White folks can’t dance



My school in Swaziland had a kick butt soccer team, and the girls netball team was pretty good too. So when the annual big sports competition  between all the regional schools was coming up, everybody was excited. The sportsmaster at the school asked me if I wanted to go, and of course, I said, heck yeah. The school had rented the use of a bus to get us there, but because it was a bus that normally plied a route every day, we would have to go to the sportsground early, so that the bus could get back to work on time, which meant being transported in the middle of the night.


About 9 pm the teams and supportive students arrived at the school, and they were parceled out among the teachers houses, so they could get some sleep (on the floor) before the bus came to take us to the sportsground. Along about 2:30am, somebody started shouting that the bus was here, and sleepy teachers and students stumbled out of the houses to get aboard. Like all buses, when everybody was aboard, the bus was crowded to the hilt. Students sat on each other’s laps, and were standing in the aisle, and I doubt that we could have crammed on one more person, and finally we waddled out of the school, and slowly drove down the road in pitch darkness. It was the new moon, and there was only dark outside the bus windows.


We clanked and groaned and wallered down the road for what seemed a long while, and eventually arrived at the empty sportsground. At least I think it was empty. I couldn’t see my hand right in front of my face, except for the light from the bus’s headlights. We unloaded all the people and equipment, and everybody was standing around in the penumbra of the headlights, and then the bus drove off so it could get to its daily route, leaving us standing in the thick darkness. 
In Swaziland, it was dangerous to wander around in the dark. There were lots of snakes, and dongas everywhere that you could fall into. A donga is a footpath, that through years of erosion would turn into a small canyon, 6′ deep or more, and falling into one could hurt you pretty bad. So, nobody moved. We were just clumped together where we had debarked the bus, waiting for dawn. There was just the sound of a few people talking quietly, and the occasional rooster crowing off in the distance.


After standing there for what seemed to be a month, the sun finally started lightening the eastern horizon. As it did, somebody brought out a portable radio, and it was tuned to Swazi Radio, the only radio station that you could get. Swazi Radio came on the air about 5:30am, and as always, began the day with its signature song, what I had come to think of as the longest, most boring, repetitious, monotonous song ever composed. I had been hearing it often, as my housemate, Mr Khumalo, used it as his alarm clock, and every morning, I would awaken to click! and the horrible song would play. You would think that a monotonous song would put me right back to sleep, but it was so annoying that sleep after it started was impossible. We suffered thru its monotony there in the darkness, and the station gave its ID sign-on, and then played another slightly less boring song. The light was increasing, though I could still barely see anything around us, and a couple of the students started dancing to the music. Some students were laughing and catcalling the dancers. 


As it got lighter, I could see them dancing, self  consciously, but they were barely moving their feet. They didn’t seem to really know how to dance, which was puzzling to me, having grown up in Cincinnati, where I was often told by my black friends that, unlike white people, black people were born knowing how to dance. 
Let me say right here, that I was cursed with two left feet and no natural sense of rhythm. I can’t dance. At all. My wife, who loved to dance, when we were first married had told me, “Oh, Sam, anybody can dance. I will teach you.” After trying to teach me to dance 5 or 6 times, she had thrown up her hands in frustration, and said, “You are right. You actually can’t dance.” And she desisted after that. We would occasionally go out to a club to hear the band, and she would get out on the dance floor, and boogey until she was covered with sweat. It was my job to sit at a table, and be sure that a fresh gin and tonic was ready for her when she came off the dance floor to rest. Good thing that, though I couldn’t dance, I always enjoyed watching her and others dance.


The light was illuminating the surrounding sports ground a little by that time, and I could see the dancers more clearly, and they were moving around, but with little grace or rhythm. Just kind of shuffling. I was pondering about how all these years I had accepted what my Cincinnati friends had taught me, and yet, here I was, surrounded by a group of black students and teachers, and they didn’t seem to really be able to dance. It made me chuckle.


All of a sudden, the radio was playing Thriller by Michael Jackson, which is a song that can inspire almost anyone to dance to it. And I loved that song. Unbidden, seemingly taken over by the song, or some inner demon, I leaped up, and started faking the moonwalk, and saying “Oooooo, woooo” like Michael Jackson, and I flung myself around in the middle of the students, waving my arms, and spinning and twirling. I don’t know where it came from, but all of a sudden, I was sort of dancing! Me! I, Sam Birchall, was dancing! Sort of, and not very well, but much more animated than the students who had been shuffling. I spun and whirled, and let out Michael Jackson sounds, and was really having a good time. Everybody was staring at me. I danced over to some girls, and tried to get them dancing, but they were too embarrassed to try. 


At last, other buses from other schools started arriving and disgorging people, and the sports event people got started organizing the day’s events. The competitions were fierce. The boys from our school did well, and won most of their matches. And the girls from my school were taking the netball games by storm. About 3pm, it was time for the teachers race. It was a 400 meter race, and there must have been 30 teachers lined up at the starting line, with me, right in the middle. The starting gun went off, and I leaped out of my starting crouch, and, fleet of foot, raced top speed towards the finish line, easily outpacing the women teachers in their not-for-running shoes and flip-flops. There was cheering, and I hit my stride, pumping my arms, and flying across the dusty ground. I settled in, breathing deeply, and dodging around slower runners, and shot towards the finish line, and flew across it, coming in 20th position out of 30. Ok, so maybe I can’t run either. But it was fun anyway, and as we mounted the bus for the trip home, the students were all congratulating me on my great dancing.


Who says white folks can’t dance?   <3


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