Never Too Late for Mardi Gras Mambo

Mickey and I taught the "Junior" High School Outreach summer camp class this past week. Several of the girls in this class have performed traditional Burmese dances for us at different events. As part of our demonstration we compared our cultures, traditions and music. In particular, we shared videos of New Orleans' "second lines", Mardi Gras Parades and the Mardi Gras Indians. One of the students in the class chimed in to "Mardi Gras Mambo" almost immediately and even stayed after class to get sites from Mickey for jazz music. We then showed a video of Burmese dancing in America, but it was much different than the dance they have learned here and made them laugh.(not our intent)

We hope that we left the students with the impression that all cultures have "traditions" and that they should be proud of theirs. We should respect each other for our different cultures, but can participate, appreciate and even have fun engaging in the traditions of others. The dance they all learned from their Japanese friends, Soran Bushi, and likewise the traditional Burmese dance they taught the Japanese students, is a great example of that.
In two weeks we will get to go to summer "overnight" camp with a group of ten year old boys, a mixture of many different cultures. Not sure I will stay overnight(although Mickey is game)as sleeping in tents with mosquitos is WAY outside my comfort zone!!!