My Dream Job

On a bus ride today from Beirut back to Sidon where I am based I suddenly had this vision of my dream job: a travelling clown.
I had just visited a kindergarden established by the Ghassan Kanafani Cultural Foundation in a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut and I was extremely impressed. I kept thinking about the faces of those lovely children lit by bright innocent smiles while their imagination and creativity was giving shape to beauty in the paintings they were working on.
So, a travelling clown. I would travel around light - no camera or guidebook - armed with a small case containing the tools of my trade bringing smiles on children's faces. I would do some research in every place to find out about the poorest (community and ) school and I would give street performances. The money collected this way I would then donate to the poorest school.

As soon as I had this idea I also realized the difficulties related to it.
Firstly, I can clown around for a bit, but I do not have the skills to do it well enough to capture the children's attention and keep them entertained for a while.
Then there would be the resupplying problem. How to always make sure I have the pens and (face)paints, balloons and flowers needed for those performances.
Would I be convincing enough to have people make small donations during the performances?
"Who would sponsor the supplies?" would be another question for me to answer, a permanent issue to deal with.
And, finally, there would be the problem of financing. Who would pay me to do this job? Regardless how much or how hard I'd work I'm afraid nobody would invest in this. It is a job without future, I realize, just like ideals are never becoming real no matter how close they get (or reality gets to them :-).


Alright, I'll have to think about something else :-(