9/28 – Tamale and the second trip to the Dagbe Center

It’s been a long time, but to use the age old excuse, modified for my generation and location of course, power outages and internet servers ate my blog. I’ve been away and out of the dorm a lot in the past two weeks, and whenever I have been in the dorm the electricity has been out and/or the server in the internet cafe was down. Mepaakyew piiiii (which in this context translates to I’m very sorry, in Twi).

On that note, the power outages are becoming a lot more common, both the scheduled and unscheduled ones, and they seem to follow me even when I’m traveling. I actually don’t mind it all that much, but it’s taking time to adjust to having a flashlight become one of the items necessary for night-time trips to the bathroom. At 3 in the morning it’s really inconvenient to have to find a flashlight, toilet paper and keys in the darkness, and then have to fumble with lock before making that mad, still half-sleeping dash for the bathroom. And at my teacher’s house in Tamale, it involved fumbling with the lock on the door to my room and then with the lock on the bathroom door as well. Actually though, I’m learning to appreciate the presence of anything that resembles a toilet, regardless of its lighting situation (bonus points if it flushes). They’re irritatingly hard to find in this country.

On to more pleasant topics…
Two weekends ago we went back to the Dagbe Center in Kopeyia, Volta Region. There isn’t all that much to add this time around, we did a lot more of the same. Which is not to say I didn’t have a great time, there just isn’t much new of interest to say. I managed to avoid dancing and got to drum the whole weekend, which of course I was thrilled about. A bunch of the kids remembered my name, and the hand game I taught them. Saturday night they put on a performance which was really cool because I’ve never seen some of the pieces they performed danced in full by Ghanaians, nor had I heard them with singing in the background. A lot of people who live in the village showed up, even those who weren’t performing, and there happened to happened to be no electricity that evening so there was only a gas-lit torch for light, which created a really cool effect. We went to the beach again, which was great but left a load of sand in my braids, and I don’t think it’s coming out until the braids do.

This past weekend I finally got up to Tamale. Tamale is the capital of the Northern region, and it was quite a bus-ride to get up there. ~14 hours up, a little under 12 to get back down. But since I left on Wednesday, for a really long weekend, it was worth it. I’m definitely happy that I ended up going this weekend and not two weekends ago.

While I was in Tamale, I stayed with a drummer who comes to Tufts at the end of the spring semester every year to teach the drum class that I’ve been taking the past two years. He’s a drum chief, and the patriarch of quite an extended family. His house, or one could say compound, housed at least twenty something people of varying degrees of relationship to him. What we would call the “nuclear” family consists of four wives and their kids, and those older children who aren’t yet married. In addition to this number are a lot of grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. And the family horse, Pumaya. Four days was nowhere near long enough for me to try to decipher who was who’s child, or even which younger kids were my teachers children and which were his grandchildren, because a lot of their ages overlapped. In fact, this might be the first place I’ve been to where you can’t really use age at all as a clue to familial relationships. Age is absolutely no indication of anything. Also, only a few of the kids knew English, and I don’t yet know enough Dagbani to ask questions like who is your sister or mother or something.

Another thing that complicates trying to figure out familial relationships was that in their culture, in addition to the person who supplied the biological matter for your creation, your father’s brothers, distant cousins who are your around fathers age, or someone who was one of your teachers are called your “father”. It also looked like your father’s other wives are called your mother, and basically any other kid around is called your brother or sister. As one of my friends from down here explained it, if someone is a Dagomba and a Muslim, then they’re his brother/sister. In Tamale, where Dagombas are the predominant group and where almost everyone is Muslim, that doesn’t tell you much. I’ve gotten used to asking “same mother, same father?” after every time someone uses the words brother or sister to describe someone.

Anyways, the “house” itself was pretty cool. Basically there was a main courtyard surrounded by rooms made in both a traditional and more modern style, with a main gate as the only way in. My teacher had his own room and living room, and each of the wives gets their own room where they and their children, and sometimes grandchildren, live. Two of the older sons had their own rooms as well. There’s also a seperate guest “hut,” which is where, surprise surprise, visitors stay. When I got into the room I commented, in response to the drum hanging on the wall, that only in Dagbon (the historical kingdom of the Dagombas) would a guest room come with its own drum. The house had had running water for a something like a few months, but something happened with the pipes, so they went back to using a big “well” in the middle of the courtyard for water that you’ve got to scoop out with a bucket. They also have electricity but it goes off all the time and doesn’t come back on until 6am the next morning. Bathrooms were kept under lock and key and were basically immovable portapotties made out of cement. But, there was toilet paper, which is more than I can say for most of the bathrooms in Ghana. It’s a humbling moment the first time you’re excited about the fact that there’s TP in a bathroom.

