Un de Cha cha cha

Ok I’ve been meaning to share this funny experience but constantly forget to mention it, so now I’ll devote a whole post to the story and the fantastic English club down the road.

There’s this pretty popular bar called Masaje right across the road from us, the furthest we’re allowed to walk to after dark for safety reasons. On Thursdays they hold a special Latino night. So on one of these early in the trip we all decided to head over, and upon entering immediately noticed how underdressed we were; everyone had on pants and a shirt/fancy dress while we all wore flipflops and shorts/skirts. Despite all the looks we received we grabbed a table and sat down while other amazing dancers took the stage. After a while Annie and I, followed by Sedlin and Lisa, decided to go give it a shot, messing around and spinning each other up on the dance floor usually inches from hitting someone. After that song they paused all the music and dancing and made an announcement in Creole followed by in English and flatout said “it doesn’t matter if you’re Haitian or if you’re white but especially if you’re white don’t dance if you don’t know how!" For a second we stared at each other in disbelief and then just burst out laughing, and were eventually kicked out for dress code.

MASAJE!
note the 'classy' Haitian beer Prestige being poured into a wine glass

to the left: dancing during our first latino night


So we all made a pact (and wrote it on our bucket list of things to do in Haiti) that we would somehow learn to properly dance salsa, cha cha, whatever, and make an astonishing debut back at Masaje in a few weeks. Luckily we came across the free English club around the corner and over the weeks it served as a great cultural immersion activity for us and a nice cultural exchange for them. We realized they only actually teach English on Fridays and Saturdays while almost every other afternoon is devoted to dance lessons. Mimi, one of the awesome head teachers, introduced us to cha cha cha, starting with the basics steps and twists and turns. We eventually also learned some rumba, bachata, and salsa. Most of the students there now recognize us by our frequent visits and are all very welcoming, often jumpstarting conversations with whatever simple English they know.

sometimes dancing would just
turn into doing the electric slide

On the days they teach English we’re usually brought up to the front for an introduction and then must answer to an assault of questions, usually about our love life, marital status, if we have kids, and whether or not we would like a boyfriend/girlfriend here in Haiti. Definitely a lot of fun answering some of those. It’s also quite funny seeing their uses of certain English phrases; “that’s ok?” and “that’s alright” spoken almost every other sentence. We’ve helped out on a few days and next Friday and Saturday we’ll be teaching our own organized English lessons and exchanging a few different types of dances we know like the cupid shuffle, cha cha slide, and maybe some Indian dances.

helping teach and pronounce some English

Anyways to complete the story, about two weeks ago we all dressed up as fancy as we could, headed over to Masaje on that Thursday night, danced beautifully (or at least we like to think so) and did not get kicked out! And since then we’ve been going every Thursday introducing whatever new moves we may have learned during the week. Spending time at the English Club has definitely been a highlight of the whole Haiti experience.

all dressed up ready for our Masaje comeback

somewhat successful dancing!