Sacrifice

I overheard this conversation a while ago, and it's been stuck in my head ever since. I was at an event with my little host sister, going to watch her do the traditional Paraguayan dance with the big Ao Poi skirts.

Afterward, I was waiting for her to change in the back area. Two girls come in, about 10, looking like little women in their make-up. They stopped to change into their street clothes, looking a bit frazzled. One huffed: "What work it is to dance!"

The other one agreed, and then, pulling at her uniform, she said the line that sticks with me: "Our dance is our sacrifice."

It just tells you everything about a people who have maybe struggled so long that all they have left to cling to are their struggles, that a little girl would say something such as that.