I got really lucky this trip because my first day there happened to be the third funeral of my teacher’s senior brother’s wife. Funerals here mean drumming, which of course I’m happy about. After the prayer time, most of which I spent fielding marriage proposals in broken English and unbroken Dagbani, the group moved into the next courtyard and started dancing and drumming. They way it seemed to work was that the lead drummer would go over to a someone he wanted to see dance, call them out with his drum, the dancer would pick a song, and they’d go. It was really cool, and the song that most of the dancers chose, called Nakohiwa (which is how I’ve seen it spelled, but it seems to be pronounced something mrore like Nak-wo-wa), I had just learned how to play the week before. Of course, being the only white person there, they had to make me dance. The whole crowd went nuts. Later, my teacher, who had been sitting with the chiefs in the next section over, mentioned that when they heard all the screaming they were wondering amongst themselves who could be dancing, but then they figured it was probably me.

A lot of the rest of the time I spent going around to meet various family members of people I knew before I came and some I’ve met here, and my teacher’s recently married daughter and her new husband had me over for lunch twice. After lunch, he and my friend who came up with me took me on le Tour de Tamale on the back of their mopeds. I got to see most of the city in a short time (not that it’s all that big) and some stuff that you can’t really access conveniently with a car. Mopeds can go through muddy, potholed fields, in case you were wondering. The husband, from what I gathered, works for some kind of media company, so he took me to meet a bunch of his musician friends and important people around town with whom he went to school. All in all, not a bad way to spend the afternoon.

Everyone says it, but I’d like to say my piece about how different Tamale is from almost all of the places I’ve been in southern Ghana. Things are a lot more laid back. The people are nowhere near as pushy, there’s absolutely no traffic, and the roads are in good condition and have two wide lanes, with wide “sidewalks” on the sides and in the middle of the road. I didn’t realize how accustomed I’d become to being under a constant onslaught of attention until I walked around Tamale a little. I’m not sure if it’s because English isn’t nearly as widely spoken as in the south, or it has to do with the Muslim influence, but whatever it was, it was definitely a nice respite from getting yelled at every few seconds walking down the street. Even when I greeted people on the street in Dagbani, they just answered, had a little chuckle, and we both continued on our merry ways. Only once or twice did it result in the near hysteria you get down here, even though I’d imagine white people who can speak basic Twi are a lot more common than those who can speak any Dagbani. And Tamale was a lot less dusty and a lot more green than I’d been led to expect by some people I’ve spoken to and almost all the guidebooks. It’s a great place, and I’m definitely looking forward to spending some quality time there at the end of the semester.

I’ve got more to say about Tamale, but I think I’ll save it for when I’m up there for longer and get a better gauge of things before I go running my mouth off on the internet. And I don’t think anyone wants to read more than this.

Anyways, this weekend I’ll be going to a Dzodze, a town in the Volta Region, which is actually pretty close to the Dagbe center, for their Palm Festival. A big group from the university is going, and there should be ridiculous amounts of drumming and of course, palm wine.

9/10 – CAN 2008, Kpeve Funeral, and Akwapim-Mampong Festival

So I’m really glad Tamale didn’t work out this weekend. I saw some amazing things and went to some places I might have gotten the chance to go to other times. I think it’s fair to say the overarching theme of the weekend was cultural enrichment.

Friday afternoon I went to see my drum teacher, Mutala, and his group, the Ghana Dance Ensemble, perform at the International Conference Center in Accra. When he first told me to come, I thought it was going to be a small, arty thing that they have all the time here, but no. It was “kind of a big deal.” Ghana is going to be hosting the Cup of African Nations (soccer tournament) in 2008, and this was the official launching ceremony. It was an invite only event, and the president of Ghana, along with a bunch of ministers of state, former Ghanaian football stars, and officials in the football league were there. There were a series of performances, they unveiled the logos and mascots of the tournament, and afterwards there was a big reception with free drinks.

