Circus

On my way to the shops a week and a half ago, I saw this poster on a lamp post.  It looked interesting but I was not sure I wanted to go by myself.  Then as the day of the circus neared, my room mate invited me to go with her and a friend who has a small son.  I agreed immediately.  Then I began to have second thoughts.  My most recent memories of elephants and some other animals was in the wild of a Kenyan wild life preserve.  I was not sure that I wanted to see them in a traveling circus.

In the end, I went.  The bigtop was just down the hill from my apartment, so we walked over at sunset. Once w got inside, I was able to fulfill another of m desires; I bought a cotton candy.  It tasted as good as any I have had, but it was not colored and the stick was not the the paper cone that I have become accustomed to, rather a real wooden stick.  A child could hurt himself. :-)

The big top was actually small.  The bleachers were a rickety wooden affair.  I saw two young children slip through the planks.  The bleachers only took up two thirds of the circle, but ithey were full.  Some people apparently were willing to pay more for ringside seats.  Later in the performance, children stood at ringside for a better view.  The cage that can be seen to the left enclosed three lions that were coaxed to get on and off various large stools.

In addition to the lions, the animals acts included elephants (this is a photo I took in Kenya), a bactrian (two hump) camel and ponies. I was impressed with the camel.  It seems so uncoordinated and of course it spit.  They had two elephants, which I was happy to see, since elephants are social animals.  They stepped onto the stools and created a sort of elephant pyramid.  They appeared to be well cared for, but they were obviously less wild than the ones I saw in Kenya.

The ponies were cute, but basically jumped through hoops and trotted around the ring.



After several scantily clad women performed on ropes hung from the top of the tent and a clown performed several audience participation acts we were bid farewell by the ring master and walked home.