by Meredith Fisher, MBA '09

It was in the middle of the day, which looking back now, was not the best choice for high intensity activity. We probably should have taken a cue from the animals in Kakum National Forest-they rest in the mid-day when the sun is strongest. You won’t find one of them bartering for an hour long dance lesson in 90 degree heat on a Friday afternoon. Perhaps, even worse, was my decision to wear jeans. But the promise of shaking what our mammas gave us was too tempting, so 10 of us boarded the bus and headed over to the National Arts Center for our lesson in traditional Ghanaian dance.

The wooden floor of the theater was well worn and soft underfoot as we took off shoes, rolled up pant legs and sleeves, and introduced ourselves to the director. He had lived in Worcester and gone to Berklee College of Music in Boston. We joked about the cold weather with him as our instructor and drummers arrived. I was already sweating. Our instructor introduced himself and for a brief moment I was encouraged by the fact that he too was wearing jeans. We gathered around him in a U-shape and he slowly began to walk us through the steps of Palogo, a traditional dance from the greater Accra region of Ghana.

Now, if you haven’t seen African dance before, I can explain it best like this: picture someone who looks like their body was meant for nothing else but moving with and responding to a beat. That was our instructor. His timing and motion look effortless and joyful, as though dancing was no different than breathing for him. Unfortunately, for me, the word flailing would probably best describe what I looked like, at least at first. As the drumming continued and we built up our step count, the rhythm and movements started to align a bit, though the word “bit” here must be emphasized. Still, even with the heat, the flailing, the emergence of a blister on the bottom of my foot, the crowd of Ghanaians who had gathered in the back of the room to watch (and who I caught laughing on the sly when I looked back at them), and the jeans soaked with sweat, it was impossible not to get caught up in the intensity and the expression that the dancing draws from you. By the end, I wouldn’t claim I had it, but I certainly had more of it than what I came in with.

I was tired when we were done, drenched in sweat and sporting a blister the size of a silver dollar, but elated and enriched. In a way, this lesson encapsulated my entire experience in Ghana. The generosity and welcoming of the people was intoxicating, just like the dancing. It opened me up in a way that I laughed through missteps and forgotten moves, forgot the heat and the flailing, and the feeling of being foreign and unarmed, and let the beat and the country and the people in.