Hot Salsa Teacher: Check

Mayte, my a.m. dance technician, is bringing me to meet Eugenio, my p.m. dance stylist.

As I push open the half-jammed door of the Casa de la Tango on a totally Cuban block off the tourist beat, the first thing i notice is a human skull with one plastic eyeball.

The next is a wall, yellow with age, displaying Tango dance greats frame to frame, ceiling to waste, along the length of the room.

All that in two blinks.

The third blink reveals Eujenio.

Deep Lindt brown eye-puddles smile at me from midway up a linoleum staircase, where the shining the brown orbs that are his shoulders lean casually on faded jeans, adorning legs carved by god and salsa.

His lack of obvious ego, and my seriousness about learning salsa, quickly creates an easy connection without motives. Our bodies, for their part, are learning to communicate with each other in dance, nurtured also by patience, and a sense of humor.

Eugenio is fantastic instructor, capable of joy in the small things. I love the direction he's taking me in.

That most basic of rooms, those two crackling speakers – one of which died today – and Eujenio's total presence. I am really doing it now, dancing salsa in Havana.

I am also aware that for the small group of cubans who have adopted me, I am somewhat of a project. They've simply decided, without saying a word, to help me stop being a white girl and get Cuban.

This most abstract of dreams, is quite physical now.

I leave the Casa de la Tango beaming with music and heart, and high, totally high, on nothing at all.