Cepillarse los dientes!

Its as true here in Ecuador as it is in the states, every kid is different. Different tastes, humors, distractions, fears, insecurities.... But some things are certain, all kids need and crave love and attention. They are resiliant. They are easily embarrased by thier peers. They feel encouragement and respond to praise, even with language barriers. Most like hugs and puppies and goofy faces, being included and being noticed. With a little warming up, its easy to remember kids are kids. Everywhere. After six theatre workshops with kids from 3 - 17 years old, its hard to find any pattern more prominent than that. Kids are kids, people are people.

The main objective of our workshops is to connect with kids, exchange some ideas and hopefully have fun doing so. We fumble through spanish and translators and in the end it really just takes making fools of ourselves to get them from shy giggles to acting like wild lions and writing thier own plays. As Rachel put it, kids may be able to fake satisfaction but they can´t fake having fun... Their entire bodies change; they get bigger, thier eyes spark alive, they laugh and glow and thier focus springs outward. We play basic warm-up and trust games and time permiting, work on playwriting exercises. (In Quilatoa where we had a bit more time, the kids performed their peices for their parents). Its great to think that each kids has walked away knowing the basic elements of a play, but we´re happy if all they took from our workshop was a silly afternoon.

We have just finished our stay in the Amazon Jungle where we worked with the school kids of the indigenous El Pilche community. What made this last workshop most unique however is that we geared our theatrical purpose to what they voiced as the primary concern facing the kids: dental hygeine. ¨Can you teach the kids about brushing their teeth?¨Carmen, our primary coordinator from La Selva Lodge, had asked us.


Well, since we´re actors not dentists, we wrote and performed a play. Of course a little play would never inspire ANY seven year old to pick up a toothbrush and have at it... Heck, I remember pretending to be half asleep and lying to my mom that I had already brushed my teeth to avoid the boring and seemingly pointless routine. But as I´ve cringed at the newly adopted post-college dental bills, I have come to terms with the realization that I can´t go wrong with investing in my teeth. This is of course one of many luxuries I have taken for granted. Not only have I always had a dentist, but I also have parents that were adament enforcers of my dental habits.

I digress. We knew the kids didn´t even have toothbrushes so we carted over 200 donated American toothbrushes through Ecuador until Thursday afternoon. We made our little play a springboard into a toothbrushing extraveganza. Brushing our teeth is fun right?!


Now, I may not be a dentist, but I have spent a solid amount of time in the denist´s office. $1000´s of dollars, 4 years of braces, 9 pulled teeth and countless cleanings and exams later, I should practically be an expert... at least at the basics. While the rest of our team occupied the kids with theatre games, Leslie and I were stationed in a tiny cement room which served as their clinic and cycled through the kids. We helped to record the names, weight and height of over 60 kids, an essential first step for doctors which will hopefully visit in August. Even the thick Amazonian humidity and clouds of knats didn´t seem to dampen my enthusiasm; My spanish is far from perfect, but I know how to brush some teeth. I took great pleasure in the vitally important task of offering a variety of toothbrush colors and styles. Not surprisingly, boys prefer blue and the girls pink.
We sheparded them outside for a mass brushing. I geared up my own toothbrush and scrubed along: adentro, abajo, todos los lados, tu lengua... MUUY buuuueenno ..... 2 minutos! With a toothbrush dangling from my foaming mouth, I squated in front of three-year old Isabella. Her entire front row of baby teeth were rotted away and she had never held a toothbrush. As I had done many a babysitting nights, I gently took her toothbrush, ¨necisitas ayuda?¨I smiled... she nodded enthusiastically. In tiny circles I pressed lightly against her teeth. She giggled and let me move a bright red plastic toothbrush from one side of her mouth to the other. I told her to rinse after an accomplished two minutes of quality brushing. She bounced to the hose and doused her entire face. Beaming, she returned to me and flashed a grin, whispering that red was her favorite color before she ran to join her friends.
The teachers labeled each toothbrush and now they´ll brush thier teeth together at school.

Talk about interactive theatre for social change.