You know who Mimi is, but you probably don’t know MAG. MAG is not one of Mimi’s clown friends. MAG is a non-governmental organization that we did a little work with in 2011. MAG stands for Mines Advisory Group.
If we didn’t already know that we were in a dangerous area, we did when we started working with an organization that teaches children how to recognize unexploded bombs.
The event was at a women’s center near the Sahara Desert in the city of Tatouine. (Yes, like in Star Wars). The children were from Libyan refugee families who would be returning to their country after the fighting ended. It was amazing how we even connected with MAG. The organization from Slovakia that we were working with for a couple weeks was asked to do illustrations for a coloring page about ‘unexploded ordnances’. When asked if I could draw the pictures, I quickly told them absolutely not! I am not an artist, but my husband is. Using pictures from a coloring book to give him ideas, and pictures of unexploded bombs, my husband drew six pictures to correspond with text written by the people from MAG.
They loved the artwork and were very happy that Mimi came to entertain the children before they got into the serious business of discussing safety and what to do if they found items like the ones in the pictures.
It was a little difficult to keep the smile on my face when I thought about those little kids going back to areas where they would have to watch out for unexploded bombs and landmines.
Thank goodness my husband is multi-talented. Not only did he do the amazing drawings, he also clowned around with me that night. Looking back at the date of this event, it was the middle of August and it was HOT!! (I prefer not to show you the pictures with sweat dripping off of us!) This wasn’t even the hottest part of the day; it was almost 10:00 at night when we started clowning around.
Being up and around at night during the summer is typical in Tunisia. Many people sleep in the afternoon, if they can. Nighttime is when everyone wakes up and goes outside. Children especially are playing out in the streets until late at night.
This event was a stretch for Mimi; she is usually sound asleep by 10:00 p.m..