To the beat of their own drummers

And even more perfect: a flamenco class is held Tuesdays and Thursdays in the same school building as the yoga class. The class is mostly middle-aged women, who start dancing and moving their hands however they want when the mood strikes them. During breaks, one will start snapping and stamping her feet and move to the center of the room to perform who-knows-what steps. Then she’ll move back to cries of “ole!” and the next will move forward to do her own dance. Either that, or the instructor will put on “sevillanas” music at the breaks, which is a dance that the Andalusians learn from infancy (there are sevillanas classes at my school for children aged five and older). It is not a difficult dance, but, since all the women know the steps already, I have not yet seen it broken down into its separate parts and therefore do not know how to do it. The women seem to consider this a moral shortcoming of mine. They drag me into the dance at every break, ignoring my refusals, thinking that I’ll get it if they just keep yelling numbers at me and pointing at their right or left foot while stomping away, or yelling at me to turn a few seconds too late every time so that I always run into someone. Luckily, I pick up the flamenco steps pretty quickly so I feel decently competent the majority of the time.

And, what’s more, little Maggie-the-Brit comes to watch us; the Spanish women adore her, pinch at her cheeks, pull off her little pink sandals and exclaim about their cuteness and slip them back on her feet. If only I could be as unfazed by this gaggle of Spanish women as Maggie is…