Week two...Arizona is Hot!!!

My blog title well represents our second week on the road. I'm thinking that I have never lost so much weight due to sweat...maybe too much information, but true. We left Tucson on Monday morning for Globe, AZ. Globe is a small city with a population around 5,000 located about 3 hours north east of Tucson. They are the border city to the Arizona Apache Indian reservation. Because of this close proximity to the border, we began our visit in Globe with a trip to the the Apache reservation. Our cast had the honor of hearing from both the President and Vice President of the Apache tribe. They spoke to us about the past, present, and future of the Apache's. I'm sure most the American's would agree that we were educated in a much different way than school textbooks have taught us in the past. It was sad to hear of some of the issues going on within the reservation, such as a 76% unemployment rate. That evening, we met our host families that we would be staying with for the next 3 nights. Rafael from Brazil and I were hosted by the Mellors, an older couple with six grown children already out of the house. Mr. Mellor had spent some time in Brazil and spoke fluent Portoguese, so he was excited to have Rafael in the house.

Tuesday was a CI (Community Impact) day for some of the cast, and rehersal's for myself and the other vocalist. One group went to the Hilo center for adults with disabilities, while the other helped to revitalize the business district in San Carlos on the Apache reservation. That afternoon, our cast met back together at San Carlos High School where we performed a BTS (Backing Track Show) for the students who were all of Apache decent. It was a difficult performance for our cast because of the lack of energy we recieved back from the students. We were told that the Apache culture isn't one to express themselves, and I feel like this was a good experience for our cast to really come together to feed off of each others energy. We were told that it was one of the only times that San Carlos high school had allowed a group like ours to come in and perform. Wednesday was our show day in Globe, we performed at the Apache Indian Casino...It was an outdoor/indoor venue, and quite an experience.The stage was elevated above a dirt arena, with the chairs set up in the arena. We had a special guest performance from a UWP alumni that was from the reservation. I had to strike the set after the show and we didn't end up getting back to the house until 11:30...brutal night!

We left Globe Thursday morning and traveled to Sierra Vista, AZ which is an hour south of Tucson on the Mexico border. On the way we stopped in the city of Tombstone to do a little sightseeing. Apparently Tombstone is the "true" wildwest, so we made sure to pose for some pictures. We had a special Q&A when we arrived with someone from the Arizona Rangers, the mayor of Sierra Vista, and a local economist. We discussed border patrol amongst other things. I had the pleasure of staying with 5 other cast members in an awesome host family. Yuri from Japan, Aimee from The Netherlands, Christine from Austria, Pierre from Germany, and Blaine from Texas...quite a group. The Donovan family hosted us this week and they were so awesome. On Thursday we did CI at a juvenile delenquent center. There were eight of us with around the same number of kids at the center between the ages of 13 and 17. It was tough at first trying to break the ice between us and the kids. We brought some drums and started a drum circle and then taught everyone our stomp routine from the show. Then we did an activity called cross the line and the kids started to losen up and share with us. By the end of our time, I felt like we had really connected with everyone. I couldn't have imagined it going any better! We did two BTS's at the mall in the afternoon to promote for our show. It was a lot of fun as we perforemed with a group of 16 in the middle of the mall. We had dinner at the Donovan's irish pub that they own of on Friday night.

Saturday was our show at Sierra Vista High School. We had rehersal for most of the day and worked on polishing our dance lines for the show. It was by far our best show of the tour and the audience was great. In all, it was a great week here in Arizona. Were leaving tomorrow morning for an 8 hour bus ride to San Diego. Hope everyone is doing great and I miss you all. Thanks for taking the time to read...