Straight from the performance, I got into a university bus with the Dance Ensemble to go to the Volta region. The father of one of the ensemble members passed away, and the funeral was this weekend (funerals are a multi-day thing here). I have never been packed into anything as tightly as I was on that bus. One of the dancers even had to sleep sprawled out on top of a drum that was laying across the back row. When those of us in the back wanted to get out for bathroom stops, we literally had to climb in and out the window. But yeah, that’s how they roll in Ghana. It was fun.

We got to the village of Kpeve-New Town around 1am, where there was music blaring from both of the funeral houses (the village had two this weekend). We hung out at a “spot” (kind of the Ghanaian equivalent of a bar) for about an hour, and then proceeded up the side of a hill where the family lives to go start drumming. We get to this family’s yard, and incredibly, at 2am there was a whole crowd of people hanging out, eating, drinking, dancing, whatever. We set up, start drumming, and even little grandmas come out and start dancing. It was great. I’ve never seen some of the songs we were playing performed by a group of actual drummers, or danced to by people raised with them, so it was really cool to see that. We drummed until around 4am and then went back to the spot and drank and talked until sunrise. Once the sun was totally up, we walked/took a tro-tro to the next town over to sleep at the closest thing to a hotel in the area. It was a small house with a living room and a few bedrooms, and was somehow able fit about 20 something people. I actually ended up getting a bed, which was cool, but I got woken up a few times by people trying to find somewhere to sleep. Anyways, we slept for two hours, woke up, washed, ate, and went back to the village to continue the funeral.

The actual funeral ceremony began around 10am, I think, and by time they got back from the cemetery it was around 1:00pm. The funeral itself was unlike any I’ve ever seen before. For much of the time, it was definitely more light-hearted then I would ever expect a funeral to be, but there were a few times where it was as sad as any other funeral. It almost seemed as if there were orchestrated points where people who wanted to grieve could do so, and that crying or other outward signs mourning were to be, for lack of a better word, confined to these times. The proceedings basically alternated between speakers and dancing. At the end, before they carried the casket to the cemetery, there was a long bout of dancing, drumming, and singing that would look like the celebration of a happy occasion were it not for the fact that most people were wearing black and red and that there was a casket in the middle of the dance circle.

After they went to the cemetery, we went back up the family’s house to drum again for a few hours. Again, there was a lot of dancing and singing and what would appear to be merry-making if you didn’t already know it was a funeral. We ate, drank, drummed, and then left around 3pm. Even though the seat I had on the way back was better, I there was one more person fit onto the bench then there had been before, so it was a mind-bogglingly tight fit. I’m now completely proficient at boarding and getting off a bus through a window. I got back from the Volta around 7pm, and was sleeping like a baby by 8.

That alone would have been enough cultural fun for one weekend, but wait, there’s more. Going to church on Sunday seems to be a given in Ghana unless you are Muslim or follow traditional religion, and even for those who aren’t THAT religious (it seems that all Ghanaians are somewhat religious) it’s a social activity. Steven, one of my student guides, finally convinced me to go this weekend. It was interesting to say the least, and the service was nice, although a belief in Jesus Christ as the lord savior might have made it a little better for me. And they had amazing pineapple juice and chocolate muffins. Not a bad way to spend Sunday morning, but, it’s OK Mom, I don’t think I’ll be making a habit of it.

Sunday afternoon I went to the village of one of my porters because they were having one of their festivals. The village is called Akwapim-Mampong, and was about an hour-ish ride away from campus by tro-tro. The way there was quite an adventure, because even though I asked a few people AND the tro-tro mate if I could catch another tro-tro to Mampong from his route, and was told yes, more than once, and by more then a few people, I ended up having to get a taxi back to the other route to catch the right tro-tro. Grrr. It was cool though, I got there in time to see a lot of cool stuff. When I first got there, there was a huge crowd standing in a courtyard outside gathered around the chief and his court, and there was a lot of noise and commotion but I don’t really have any idea what was going on because they were yelling in Twi. Afterwards, the whole crowd moved towards this room, and the chief and his people set up again in there. On the front “stage” the chief sat with his advisors(?) in front of him, his wife (or wives, I don’t know) and the queen mother on one side, and the villagers along the other side of the room and the back. I was somehow placed in one of the chairs in the royal women section and I’m not quite sure why, but I had a great view of everything that went on, so that was cool. One by one, people got up and did what appeared to be interpretive dances in the chief’s direction and usually finished with a bow and extended hands towards the chief. This part was really cool, and the drumming was amazing. There was this little kid who didn’t look much older then 10 who was just wailing on his drum. I can’t imagine how good he’s gonna be when he’s older.

