Emily Ainsworth – 2008 RGS/BBC Journey of Lifetime winner – The Romance of Reality: An Exploration of Mexico from the Inside Out, Travelling with a Family Circus
In 2008, Emily Ainsworth, a 22-year-old Oxford graduate in English, ran away to the circus in Mexico. “No tigers here, because Humberto’s niece got eaten by one of them, but they do have an elephant which plays the harmonica. She’s decided that she doesn’t like me. She picked me up with her trunk, just like they do in cartoons, but instead of putting me on her head, she threw me in the mud and tried to stamp on me. I was very unimpressed. But I think she’s behaving badly because her tamer ran away the other night…” As Emily and the circus hopped from city to city, working through the night to pitch on the scrubby hinterlands, she learnt more about the role of transformation in the circus and the people who worked there. Characters included the female circus performer who danced her way through the evening shows, and then worked for her mothers’ quesadilla stall until the early hours, to fund her degree in international relations. For five generations audiences have paid their pesos to watch performers under the patched canvas of the Circo Padilla family’s tent. Emily was lucky enough to see what went on when the curtain fell and the lights went off.
See more details via http://www.rgs.org
Tracey Murray – From Bauhaus to Bastei, Travels in the former East Germany
Globetrotter’s very own Committee member Tracey Murray took us on a trip around the former Eastern Germany to visit a number of World Heritages sites and parks. Tracey described how easy it was to use buses, trains & cycles to view the many sites and showed us some excellent photos. I think we got to hear more interesting aspects about that region than we expected – Tracey obviously enjoyed the architecture, the surprisingly stunning national park scenery and even managed to sneak in references to local breweries & public houses. The audience were also impressed that Tracey put together this excellent talk at very short notice, as one of the booked speakers had to pull out at very short notice !
Details of the forth coming meetings at the London branch, September to December 2009, can be found at https://globetrotters.co.uk/meetings/lon10it.html
The London branch meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month, unless there is a UK public holiday that weekend. There is no London meeting in August, but we start afresh in September. For more information, contact the Globetrotters Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the web site: www.globetrotters.co.uk.
