(no subject)

[shanmonster]

Ooh. My tum hurts. I think I ate too many plain, unsalted peanuts on my break, and my stomach is in rebellion. I just drank a mug of ginger drink to quell the peanut uprising. I think it's working, but it may take a while.

My Saturday was filled with dance. I busked all morning with snowy_kathryn. At first, we received naught more than appreciative glances. But then we were joined by our new troupe: The Pink Nomads. The Pink Nomads are a group of little girls, all wearing pink, oddly enough. They were inspired by our dancing, and jumped in, limbs flailing, heads and butts shaking. Parents sat on the grass surrounding us. One of the Dads cheered his daughter on with a "That's it! Shake your moneymaker!"

Had it been directed at us, it would have been creepy, but somehow, at his daughter, it just made me grin.

And do you know what? Those pink kids did shake their money-makers. The more kids who danced with us, the more people gave us money. The kids wanted lessons, so I showed them how to do all sorts of fun stuff, like shimmies, hip circles, and backbends. One little girl added her own rather nasty interpretation: backbends to the ground with crotch waggling at the audience. Oh dear. I didn't teach that particular movement....

The impromptu lessons continued, and I met up with a new puzzle. One of the little girls who joined the group appeared to be mentally retarded. I am a bit baffled as to how to proceed with teaching someone who appears to have zero comprehension. I guess it would just come down to lots and lots of repetition over time (with an enormous dollop of patience).

The kids and the audience were lapping all the dancing up. From my vantage, everyone was having a grand old time. But I guess zero_design saw another side of it. A mother dragged her young son by telling him sternly, "Don't you dare look at those belly dancers."

And so another generation of stereotypes is perpetuated.

All told, we made $30, which isn't a huge amount of money, but still garnered me a higher hourly wage than I get at my regular job. It was enough to treat us to a souvlaki and pikilia dinner at Dimitri's. Mmm... We wanted to go kayaking afterwards, but the river was off-limits due to a boating race.

.... to be continued after I reboot my computer.....

Comments

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

Just so you know, zach2005 can watch belly dancers all he wants :-)

[phil-in-a-box.livejournal.com]

I had a clarinet student this year who was, errr, developmentally challenged or something. She was almost incapable of doing anything I wanted and the few times she succeeded she never retained it. It was a frustrating experience; it didn't make me angry or anything, it was just hard to deal with someone who had zero ability on the instrument. I had to try and make everything reeeeeaaaallly simple, and in fact had to pretty much trick her into doing what I wanted most of the time; she was slow, yes, but somehow also self-conscious and stubborn, unwilling to try most of the things I asked without a lot of coaxing.

So yeah, I don't know what to tell you about your girl there since mine isn't really a success story. I had the patience and she had the repetition, but we still never really got anywhere the entire year. :\

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Well, this little girl was just a casual observer, and not a student, but she did make me wonder how I could teach someone with severe learning disabilities. I'm not sure I could, with my current experience.