Teaching children in Mexico how to swing dance
http://www2.townonline.com/woburn/opinion/view.bg?articleid=...
...and a life lesson about stealing
By Jon Hartmere
October 20, 2005
On Saturday, God took my shoes to pay for a bottle of Propel Fitness water. As any Catholic will tell you, penance can seem an arbitrary thing.
***
Backing up: for her birthday, my friend Ilana wanted either an IPod or a digital camera.
Instead, I gave her a trip to Tijuana to teach swing dance to Mexican orphans. Feliz cumpleanos, Ilana.
Faithful readers of this column will recall that several years ago I recounted teaching these same orphans how to do origami. Because really,
it's all about the life skills. Yes, let's teach them English; yes, let's teach math and science so they can break free of the vicious poverty cycle.
But above all, let's teach them to swing. Because when they do break free, they're gonna want to dance.
***
My original dance partner was my friend Molly, who went with me on the last trip my church organized to the orphanage and whom the orphans loved
because she is an Attractive Blond American.
I also asked my friend Mark to join us. But Mark - being Mark - couldn't just agree to come along.
"Can I ask you a question?" he said, as he always does before inquiring anything. "We're going to Tijuana to teach orphans to dance swing? Isn't
there something better we could be doing for them? Like bringing food, or medicine?"
I sighed. A few weeks ago I told Mark that in his constant naysaying, he reminded me of Eeyore, and found out that that was actually hisnickname
in high school.
"We're doing that too," I told him. "We're bringing lunch. And cold medicine." This was true. "But we also do activities each time we go."
"Useful activities?" Mark asked. "I don't know," he continued. "I'm not sure what I bring to the table, since I don't speak Spanish and can't
swing dance. I just don't get why you'd take me."
"To set you up with Molly," I told him.
"What time should I be ready?" he answered.
***
Cut to: Wednesday of that week, and I'm answering an Evite from my friend Summer to her birthday party on Saturday. I entered myself in the
"Maybe" response category (which Summer had renamed "Um, there might be this thing... at this place..." - it's customary for clever Eviters to
personalize the "Yes," "Maybe" and "No" sections of their Evite). I wrote that I probably wouldn't make it, since I'd be in TJ with my friend Molly,
spreading the joy of swing, and then scrolled through all the other responses and the "not yet responded" lists to gauge Summer's relative popularity.
Under the "no" section, I found Molly's name (we're both friends of Summer's). My first thought was, "I guess I should have responded 'no' too,
as the chances of us getting back from Tijuana in time are almost non-existent."
My second thought was, "Why is Molly saying she can't attend Summer's party because she's going to a wedding?"
***
I immediately fired off a tersely-worded email to Molly, the way I like to think Sigourney Weaver's character inWorking Girl might have - saying
that I "assume that by 'wedding' you mean 'orphanage,' as you are my dance partner for Saturday and I hope you haven't forgotten."
I waited for her response, hoping she'd say "I'm sorry I forgot, but now I'm committed elsewhere - what do you want me to do?" so I could quote
Strictly Ballroom: "I'll tell you what I want! I want Ken Railings to walk in here right now, and say 'Pam Shortt's broken both her legs, and I wanna
dance with YOU!'"
Molly called the next day to tell me she'd received an "emergency wedding invitation" to a cousin's wedding St. Louis.
Mm-hmm. I want to see a menu from this emergency wedding.
And also? I want to be told you aren't coming directly, rather than find it out in the "No" AKA "Summer Herrick Is a Little Too Weird for My
Tastes" section of an Evite.
***
My first move was to cut Mark from the trip, because a) I knew he had other stuff he needed to do, b) what was the point now that Molly wasn't
going, and because c) I've seen Mark dance and he truly does bring nothing to that table, and even if he did, smart money says he'd upend it before
the song got to the chorus.
I needed a dance partner, however, so I called my friend Ilana, who was surprisingly quick to agree despite the fact that she'd be turning 25
that night at midnight. And so it was that I picked her up at 6:30 - in the morning - and headed to St. Monica's Catholic Church in St. Monica (they
sponsor the trips) where we boarded vans to make the three-hour journey to Tijuana.
When we got to the parking lot of the church, Ilana asked, "Hey - um... is it okay that I'm Jewish?"
"Yeah," I said, assuring her that the only thing we'd be proselytizing that day was the magic of 1940s dance.
***
We stopped an hour into the trip to let people go to the bathroom and grab some breakfast. And where did we stop?
At a store called, simply: "Full-service Jewish Deli."
"Your people," I told Ilana. We are nothing if not inclusive.
We entered, and all I really wanted a drink. I went to the case and spent a few odd seconds trying to open it.
It never occurred to me that it might be locked. Who locks a drink case?
I learned that you had to actually order the drink from the counter help; the clerk came over and unlocked the case so I could get to the Propel
Fitness water I wanted.
"Do, um... do people really steal your drinks?" I asked, incredulous.
"Nah," the clerk answered. "I think it's that during the night the people who clean the place sometimes take them, so the manager locks it
overnight."
I returned to the counter; I heard Ilana ordered a bagel with lox and thought, well, so much for blending in.
