Bomba Beats | Ritmos de Bomba
"Learning the ancient Afro-Puerto Rican dance becomes a journey to her roots and into another woman's arms"
Bomba Beats
Ritmos de Bomba
The drums called me before I knew what they were saying.
"You've got African blood," the instructor said. "I can see it in how you move."
"My grandmother was from Loíza."
"Ah. Then bomba is in your DNA. Let me wake it up."
Yamileth taught bomba like it was religion—sacred, demanding, transformative. She beat the drums while students danced, having a conversation without words.
"The drum leads," she explained. "The dancer responds. But sometimes, the dancer challenges. And the drum must answer."
"How do you know which to do?"
"You feel it. Like everything else worth doing."
I came every week. My body remembered movements my mind had never learned. The drums spoke; my feet answered.
"You're getting better," Yamileth said after a month.
"I have more questions now than when I started."
"That's how you know it's working."
She invited me to Loíza—the town where bomba never died, where my grandmother grew up dancing in the streets.
"You should see where this comes from," she said. "The source."
"Will you come with me?"
"If you want."
"I want."
Loíza was everything and nothing like I'd imagined. Small, colorful, alive with rhythms I recognized from Yamileth's classes.
"Your grandmother danced here," she said. "In this exact plaza."
"How do you know?"
"Everyone's grandmother danced here. It's what we do."
She took my hand, led me to where drummers gathered, and suddenly we were dancing. Not student and teacher—partners.
I kissed her under stars that had watched centuries of bomba dancers. She tasted like salt and history.
"This changes things," she said.
"Everything changes things. That's what bomba teaches us."
"You're quoting my own lessons at me."
"You're a good teacher."
We danced until dawn, then collapsed on the beach, wrapped in blankets and each other.
"My grandmother would have loved you," I said.
"I think she sent you to me."
"You believe that?"
"I believe the ancestors guide us. You showed up at exactly the right time."
I moved back to the island. Not running away from my life—running toward something that mattered more.
"You're giving up everything," my family said.
"I'm gaining everything. My heritage. My love. My rhythm."
"Your rhythm?"
"You wouldn't understand."
Yamileth and I teach together now. She drums; I dance. We pass on traditions that almost died, to students who need them like I did.
"To the ancestors," we toast at every workshop.
"To the drums."
"To finding your way home."
Bomba beats—where heritage heals, drums speak truth, and love moves in rhythms older than memory.