A little while later the same kids came to my door, asking me if I wanted to walk with them to the circus. I said around 6:30 p.m. I would be ready. So, at a quarter to six as I listened to music from my laptop on my headphones, the doorbell was ringing. The kids were pounding on the door. I decided to wait and see how long they would stay, because I wasn't ready and had no intention of leaving the apartment right then. Five minutes was all I could stand of them pounding, ringing and shrieking, so I went to the door and reminded them I would come down at 6:30. Around quarter past six they started screaming and shrieking from the sidewalk in front of the apartment building. "Lisa! Lisa! Ajde da odime!!" I decided to just suck it up and go early. I went downstairs and went into the post office to mail a letter, and they jumped around in front of the building impatiently. When I came out, I then had to wait as they stopped at a store and bought sunflower seeds! Good grief. The thing wasn't even starting til 7 and it takes about forty-five seconds to walk there from my building.
We arrive at the town center, and there are absolute mobs of screaming mimis. One of the people who works in the culture house comes up to me tells me Nikola is up in the office. He lets me into the building through another door, and I run up the narrow staircase to the Kladenec office and find Nikola, who agrees to come with me to this "circus". We meet the director of the culture house, who I have been working with on the grant, who lets us into the top of the culture house, into the balcony, which is closed. The ticket master won't even let me pay when he hears I am from California, despite my repeated efforts to explain to him that I am not a guest in the village but a resident, and how it doesn't set a good example to the little kids who are paying fifteen denari (a quarter) to get in when I just breeze through. Two or three minutes of this guy smiling and rambling in broken English, and not wanting to hear anything I was telling him, made me thank him and move on.
The circus itself was more like a magic show. There was blaring American music, and the house was packed with more than two hundred kids. Long broken rows of chairs were tipped over, and kids crowded the stage, some trying to get on it, while the few adults there stood around, not doing anything about it. The entire time, there was a roar of the audience, kids shrieking, eats seeds and throwing the shells on the floor, pushing and shoving, sharing chairs. People were put in magic boxes and "sliced in half", things appeared and disappeared. In fact, the act started with a man lighting up a cigarette, inhaling several long drags on it (to the shrieking delight of the children, and to my dismay) and then made it disappear into some kind of scarf.
He played games with the kids, asking for volunteers. The funniest part was when he brought up a little boy and a little girl, and put lipstick on both of them, and made them kiss with a piece of paper between their lips. The goal was to kiss it as many times, and the winner would be the one who made the most lipstick kisses. Boy after boy freaked out and ran off the stage, and the first girl did too. Finally the two champs kissed the paper, which the man yanked away at the last second and the two kids kissed each other! Nikola and I and everyone else screamed with laughter, I thought I was going to go deaf. I worried the balcony would fall and told everyone to hold still. Finally, the snake was brought out. A couple of "lucky" kids got to stand on the stage with the python draped over their shoulders, but some little kids were too scared and ran off the stage after volunteering.
It was a neat experience. I made lots of observations about personal space, acceptable conduct in public, parental behavior or let's say the absolute lack thereof. I have never seen kids act so uncivilized and rude in my life!! This is learned behavior. The doorman was acting as a bouncer, literally ripping kids from the edge of the stage and flinging them back into the crowd. It was a little distracting to me, but I am definitely glad I went. Interesting also to note that today when I asked people about the circus, half the village didn't even know it had happened. Weird how things just don't get publicized correctly here. People hear about things because their mom is a teacher, or their dad is a cop, or their neighbor works in the store.