Text and photos: Javier Brandoli
"I left the tripod", space pecking and Camryn, joven monitors the Zip Zap Circus. The van makes a sharp turn something amidst a narrow road and re-enter Khayelitsha (shantytown Cape Town). At the light, front of a large liquor store, inevitable business places where mud is washed with plates, window cleaners appear dirty water. In that corner there are several types lying on the ground, drunk; others, however, hope there, seems that for decades, do nothing.
We arrived at the gym, a modern building anchored between misery. In front is the MSF clinic is in the neighborhood. At the door of the gym waiting for a group of children, not yet gone home, with my tripod in hand. Me lo han guardado. Children are not about children. They are críos with AIDS, only inheritance they receive from their parents, who train twice a week for their annual performance Zip Zap Circus. The class was over 20 minutes before.
There are stories as a journalist you pass by and there, few, where you stay. I can not explain very well why or may not have a lot of explaining when it is understood that those kids were born condemned and generosity that enables some people to laugh and eat open jaw, at least, eight times per month. "Come to the circus motivates them to continue treatment and to understand that antiretrovirals can lead a normal life", I say in MSF. Is, therefore, entertainment that teaches lifesaving. Is, is life.
I have seen poverty in many parts of the world. The first time I faced her with harshness was in Mexico, in Yucatan, twelve years ago, I discovered that along with the bracelet resort "everything at will" people lived in huts where naked children scampered between starving and chickens scattered. Then, I have encountered it in India, which overwhelms the number and the stench; and Nepal, where is camouflaged among the green of the mountains; in Peru, where I took a photo that I expected in Madrid of a child, Juan, than two years working in the middle of a desert eternal. John lived in Ladrilleras, impoverished place where they make thousands of bricks dried in the sun for a few dollars. The bricks are spread on a plain where so little wind burn. John is the only weight that could walk on the bricks and turn them over so that they cook at the same rate as your body; I've seen in the mountains of Ecuador, in maternity dubbed "motherhood than half the world", whose name rather than by geographical location seems to answer that there is life halved; I've seen every one of the countries I have traveled through southern Africa, where one ends eyes accustomed to scenes undesirable; the eh Visto in Madrid, marginal in the village of La Celsa, I recall that a doctor of Samur told me that the previous night a rat had bitten a child in the eye.
Why do I do this list? Because I imagine that many of those who have gone outside this circus will be thinking of children with AIDS is a story within the life of the miserable global village. And that's, but this story touched me. I'm not an example of anything, nor will I be a better person, or cease to live in my apartment in Sea Point, nor cease to uncork a bottle of good South African wine. I simply decided to try something. "They only come 50 children and more than a thousand in treatment. (there are thousands more children in Khayelitsha do not even know they carry HIV). No money to encourage more activities as important as this ", I say responsible.
I will meet them next week, without understanding the reason that after seeing so much misery, as many, has decided to stand here and do something. I guess it's impossible to live here and not lose or gain anything from inside, as viewed, when you cross the border and see what happens on the other side. There's nothing to understand, yes something to try and lots to do. Maybe I decided when I heard the deafening silence that came in the gym, before wrapped in laughter, when divided among children food bags; or can you do it when I saw that those children had 20 minutes to waste waiting at the door of the gym with my tripod in hand.
PD. If all block, if the project is viable, if you can do something tangible and if someone wants to help, will welcome the contributions schedule to detail how we funneled. I only decided to try to help with anything in this corner of the world. Nothing, when you live here, really remarkable. Almost as remarkable is to do nothing.
