What everyone else has said really.

All I wanted to add is that if you approach any traditional music culture with genuine enthusiasm, willingness to learn, and above all the love of that culture as your driving force and primary motivation, then the majority of the people you meet within that grouping will come to accept you regardless of your background.

There will always be grumblers and worse who will try to exclude you on whatever grounds they can possibly find to exclude you, but let's face it there are eejits in every way of life. You may need to be thick-skinned in the early days, but demonstrate you're there as a participant and not as a tourist or a mickey-taker or an asset-stripper, and you should be fine.

And if you need a bit of reassurance and 'if others have done something like it, I can do it too', try and track down a copy of Banning Eyre's book 'In Griot Time', which tells of the author's time living and playing with the griots of Mali. There's also a great account somewhere on t'Internet of someone who spent a year working in Basle and joined one of the Fasnacht cliquen, which would probably come high on my personal Fantasy Folkmusic list of things to do!