Taming the Jungle... barely

The people here keep track of the King's movement around the country the way many Americans follow the relationships of actors - and it's just as erratic! Ihave seen the King twice now: once outside the Fes train station, for a public opening, and once with my parents in the blue mountain village of Chefchouen, disguised among several 'faux kings.' The King was in Fes last week, so Fes was beautified, and a circus arrived! (don't really know that the circus had anything to do with the king, but it seems a nice coincidence.)

The last circus I've been to was Cirque du Soliel, which is beyond comparison to most typical circuses. Circuses? Circi? Well, even the normal circus I have attended in the states (keep in mind it was looooong time ago) was very notably *polished.* The transitions were impeccably smooth, and even the death-defying stunts had the practiced feel of being done by one who could perform the same act in their sleep. It was more like being run by machine.

The circus in Fes is nothing if not human! The magic of it was that I could relate to each of the people on stage, could see their struggle, their smeared make-up, imperfect bodies, and shaky muscles. I found the contrast amazing!

Upon entering the big top, you were seated according to ticket price in one of about 5 rows of bleachers surrounding the straw ring, with only a low wall of red cloth separating circus from audience. An announcer yelled in Arabic, and the tightrope walker emerged, a burly Moroccan man in tall Fantasia boots. Two techs brought out stepladders that had a metal cord strung between them. They set up the stepladders and ratcheted them to the ground behind each, and the tightrope walker mounted, arms flailing the whole way. He was only ever 2 meters off the ground, but on a sagging tightrope propped up on ladders, with nothing beneath him but hard-packed earth and straw!

A man and woman climbed to the ceiling of the big top - a ladder tipped horizontally like a see-saw was their trapeze. He stood on one end as counterbalance while she swung and turned and posed.

Four black show horses pranced and pawed and ran in formation. Some clowns ran around speaking French for all the delivery to their jokes, but Arabic for all the punch lines. Four elephants squeezed into the ring and stood up, propping on the back of the elephant in front of them. The trapeze woman did an act with about 20 hula hoops. It was intermission, and all the techs emerged with tall columns about a meter wide of chickenwire with pipe around the rectangular perimeter. They set these pieces next to each other to form a kind of fence around the area, and three tigers paraded in! They pawed the sides of their little platforms, and jumped through fiery hoops. The trapeze artists did a number on big ropes. A very skilled magician did a few tricks.

I met a really sweet family with two daughters in University studying biology; they were sitting next to me and offered me a ride home. I was really grateful to them because it was hard to get a taxi otherwise! The human element that was so apparent throughout the circus persists, in the kindness of strangers.