Saturday 24 December - Christmas Eve
Rawai Beach Sea Gypsy Village
THE AUDIENCE ARE A BIT BEMUSED AT THE START - WHO ARE THESE STRANGE PEOPLE? BUT SOON THEY LOOSEN UP AND ARE ROARING WITH LAUGHTER, THANK GOODNESS!
We set off with San at 9.00 and get to Rawai about 10.15. This venue is far more like the camps Jo and I were used to in Sri Lanka - quite a bit of temporary housing in a small village set just back from the beach. A very small space to perform in - but it all goes really well. We have an audience of about 60 children and 40 adults and they think the show is hilarious. The sound system behaves superbly! We are happy! So are the children! We had been told there were many more children in this village and had thought that workshops would not be practical - workshops would actually have gone down very well here, and we wish we had time to do some workshops after the show - but we didn't actually bring the workshop materials as we had been assured it would be impractical, and time is pressing on and we have to go.
Prince of Wales
A delicious, quick lunch with Linda and Somchai on the beach - The Prince of Wales Overseas Business Forum, for whom Linda is a Field Officer, is very involved in Rawai and has rebuilt many fishing boats for the families, whose livings come entirely from the sea.
Off to Tesco
STEVE GROH TRANSLATING AND DOING THE WARM-UP FOR THE SHOW IN A SCHOOL (NOT TODAY ACTUALLY)
Steve goes off to collect the unicycle that Club Med are lending us, and we leap into Tesco (yes, Tesco!) to buy more rice and clingfilm for beanbags and grab last-minute Christmas presents for Rooben - we had almost forgotten that it is Christmas Day tomorrow!
Back to our villa just in time to shower and change and head down to the "Venice" area of the hotel, where we are going to run workshops and do a show. There are about 40 children and 60 adults. The children absolutely love the beanbag making, plate spinning, juggling and badge making and parachute games, and then at 6.00 it's time for the show - sound problems again - we are using the hotel's PA, and someone, who shall be nameless, forgot to get our show CD out of our sound system, which is back at the villa. We make do with bits of music from the two 2 CD's we made the "master copy" from, but it is not ideal - luckily the performers do really well and everyone seems to enjoy the show very much despite the sound problems.
It's Christmas Eve after all
Santa arrives (with 2 Thai Sanatarinis) to distribute presents and we head back to our villa for dinner and bed.