Our final show is in Kaza; we have come full circle. All the cast are well on the road to recovery from altitude sickness, so we have a full complement for our last performance.
We have come back to a Kaza buzzing with festivity. The annual Ladarcha Fair is in full swing, with people here trading goods from all over Spiti and the neighbouring valleys. The main street has been narrowed by a plethora of temporary stalls in every space, with streams of people squeezing past each other looking for bargains and things they usually can’t buy. There is a programme of cultural events and lots of sports competitions between the towns. Snack stalls have popped up everywhere and the off licence is totally overrun.
During the past couple of weeks we have hand-delivered around 60 personalised invitations for the children in the valley who have disabilities. Spiti Ecosphere, an NGO who have been providing healthcare for these children, helped us to make contact and distribute the invitations. At their suggestion, we have also invited the young monks from Kaza Monastery School, and student nuns from the 2 big nunneries in Morang and Kungri. We have also Miss Jo and her young charges – she runs a childcare facility here in Kaza.
We have timed this last show to coincide with the Ladarcha Fair so that families could have a day out in Kaza as well as coming to our performance.
We were using the ADC conference hall again, which was locked when we arrived. The man with the key was playing cricket, but we found a way in via a back corridor and through someones office. The hall was full of trophies and rosettes and statues, laid out in rows along the sides of the hall, all ready for the sports presentations. The floor was covered in shreds of paper and peanut shells, an echo of the busy preparations the day before.
It was hard to know who was going to turn up at the show, as despite all the invitations, only the nuns at Kungri had replied! We got set up, put out the chairs, and waited to see…..
In the end, we had a wonderful response. The nuns from Kungri arrived, as did 40 or so nuns from Morang, all smiling and excited and enjoying their day trip. The little monks from Kaza Monastery school filed in, and sat in the front row along with Miss Jo and a group of her youngsters. More children and families squeezed into the gaps until every single seat was taken, often by more than one person. Although this began as a performance targeted at kids with disabilities, it’s turned into a big inclusive community show, which actually is even better.
When the performance finished we gave out activity booklets to all the leaders, plus creative activity bags for the children – not enough to go round such a big audience, but the contents can be shared easily. We gave out all the remaining audiobooks in a ‘hands up if you want one’ way. It was really wonderful to have so much to give. We finished up by presenting Kaku, our translator, with an audiobook, and the Trolls feather duster from the play, to remind him of his time with us.
[Prepping creative activity bags for the children]
Afterwards we chatted to Miss Jo. She is from New Zealand and has many of the same ideas about creative teaching that we do. She went back to her kids club building with our remaining bubble mixture and all the bubble wands. We promised to give her all the costumes that we don’t need to post home. I’m certain she’ll put these things everything to good use, along with the ideas in the activity pack.
We are concluding the Yak Pack Theatre Project with a huge sense of achievement. In total 1785 people came to one of our 13 performances of ‘Jambhala’– most of whom had never seen anything like it before. About 1130 were Spitian school children. Walking around Kaza is like being a celebrity for Izzy and Fred, who have definitely won the hearts of their Spitian peers.
We have chatted to numerous teachers and educators about creative lessons and ways they could use the performance to inspire lessons. We ourselves have learnt from the fun-loving and open hearted people of Spiti, who know some really important things about how to live well.
Every single performance has felt warmly appreciated and greatly enjoyed. We have been invited back to every single school we performed in. Many people have suggested future ideas to us with a ‘when you come back’ not ‘if’ paradigm: working with the Buchan story tellers; making a show about plastic waste; coming at a different time of year when farming communities are less busy; better ways to collaborate with the disabled community.
We are heading home very proud of what we’ve achieved, and feel very lucky to have had this experience.
To everyone who helped to make this happen – and there are SO many of you – from us and the people of Spiti, thank you.
