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Step By StepHartford, ConnecticutI love salsa on my tacos! But when I heard that kids in Hartford could DANCE salsa, I thought, that must be a weird dance! How do you make yourself act like salsa?
Then I met Katerina, who told me that salsa is a regular dance. "Salsa" does mean "sauce," but it just means you should make the dance "saucy" and fun.
 Bomba! Plena! Salsa! is the song Los Viajeros wrote about Hartford. It makes you want to get up and dance!
Katerina takes dance lessons. She's learning many Latin American dances, including salsa, plena, and bomba. Bomba is the most famous dance in Puerto Rico. Each dance has its own rhythms and own steps.
 Binky says the basic salsa rhythm is: one-two-three, pause, five-six-seven, pause. You move forward and back on 1-2-3, then backward and forward on 5-6-7. On beats 4 and 8, you pause. Binky knows dance!
Many people in Hartford are from Puerto Rico, including Katerina's family. Lots of stores here carry Puerto Rican food and music.
I was surprised to learn that Katerina uses a hearing aid (a little device that fits in your ear to help you hear). I didn't even know she wore it. Her using a hearing aid didn't affect her dancing at all.
Katerina says at first it was hard getting used to the hearing aid, but now she forgets she's wearing it. I guess it's always tough getting used to something new. But it's worth it!
She wears the hearing aid all the time, except when she does gymnastics. All that tumbling makes it fly right out! People know Katerina wears one, so they repeat things if she can't hear what they're saying.
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All animated characters and underlying materials (including artwork) © Marc Brown.
Buster and the other Marc Brown characters are trademarks of Marc Brown.
©2008 WGBH