I tell you, one of those things about being a missionary is that you just never know when you’re going to need to know how to dance. If you are thinking about missions, you might want to add dance lessons to your list of things to do.
Well, at least this is what happened to me. The situation developed in a rather funny way. For starters, we were eating lunch one day with our friend Marie-Hélène. I went into the house for some reason. During the moments I was away, somehow the subject of dancing came up. Adam mentioned to Marie-Hélène that I had taken dance lessons when I was young. Hm. Actually, there was one single time that I went to the Tapestry in Minneapolis and sort of did a swing dancing lesson. One time. And that is it. The only dance lesson of my entire life.
But Adam didn’t know that. He really thought I had taken more lessons, so he was speaking in all honesty. Little did I know that Marie-Hélène, soon thereafter, had shared the news of my dancing ability with two important people in town—the president of the women’s association and the governor of the whole Mambere-Kadei region of CAR, who lives in Berbérati.
A couple days later, Marie-Hélène told me, “International Women’s Day is coming up on March 8. I know how you love dancing, and there is a huge party in town. How would you like to go with me??” Now of course, at the time, my understanding was that I would be watching the dances, not that I would be the main attraction of the show. “Sure!” I said. I am always excited to participate in a cultural event and learn more about the place I live.
So last night just before dusk I joined Marie-Hélène at the prefecture. There were hundreds of people there, mostly women but some important men in town as well. After listening to about an hour of music by a local band, suddenly I saw everybody standing. I stood as well. There was an important man entering the large grass-roofed building where some of the honored guests were sitting. “Who is he?” I whispered to the lady sitting next to me. “Oh, that’s the governor!” she replied.
Serving ladies soon brought many trays of food out to the buffet tables—gozo, bread, rice, three kinds of meat, greens and sauce. We were called by category to come and get our food (for some reason I had gotten seated with the people from the “economic resources department,” as I discovered when they called us up to eat).
The line of people heading to the buffet table was trailing past the governor’s table; as I came by the table, he and the woman next to him (the president of the women’s association) said to me enthusiastically, “Oh hello! We have heard about you. You’re the one who knows how to dance so well! And we heard you’re going to dance tonight.” I hated to disappoint, but I said, “Well, I am sure I could learn if someone showed me, but I really don’t know how to dance much at all.” After I continued by, I heard the governor say to the president beside him, “Actually, I’ve heard that she’s really good at the type of dancing that they do in her country!” Oh my…looks like the facts had really gotten blown out of proportion…
I was starting to get a little feeling that I was going to have to dance for everybody. As I sat eating my food, I tried to imagine some African dance moves that I could do if I was on stage by myself. I was not coming up with a lot of ideas, but figured I might be able to wing it. Not that it was going to be pretty, but I figured it might be possible to at least do something.
It was 8:00. Marie-Hélène came over and told me, “Now the dancing is about to begin!” Adam was going to pick me up just after 8, so I thought I might miss my performance after all.
But no such luck. After the governor and women’s association president had gone onto the stage to have the first dance (to much fanfare and applause by the huge crowd!) a message came down the line to me through Marie-Hélène, “Now it’s your turn!” I told her, “I would really rather not dance by myself!” I envisioned that if I went up to dance with a bunch of people, I could kind of (not really, but at least sort of) hide in the middle of them and not be the center of attention.
Well, as it went, the governor himself came up to me and invited me to dance, and escorted me to the stage to a great deal of applause. Although we danced quite a simple dance, you would have thought by the volume of the cheers that I was doing a five-start dance performance! Marie-Hélène told me this morning that everyone really enjoyed my dancing, and I have to say—it was definitely a cultural experience! An evening not soon to be forgotten.
