Corona Daily 370: Segovia Brothers Circus, Part Final

The chance spectators on the streets sometimes donated rice, beans, flour, oil and soap. A local church gave them masks and sanitisers. The people of Honduras didn’t let them starve to death. Every day, the street performances added $50 to $75 to the escape fund, not enough to go back to Guatemala.

Now Alejandro had to make the choice of saving the physical circus or the people working for it. He began selling the circus assets for survival. After selling a truck, he sold the generator his father had bought.

In one of the letters Alejandro said, “If the virus kills the circus, humanity would lose one of the oldest spectacles in our history. Circus is storytelling.”

If and when they raised enough money, they wanted to go back. But they didn’t know how the situation was at the border. Rumours talked about fines, bribes, mandatory health checks, and queues waiting for days.

*****

Meanwhile, in June, the president of his home country, Guatemala, was driving near a boulevard in Guatemala City. The president, Alejandro Giammattei, saw clowns in costumes and circus acrobats begging for money. It was a strange sight. Giammattei invited a group of circus owners to find out the impact of the lockdown on their industry. Among the invitees was Alejandro Segovia’s father-in-law, Francisco Lopez, known as clown Cepillin, head of another circus family. Lopez delivered to the president a letter from his son-in-law trapped with his troupe in Honduras.

*****

In the middle of July, Alejandro’s phone rang. On a Facetime video call, he was stunned to see President Giammattei’s face on his phone. The president offered the troupe fuel vouchers for their trip from Tegucigalpa to the Guatemala border. He confirmed each troupe member will receive a monthly stipend of $130 until the circus starts functioning again, whenever that is. A low-interest loan would be provided to help Alejandro rebuild the circus. 

Alejandro crossed the border with his family first. They couldn’t believe they were back in Guatemala finally. He had a meeting with the minister of sports and culture who would facilitate the return of his troupe back home. The minister also gave him the funding promised by the president.

On 23 July, Alejandro dropped his wife to the maternity hospital in Guatemala City. He then drove to the border to welcome his circus. The bright red Segovia trucks drove through the border gates. Alejandro made it just a week before his license to bring them in was due to expire.

***** 

The circus has now based camp in containers in a field in Guatemala City where the performers are allowed to live. Until the pandemic is over, they have decided to showcase their talent on the streets. Alejandro will juggle; clown and his colleagues will ride the globe of death at breakneck speed.

Vany, Alejandro’s wife, gave birth to a daughter at the end of July. They named her Aleangela. “She will be” Alejandro announced, “the newest star of the Segovia Brothers Circus.”

*****

(P.S. NatGeo deserves thanks for bringing to light this heartwarming story. In a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to find stories with a happy ending.)

Ravi