yo necesito aprender bailar salsa

It seems that I am going to have to learn to salsa dance, as it is practically a requirement of spending time in Xela.

On Friday nights, the school hosts a little party for all the students, and particularly in recognition of those students whose last day it is. Last night that was actually just my two friends, who were only here for a week.

Anyway, we had to make hot dogs in groups (yeah, I really don't understand that either). After food, there was music and dancing. One of the teachers is also a salsa instructor, and he was dancing up a storm. At 11, when we must vacate the school, a group of students and teachers (including myself) headed out to a bar/dance club. Hanging out with the teachers is a lot of fun. For the most part, they're around my age, and many of them are university students. One was studying to be a psychologist, another is a semester away from having a degree in mechanical engineering.

At first, I only danced when they played American music, but the salsa dance instructor convinced me to dance to a latin american song. i warned him I was a terrible dancer, but he didn't believe me until after he danced with me for a song! Right after we danced, it was time to go, as bars can legally only stay open until 1, apparently. So we headed to the "after party," which was a dance club like thing about a block away. Apparently that just means they paid off the police to stay open later. This place was crazy. It used to be a movie theater, and now the space between the seats and the screen is a big cement dance floor. Meanwhile, they projected random (mostly American rap) music videos (sans sound) on the screen. Some people were just sitting in the seats drinking cerveza and watching people dance. I danced with two guys (both salsa instructors, but we didn't dance salsa). Then, Luis, who is the teacher who is almost a mechanical engineer and not a salsa instructor, tried to show me the basic salsa steps. He was actually pretty patient, so I sorta/kinda got the most incredibly basic steps down.

It was a lot of fun, but I think maybe I'll try taking some lessons. I'm scared to take lessons because it's so difficult for me to learn steps (coordination, bah!), but I think it might be better than having to sit out salsa dancing all the time.

Today I am feeling very proud of myself for successfully completing two transactions without much confusion. First, I got my hair cut! Yay. The salon, which had been closed yesterday, was open today. Apparently some things are the same everywhere -- the two guys in the salon were flamingly gay. Then, I bought Q200 more minutes for my cell phone, as calling America apparently zaps them pretty quickly (although not as quickly as you might imagine).

Now I am in the internet cafe and am about to do some homework, as I am hoping to go hiking with the canadians tomorrow.