Lesson from Brazil

This is a dance story from Belo Horizonte.

One night we went out dancing forro, a faster kind of waltz that one dances in pairs. The girls insisted for a friend that came along to take me, the gringa, to dance. He did not find the words to say “no” but he tried hard to get out of it. He expected me to have two left feet and disturb his dancing. He took me to dance nevertheless and soon enough realized that I was not that stiff after all; by the end, he was relived and asked me to dance again later. This was when I wanted to say “no way”.

I spend the rest of the night dancing with another friend; he was having fun every time I was missing the step or turned the wrong way. He enjoyed dancing with me, I was having fun and then it hit me: never dance with people who don’t enjoy dancing with you or better…dance only with people who want to and enjoy dancing with you.

I took this lesson home.