Once that was over, I went back with my porter and some of his cousins to their house/compound and hung out with his family for a little. They tested my Twi, gave me fufu (pounded cassava), and as it was a festival day, we had to have some libation as well, which involved me doing about 4 shots of gin in rapid succession. But I think fufu automatically neutralizes any alcohol that might find its way into your stomach at the same time. I’ll probably be going back to the village for the funeral of a recently deceased chief. That should be awesome.

So yeah, I definitely had an amazing weekend, and it looks like the next two will be awesome as well. I’m probably going to a drum performance on Wednesday night with some drummers that hang around the Performing Arts department, and Thursday is my first Twi test. Maybe I’ll make it off my butt and get over to the embassy this week to get my visa changed. Then Friday it’s back to the Dagbe center in the Volta region.

9/4 – Kumasi Trip

I think the best way to describe this weekend’s trip to Kumasi is ill-fated. We had quite a string of bad luck on a few fronts, but it wasn’t a total loss. I did some maddd shopping.

We left later then we originally planned so that we’d have time to cash our stipend checks (which couldn’t happen before Sep. 1st, the day we left). We hit a lot of traffic on the road, which turned what was supposed to be a 4 hour drive into one that lasted 7. When we did get there, we went to a restaurant that took around 3 hours to serve us our food, and halfway through the meal found out the the original hotel where we were supposed to stay lost our reservation (even though it had been re-confirmed two days before). That part wasn’t all bad though, because we ended up staying at a better hotel. Then, Friday night, it took us half an hour to pay for drinks at the hotel bar because they tried to pad the bill. We got them to take it off in the end, but it wasn’t easy. So, we basically spent a whole day in the car, eating at one hotel, going to another hotel, going for a ride to the National Cultural Center which usually has things going on at night but of course, didn’t that night, then going back to the hotel to eat again and sleep.

Our second day in Kumasi started out rainy. After breakfast, we went back to the National Cultural Center, and were supposed to see what I think was a museum or something but the woman with the keys didn’t get there before we had to go, and so we basically just went shopping in the rain. I got some really cool beads from this lady who them in every imaginable color.

From there we went to a section of the city known for it’s wood-carving, and walked around the market there. The workmanship on a lot of the pieces there was incredible. I ended up buying a bunch of it, and for decent prices. Originally I hadn’t even planned on getting anything here, but I somehow ended up with four pieces. And I got a sweet piece of batik cloth that’s going to make a great sweatshirt-ish type thing. Most importantly, I think I finally got the hang of bargaining this weekend.

After this, we went to a small village on the outskirts of Kumasi called Ntonso, which has an Adinkra cloth place. Adinkra symbols are an art form of the Akan people, and they use the symbols on a lot of their wares, such as cloth, etched and carved into chief’s stools, and some are even shaved into the hair of people in the chief’s court. We stuck to stamping cloth. The guy who showed us how to do it was kind of amazing to watch. His stamping was practically flawless, and he went really fast. It was cool to try, but I picked a shape that was a bit out of my league and had sloppy edges. I ended up buying this HUGE piece of royal blue cloth stamped with Adinkra symbols to use as a wall hanging. Returning to the laundry list of bad luck, one of the girls in my group had her wallet snatched while she was stamping.

Next, we went to Bonwire, the village known for its weaving of Kente cloth. Authentic Kente cloth is hand-woven on looms, and uses bold colored thread to weave geometric patterns. The shapes and arrangements all have cultural meanings. I promised myself I would only get a small sash, but there was this one piece with all my favorite colors, and of course I broke down and bought the big one. But I got the guy to throw in a cool bag, so it was OK. Bonwire might have had the most intense hawkers I think I’ve experienced since I’ve been here. They were relentless. After I turned out my pockets and bag to demonstrate that I literally had no more money to spend, they still wouldn’t leave me alone. As I was leaving, they stuffed my bag with their addresses so that I could find them when I came back.

