we did that for a little while, practiced handstands, cartwheels and backflips then I went off to skate for a little bit. When I came back, about 30 mins later Alex and his friend had been joined by a bunch of the kids that juggle in the streets for money. They looked about 10 and they were really funny, but strangly grown up, I think you probably maure pretty fast when you are spending every day working at traffic lights in a busy capital city. We helped them use the slack line because they were a bit too short to be able to get on, some climbed one of the trees to get on which seemed like a pretty clever solution to me. They had all their juggling stuff with them so I asked if they could teach me how to juggle the bowling pins they had. I do alright with oranges and tennis balls, but these things were impossibl, all I could do was step back and watch in awe as these 10 year old did the craziest things in front of me.

So again I went back to use my skateboard for a little bit and came back when my legs were worn out. This time our group had been joined by several people who I can really only describe as hippies. They had long hair, some with breadlocks, colorful baggy clothing, and they all just looked incredibly laid back. They were really good at the lack line so we watched them for a bit and I got some tips. Some of them could juggle as well and they made a triangle with one of the kids and between the three of them were juggling 9 bowling pins, with mixed success.

So our group was attracting the attention of lots of passers by and people sitting in the park and we were all just having a really good time. I kind of stopped paying attention to who was showing up and doing what, so when I next took a good look around I was surprised at just how large this thing had grown. We now had people teaching others to ride unicylces, bartenders practicing spinning and throwing bottles, hippies lounging around in the sun, street kids playing on the slack line, Alex giving Caopoeira lessons to a girl who had been watching intently, people dancing with those long streaming ribbons and more jugglers than your average circus. Circus. I think that is the best word to describe what this gatehring of odd balls looked like. I had to step back and laugh, and to think, this all began with three people doing handstands and playing with a slack line.