Cross cultural medicine

The student nurses leave for a holiday on friday so before they went we thought we should have some mixing of cultures. We decided we would teach them some ceilidh dancing and they would teach us some indian moves. We got the hifi set up and waited for them all to arrive. Some were dressed in their plain clothes, salwar kameezes,others had come straight from ward duty and were in their clinical uniforms.

We started with a Gay Gordons. Neil and I demonstrated and told them to take partners. Only 2 girls came and joined us. We went through it again and another 4 came up. We tried to persuade them all that everyone takes part in a ceilidh. This did not work. Music on and away we went. Neil yelling "forwars two, three, four..." some of them really got the hang of it and we started to have a good time. More students came to the courtyard and we encouraged more to join in. Maybe one 6th of the girls were dancing now. Then the electricity went out. Not to worry: Orcadian strip the willow just needs clapping. This was hilarious. When neil and I started spinning, laughter erupted. The most haphazard dance then ensued. We thought we should try one more dance with the music back working. Again there was very poor uptake but those who danced had fun.

Now the indian dancing began. One of the girls is a very good dancer and she came out with another girl and they started to dance. I joined in trying to copy their steps. Again this was highly amusing for any on lookers. They were very patient with both neil and I. We learnt a fun dance which incorporated some chicken like moves. Arms behind your back with elbows out, flap them and then sort of peck at the ground. Good fun. Then a new track was playing and we got into a circle to try out some steps. I think I got the hang of it eventually. We are both exhausted now but we had such a good time. It has been lovely to spend time with the nursing students. Our friend jolti was disappointed to hear that we will be gone by the time they get back from their holidays (she thought we were staying till christmas!) Hopefully if we encourage some more dundee students to come over here, they will have better luck getting a proper ceilidh going.

One of the cd's that the girls brought out contained christmas tunes. We never could have imagined that we would be in west bengal dancing in an indian style to wham's last christmas! It was great fun!