Un Baile de la Iglesia

Ok, so this is a little late in being posted, but oh well.  About a month ago I was invited to go to a YSA church dance.  I was pretty excited to see how different the church dances here were.  For those who aren't aware, the church dances are special... especially in Minnesota.  Men don't dance.  Ok, that's an all-encompassing statement, but it's generally true... if it's a song in which they have to dance with a partner, forget it... only about 20% of the men dance.  Which is why most of the songs only ask for them to jump around in a mosh pit or just sway side-to-side.  Now, I must make a side note, most American men don't like to dance anyway, so it really isn't all that surprising when you add in the "Mormon" factor.  So, I was excited to see the difference as I'd noticed a couple of times that Mexican men in general like to dance... it's actually a big part of most celebrations here.

Since I don't have a car and the dance was far away, a friend picked me up.  We got to talking about dances and she asked me if there had been a lot of dances in Minnesota.  I thought about it for a while and replied that yes, we had them fairly frequently... about 3-4 times a year and she had the most priceless look on her face and said, "That's FREQUENT??"  She then went on to tell me they usually had almost monthly dances.  Needless to say I understood why she was shocked when I said 3-4 times a year was frequent.  She then starts commenting on how dances are frustrating cause guys never like to dance and that there are always so many men standing by the wall.  So, I guess Mexican dances aren't that different.

WRONG.  We get to the dance and there were quite a few people packed into the gym of the church.  The majority of the songs were either bachata or salsa... aka couple's dancing.  As the night went on the gym got even more crowded... to the point that there was hardly room to dance. I can safely say that though there were a lot of wall flowers there were a lot of dancers as well.  The men made a good showing and I think about 60% of the men danced a good majority of the bachata or salsa songs.  I was pretty impressed by it all and more than a little embarrassed by my lack of salsa skills.  I may be good for an American, but I'm the worst when it comes to dancing like a Mexican.

Overall it was a fun dance, and even though I only recognized 3 songs out of 4 hours of mixed Spanish and English music (keep in mind the 3 songs weren't songs in English), I had a great time.