The Street Knowledge of Street Entertainers

By Yilva Kalmanson

At some point in our lives we all have seen street performers. Many of us have even been street performers of some type whether as a way to earn our living or simply by accident by taking part in a public event.

In the Plaza Bolivar in downtown Caracas, Venezuela, where I used to walk through every day on my way to work, I used to see all kind of people performing in public: protesters, musicians, mimes, jugglers, eccentrics, street singers., etc. On my list of street performers, I also include the beggars, thieves, shoeshine boys and drunks.

The disgrace of some people becomes the entertainment for others. Even after many years, I still remember walking through the Plaza Bolivar to my office every morning and seeing “El Borrachito”  (an old drunk) always sitting next to his nephew the shoe shine boy. One day coming back from work I saw a great multitude of people standing around the man who was on the floor shaking and foaming at the mouth with bubbles saliva mixed with blood oozing out.  He was shivering and several people were trying to save the poor man who appeared to have had an epileptic seizure. Others gave him money or food because they felt so sorry for him.

A few weeks later, I had to work later than normal and when I crossed the Plaza all of the sudden I saw the shoeshine boy with a sponge and a shampoo bottle applying lather to the man’s mouth. I soon realized that they were actually street performers. They were pretending that the old drunk was suffering from cruel epileptic seizures to motivate people to give him food, money and attention from the world that they have been excluded from.

Another street performance I will never forget was when I was driving down one of the main streets of an affluent section of Caracas and witnessed a horrific car accident. A car with a driver and two passengers hit a truck full of watermelons. The impact of the car hitting the truck was so great that the bodies flew to the ground and the watermelons spread all over the street and onto the sidewalks. Many of the watermelons had broken open and some were laying in pools of blood from the victims who had died or were severely injured.

Soon after the paramedics arrived, I saw a group of poor people picking up the watermelons to take them home to eat. I could not believe what I was seeing. I did not know if I should have been sorry for the people who died in the car accident or disgusted by the hungry people who had the nerve to eat the watermelons after such a bloody accident. Of course, some people chose to leave the scene of the accident immediately but also there were a lot of spectators who seemed to be watching the people eating the pieces of broken watermelon left on the ground with a morbid sense of curiosity.

The shoeshine boy and the drunk knew that faking an epileptic seizure was a good way to attract people and take advantage of them so they could not only get food and money but also compassion and attention. Soon after I came to realize that even the more cruel diseases or the most heinous accidents became a form of entertainment for some people.