Parent-Child Bonding, Parent-Child Healing

A special humanitarian clown trip for parents and children (age 16-25) to bond and work out problems, if present and if possible.

January 30–Feb 6, 2010

Why:

Patch Adams gets many letters from young people and parents wishing they were closer — closer as friends. So many young people in crisis, confused who they are, looking for direction, even suicidal. So many parents bewildered, wishing for closeness. Not necessarily deeply troubled—often just wishing for special time with each other. This could be your trip. Come, step out of your life to bring care and fun toward suffering and see and feel the delight—yours and theirs. Come back at the end of the day and share experiences, explore self, learn juggling, improv, singing and awakening intimacy. We have taken 6000 people over 25 years, ages 3 to 88 — most never having clowned or had any training. We work with you to be your goofy, tender self.

This is not therapy. This exploration. This is discovery of your sappy, tender self in service to others. You will see your best self. There is no failure, only engagement.

The cost is $3750 per person — including round-trip ticket from the US to Guatemala, accommodations and meals, set-ups for all clowning ... and our devoted attention and encounters throughout. We will care that you have your best possible experience of fun and loving service.

Where:

For this clown trip we will be based out of Guatemala City, Guatemala. It will be Gesundheit's 2nd clown trip to Guatemala City, where we have already established a great relationship with a Guatemalan clown organization (Fabrica De Sonrisas) that will be joining us for our daily clowning visits. We will be staying at the same great hotel as our last visit due to its safe location, its incredibly friendly staff, and its phenomenal food (all our meals will be had at the hotel). An added bonus of the hotel is that we will have it all to ourselves and that it also doubles as a museum full of Mayan artifacts. During our stay in Guatemala we will traveling by bus and will have clown visits in both the morning and afternoon to a variety of places like orphanages, nursing homes, facilities for people with special needs, hospitals, and a trash dump (where thousands of people work and try to make their living sorting through trash).

Players:

Patch Adams and his 22-year-old son, Lars (Lars Adams and his 64-year-old father, Patch), plus father and daughter John and Terra Glick.

John and Patch have been best friends involved in the Gesundheit Institute for more than 30 years creating a special medical model (Patch says: "go to the Vision > Ideas section of the website, read Susan Parenti's two papers [1] [2], then think 'for example' and read my vision paper"). John and Patch have been doing clown trips to troubled locations all over the globe for 25 years. Their children joined them as sophomores in high school and have each been on more than 20 trips. They all four have led two college Alternative Spring Break trips to Sri Lanka, Peru, Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua and Guatemala.

Come play!

Write to Lars and Terra at parentchildtrip at patchadams dot org