I ordered the same. When they were ready, we were told they would be $6.99 plus tax.
Each.
For a bagel with some salmon? Was the fish personally chased upstream by the owner?
I was so annoyed at this lox gouging that when the adorable elderly woman who ran the cash register asked me, "Anything else for you?" I found
myself obfuscating my bottle of Propel behind the bag containing my overpriced bagel and saying, "Nope."
Showcasing that it's actually not, in fact, the overnight cleaning crew the owners of Full Service Jewish Deli need to watch for. It's the
Catholic boy on a philanthropic trip to Mexico who has decided to take economic justice into his own hands.
***
I justified to myself that the soda probably went for $1.50, which brought the true cost of the bagel down to $5.50 - which was still more than
it should have cost.
I know. It's a slippery slope from this to doing the Enron accouting.
As I ate the bagel outside, I heard that anti-piracy trailer on repeat in my head: "You wouldn't steal acar ... you wouldn't steal a handbag. You
wouldn't steal aDVD ..." and thought, "But Iwould partially obscure a Propel to justify the price of a bagel with lox."
***
I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that I had, in fact, stolen the drink. I hadn't put it in my pocket, no, but I also hadn't held it where
the cashier could see it. I could feel this fact boring a hole in my conscious, like a tell-tale, high fructose corn syrup-flavored heart.
I was reminded of third grade at St. Charles, when Mrs. McElhiney came into the coatroom and found me playing and gave me a third warning, which
meant detention. But she miscounted and thought it was my second, and for months afterwards, that's all I could think of. Her son Todd was on my
Little League team, so I would see her at games and think, "She knows, and she's waiting for me to come to her. If I do, perhaps I'll get the keys to
Wonka's Factory."
Or, more likely, I thought: I'll get detention, and that will go on my third grade record and I will NEVER GET INTO COLLEGE.
I finally broke down and confessed the whole sordid tale to my mother. That summer. After I was out of Mrs. McElhiney's class.
"Honey, don't worry about it," I remember her telling me. "She's completely forgotten about it. Trust me."
I learned then and there a valuable lesson: the statute of limitations.
I wondered what it was for a pilfered Propel...
***
Perhaps you've never done anything remotely like this. You've never taken a box of paper clips home from work, used the office copy machine for
personal use, "burned" a CD, or failed to alert a restaurant that they forgot to charge you for an item you ordered.
But I venture to guess we've all done something in this vein, if only because said assumption makes me feel so, so much better about myself.
Still - and proving that there may yet be hope for me, despite my mother's complete and utter failure to raise an ethical child - eventually the
guilt so bothered me that I returned to Full Service Jewish Deli to make it right.
Which I rationalized I could do by putting $1 in the tip jar.
Now, just think about how odd that looked. I walked into the store a full ten minutes after being served, walked up to the counter and stuffed a
dollar into the tip jar.
Could. I. Be. More. Insane.
Stay with me, though: if you subtract the tax, I was pretty close to the total of what I'd taken, and if you consider the wholesale price they
pay for the drink, they actuallymade money on me.
Full-Service Jewish Deli: you can keep the change.
***
At our second stop on the way - because you need to stop twice in a three-hour trip - I browsed a place that sells brand name shoes while our
driver's purchased Mexican car insurance. I ended up purchasing a pair of Alfani leather shoes that I thought might be more appropriate to wear to the
next wedding I attend instead of the black work boots I generally "try to get away with." I paid $28, stole nothing in the store, and we were on our
way.
We arrived at the orphanage around 1:00. After unloading the food we'd brought for lunch from the vans, we greeted the kids, then sat down in
the big room where they eat.
To pray the Rosary.
In Spanish.
Now, when was the last time I prayed the Rosary? Third grade, as I agonized over my decision to tell Mrs. McElhiney or not?
For the non-Catholics in the audience: the Rosary is long. You say an Our Father to begin it, then one of the "Mysteries" is read, then you say
another Our Father, then ten Hail Marys and a "Glory Be."
Patience, I counseled my ADD self.
No dice. After the third mystery, I leaned over to a young orphan girl next to me to whisper: "Cuantos misterios hay?" ("How many mysteries are
there?").
"Five," she told me.
I turned around and mouthed "One more," to Ilana, who was too busy thinking, "Why am I here?" to notice.
After fifty Hail Marys, it was time to swing. The lesson lasted about an hour and a half, and, surprisingly, all five "couples" who were able to
sift through my broken Spanish instruction learned the entire routine. They may not have been on the beat, but then, really, neither were Ilana and I.
At 5 p.m., we piled back into the vans for the ride home, and Ilana and I collapsed onto the back seat, content to sleep the entire way.
As we pulled into the church parking lot at 9, I gathered my belongings, and reached down for the bag containing my new Alfani shoes.
To find the bag was gone. It had been accidentally brought in with other bags of used clothes and donated.
***
That Propel? Nowfully paid for. In fact, by my calculations, I'm owed $27.50.
Keep that drinks case locked, Full Service Jewish Deli. We're back to do good deeds again in January.
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