Salsamania

I wrote this post in Word a while ago and waited for the internet to be working :)

I realize that I've totally forgotten to mention the amazing group of volunteers that I'm with right now. Part of the reason that I've been writing less recently is because they are so much fun to hang out with that I spend more time with them and less with my computer. There are six of us that have really clicked, Emily, Anna, Scott, Mike, Andrew, and me. The way UFS works, there is a constant influx and outflux of people, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to know anyone for long enough to make good friends. However, Anna and I are both here from June 20 - August 20, so at least I have her. And we've been sharing a bed for this last week :) The others are here for all of July, so I've got them for a long time too. Some people, however, only stay for 10 days (the minimum stay), and so people are arriving and leaving all the time. Yesterday (July 11) we had an influx of seven new people, and they all seem pretty cool. This is such a relief because I've learned that not everyone who comes to volunteer is so cool. A girl left yesterday who I could barely stand. She was whiny, culturally insensitive, and just generally unpleasant. I was very glad to see her go.

One of our drivers, Bismarck, is an amazing source of advice and knowledge about things to do in and around Accra. He claims he knows where pretty much everything in Ghana is, and although I think that's a ridiculous assertion, he never fails to impress us. Last weekend, he told the six of us who were in Accra that we should go to "Salsamania" on Wednesday night at Coconut Groove, so we decided we would try.

Almost none of us brought any nice clothes to Ghana because we figured anything nice would get filthy and be ruined, so dressing up for a night of salsa was . . . interesting. These was lots of clothes-borrowing and less-than-flattering shoe choices, but we all tried to look as cute as possible with the circumstances as they were. We caught a taxi around 7 and headed out to Coconut Groove. As I've mentioned before, it gets dark here around 6, so by 7, it really is time to start thinking about going out.

Riding in taxis is hard. Not because the drivers are crazy - in fact you have to be crazy to drive in Ghana because if you aren't crazy you won't ever be able to assert yourself enough to enter the bumper-to-bumper flow of traffic - but because most taxi drivers keep their windows open and I end up gagging on all the dust and pollution. Since most of the roads are dirt roads, cars kick up tons of dust. The only days when the dusty air is manageable are the days when it rains. Also, the exhaust from all the cars is almost unbearable. I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about the fumes that I inhale on taxi rides. (My sick stomach is probably also due to a number of other factors which I'll talk about in my next post. . . sigh).

Riiiiiiiight, salsamania. Sorry for getting off topic! So we got to Coconut Groove around 8 and noticed that it was just a really nice hotel. There was a bar, a swimming pool, a goat-kabob stand, and a dance floor outside in the courtyard, and it looked like it might rain. The courtyard was gorgeous, though, and we each bought a Star (the Ghanaian beer of choice) and a goat-kabob while we waited for things to start.

I felt pretty confident about my mediocre salsa skillz because Aaron and I took a Latin dance class at school in the fall. Haha. He and I were the stars of the class, and it was super fun, so I felt like I had the basic steps down and could teach the other volunteers a little salsa. Most of them had no idea what to do. So after we munched down the goat, we stood around and I showed them the basic back and forth step and how it goes with music. Then, after about 1 minute of teaching them, a very tall Ghanaian man came over and asked me to dance. I told him, "Oh! I'm very bad!" but he insisted. So I tried. We actually danced pretty well. I certainly was nowhere near as good as he was, but I tried to follow as well as could have been expected. We danced for about 10 minutes, and then he went back over to someone who looked like she may have been his grumpy girlfriend. Haha. The other volunteers looked slightly impressed. But they all insisted that they needed to drink more if they were going to be able to try to dance.

As they got more drinks, the party got started. Some very good dancers were leading lessons for beginners and also for intermediate dancers. I went with the intermediate dancers and the other volunteers went with the beginners. Luckily, it didn't take me too long to pick up a Ghanaian partner. We learned some cool turns and the other volunteers learned the basics.

Then, a song started that all the Ghanaians recognized, and they all lined up on the patio. A lot of the music up until this point had been in Spanish, but this song was in Twi, and everyone knew the dance to it. Thank goodness the dance was very similar to the electric slide! We were able to catch on pretty quickly. Throughout the night, there were about 5 other line dances that everyone seemed to know. Of the 5 more, I was only able to catch on to about 1 of them. I'm pretty sure that the other dances were very complicated (and not that I'd just had too much to drink haha), but the truth remains unclear.

When we weren't line dancing, we were salsaing. Ghanaians, I learned, are very friendly and respectful partners who were always happy to dance with slightly-clueless obrunnis. I danced a little more than half of the time with locals, and the rest of the time with other volunteers. We had come with 4 girls and 3 guys, so I was often the volunteer who looked for partners outside our group.

As if it weren't amazing enough that we were all salsa dancing and line dancing on a gorgeous patio to amazing music, about 20 minutes into the party, it started pouring! The rain didn't let up until the party was over. Almost all of our dancing happened in the rain, and it was glorious! Tons of people hid under the balcony by the bar, but most of us (UFS volunteers) just stayed out in the downpour. We were soaked to the bone and I was so close to going swimming in the pool with my clothes on.

The only thing that we could think to ask each other the next morning was, "Did last night really happen?" Yeah. We really did salsa the night away in a downpour. It was an AMAZING night.