IT wasn't so much a readiness to rumba that led Monise Durrani from her home in Edinburgh to a run-down theatre in Santiago de Cuba on Fidel Castro's Caribbean communist island-state. Rather, it was Durrani's willing slavery to salsa that led her to document a recent visit to Cuba by 30 charitable British dancers and musicians.

It all began by chance last year at an Edinburgh Fringe show headlined by dancefloor fusioneers Salsa Celtica, as Ready to Rumba will this morning explain to Radio Scotland listeners. ''I happened to pick up a flyer at Salsa Celtica's gig in the Queen's Hall,'' says Durrani, a devotee of the regular salsa sessions held in El Barrio, West Port, and monthly at Fiesta

Latina in Cheviot Row.

''The flyer was advertising the Salsa Challenge. This sought to raise money for the Drake Music Project by encouraging British salsa-lovers of all abilities to visit Cuba for 10 days and learn, from Cuban experts, how to perform a salsa show in front of an expert Cuban audience.''

Would-be salsa challengers had to stage fund-raising events to cover the cost of their trip, plus extra on top. In addition, the Drake Music Project further fulfilled its remit by creating an opportunity for Clive Bailey

to join the Cuban expedition.

Bailey's cerebral palsy does not prevent him from playing keyboards, although he is forced to play them somewhat unconventionally - with his tongue.

Ultimately, the salsa challenge took 30 British folk to Cuba's second city, including eight resident Scots and two Scots exiled in London. Their ages ranged from 23 to 62. Their abilities likewise differed.

Some, like Edinburgh community adult education worker Carol Stobie, were relatively recent converts to salsa. Others, like newly-graduated RSAMD percussionist Iain Sandilands, of Glasgow, were seasoned sessioneers in a variety of musical fields - in young Sandiland's case, from classical to folk to techno-influenced trance.

All of them were called upon to contribute to the sinuous spirit of the salsa, rumba, mambo, son, and cha-cha-cha.

''It seemed like an obvious subject for a radio documentary,'' says Durrani. ''Tone-deaf, flat-footed amateurs being put through their paces by professionals under a strict time constraint.'' In the event, none of the plucky Brits was that bad, while their exposure to the everyday reality of Cuban society gave Durrani much more of a story than she'd bargained for.

''Ready to Rumba is going out in two parts,'' says Durrani. ''The opener obviously focuses on all the initial rehearsals. Part two, for broadcast next week, looks at the impact simply being in Cuba had on everyone.

''There were loads of eye-opening contrasts. For instance, there are bands playing in Cuban clubs virtually at all times, with everyone ready to dance, and spontaneous street parties always likely to erupt. Yet Cuban music also has a religious significance.

''Cuban poverty was shocking to all of us, too - even to those in the group who had been to Cuba before. The dancers who taught us were paid in pesos, with their monthly wage working out at the equivalent of seven dollars.

''One member of the British party was thus horrified to calculate that, in the UK, her hourly earnings amounted to more than twice a Cuban dancer's monthly wage. We'd go into musicians' homes, and find bare concrete floors, loose chickens, and furnishings that maybe amounted to two chairs and a fridge.

''What was therefore even more affecting in these circumstances was the optimism of the Cubans, their cheerfulness and energy. You'd find well-qualified professional people working as bell-hops, but simply living for the moment and being happy with their lot.''

Not that happiness is endemic in Cuba, as Durrani saw for herself. ''We were based in the once-grand Teatro Oriente in Santiago de Cuba. Like everything there, the theatre is very run-down. We only had lights and a PA for the two-hour duration of our big show - they were there, then they were whisked away.

''There was no stage-curtain, no back-stage area. One reception room had become so decrepit that it had had to be demolished. The balcony

was unsafe.

''Yet every day a big effort was made to give us lunch - the same lunch of chicken, rice, and banana chips. This, of course, is in a country where there can be regional shortages of eggs - except for tourists, and so we found that official checks were being made on our hosts every day. They were quietly being watched, so that no Cuban would be eating meals intended for us.

''As result of things like these, many of the British people undertaking the Salsa Challenge said that Cuba had been a

life-changing experience. It certainly put our usual type of day-to-day problems at home

in perspective.''

Naturally, you'll be pleased to learn that meeting with a bunch of salsatastic Scots had a positive, life-enhancing effect on Cubans, too.

''Carol Stobie hoped that the trip would improve her confidence,'' says Durrani. ''She's actually a good salsa dancer, but felt insecure about her ability. She struggled initially in rehearsals, but won through in the end. She actually wound up teaching the Cubans how to do a Dashing White Sergeant - which they easily picked up in about five minutes flat.''

Compared to the controlled nature of the salsa, however, the conclusion of the Dashing White Sergeant always found its Latin practitioners mildly breathless. The humanising triumph of the dance! Hee-yeucch! Venceremos!

Ready to Rumba goes out today on Radio Scotland at 11.30am. Part two follows at the same time next Monday.

NOT STRICTLY BALLROOM

l To rumba or to rhumba? Whatever the spelling, the rumba began life as an

Afro-Cuban folk dance

before wowing non-Latin ballrooms early last century.

It is characterised by the subtlety of its proponents' side-to-side hip movements, conducted with their torsos haughtily erect. Its basic pattern calls for two quick

side steps and a slow forward step, executed three to the bar in 4/4 time. Insistent syncopation? I should say

so, chiquita!

l Ballroom rumba derives from the Cuban dance known as son. This is a less vigorous form of the uninhibited Cuban rumba danced in taverns and similar places of public social disportment.

l Salsa? Literally, a spicy sauce. A generic term for a disco-inflected Latin dance variant which arose in New York in the early seventies.

l Rumba's little brother is mambo. Internationally popular in the forties, mambo is a kind of off-beat rumba. Its breaks and foot patterns echo those of rumba, but with the step that's taken on the last 4/4 beat being held through to the first beat of the following measure. Cha-cha-cha is rumba's cousin, emerging in the fifties via mambo, and entailing a spot of extra rhythmical innovation step-wise on the last two beats of each measure...cha-cha-cha!

l As Elvis Presley once trenchantly observed in song, there is no room to rumba in a sports car.

l Monise Durrani's exotic name was forged on the Costa del Clyde in un-exotic Helensburgh. Her parents invented her forename, while her dad's family is of Indo-Pakistani origin.

l When she's not making rumbatastic Radio Scotland feature programmes about sinuous Latin dances, Monise Durrani is usually going about her BBC day-job of creating science shows. Durrani has a degree in human sciences from Oxford, plus a masters degree in the science of communication from Imperial College, London. Her next science programme, The Serendipity of Science, will appear on Radio 4, where it will be presented by maths boffin Simon Singh, author of Fermat's Last Theorem. Her next Radio Scotland series will address the scientific principles pertaining to human emotion, with Abeer Parkes

as presenter.

l The Salsa Challenge was a UK-wide charitable event organised by two fund-raising consultants based in Scotland: Simon Hamilton, of Three Hands, in Glasgow, and Kath Bateman, of Caledonia Languages Abroad/ Caledonia Cultural Promotions, in Edinburgh. The Salsa Challenge raised money for the Drake Music Project, a charity working with musos with non-standard physical needs and abilities.