After Bonwire, we went back to the Adinkra village, Ntonso, to see if they had caught the kid who took my friend’s wallet. Some crazy drama ensued, but more on that later. We ate dinner at some random hotel, where I had some of the most amazing pasta of my life. Yes, better than Italy.

The last day we visited Lake Bosomtwe and one of the villages on its edge, called Abono. The lake was about a half hour drive outside of Kumasi. Bosomtwe means ‘antelope spirit’, and there is a whole legend about how the lake was named, but the details presently escape me. The lake and surrounding area was really pretty, and the village we visited looked pretty chill. The fisherman there use these really weird shaped wooden contraptions as boats, which seem to work, but I don’t understand how they can float given their shape. As usual, there was a gaggle of local kids following us around. We ate lunch at this really nice hotel on the lake’s shore near the village. There were a bunch of kittens running around the patio, and I saw a dog successfully go fishing, which was pretty damn cool. We left, and, going with the bad luck theme, one of the our vans started to seriously leak oil, which had to be fixed before the 7+ hour ride home.

Whew. That’s a a lot. Sorry. Now for the analysis. My first comment is that I remember reading in one of the Ghanaian guide books that the amount of begging one encounters seems to be a function not of how poor people are in a given area, but how much that area is frequented by tourists. This trip definitely supported that notion. In many of the places we visited, which were all on the tourist track, the kids were pretty direct about asking for things. Many cut straight to the chase and came right out with “Obruni, give me money.” Not that I’m that much of a position to judge, but I’ve seen kids in other places that were noticably poorer, for instance at the Dagbe center, and even after hours of interaction, none of them asked any of us for anything, not once the entire weekend. This is the first time that I’ve had a kid come right out and say “give me something.”

Back to the kid who stole the wallet. Let me preface this by saying that theft is considered one of the worst possible crimes here. It’s a huge deal that affects not only the thief, but potentially his family, both immediate and extended, and their community. When my friend first noticed that her wallet was gone, someone mentioned that they noticed a kid looking suspicious and running off suddenly, and another local girl who was watching us said she knew him. They sent someone to go find him and get the wallet back, and told us to come back later. When we came back, they had the wallet, but it was missing more then half the money that had been in there, plus a university ID card. So the kid, who was 15, was dragged out, naked, into a huge circle of villagers, all yelling. All the villagers took turns yelling at the kid, who for a while maintained that he hadn’t seen the other money, etc. Then, when he did admit it, he led the group around to a bunch of random places saying that’s where he’d put the money but there was nothing there. I watched this from the van, so I don’t have the details, but the kid was hit, hard, across the face by a full-grown man. Hard enough to knock him to the ground. He continued to be yelled at scolded, berated, etc. for a long time, and whenever they went anywhere he was handled pretty roughly.

A lot about this situation disturbed us on a few levels, and it’s still not something that I’ve completely come to terms with. In America, a lot of what was done to this kid would probably be considered illegal, and yet here it’s sanctioned, especially by the community. Theft is a huge deal here and considered extremely shameful, to both the perpetrator and those connected to him. In Ghana, when it comes to theft, the populace seems to take the administration of punishment into their own hands. In addition to the shaming aspects, it’s considered completely normal for the thief to be beaten. According to people I’ve spoken to here, the kid is lucky that he’s so young or he would have had the crap beat out of him. One or two hits was nothing.

Something I find interesting is that not even the person who’s been wronged has a say in how the thief is treated. The community deals with them as they see fit, whether or not the person who was stolen from forgives them or wants to let it go or whatever. Even the police don’t get involved. The village we were in also took the situation very seriously because it’s the first time they’ve had a villager steal from a tourist. In addition to the cultural taboo of theft, Ghana is desperate for tourism, and so they react very badly to people doing anything that would discourage tourists from coming.

This incident definitely served as a reminder that there are a lot of differences about life here that I have yet to realize, and came at a time when I was beginning to feel really comfortable here. Coming from such an individualistic culture, it’s hard for me to completely comprehend the repercussions of this kid’s actions for his siblings, parents, cousins, and community. According to people I’ve spoken to, this could follow him for the rest of his life. When he goes to ask a girl’s parents to marry their daughter, someone will be like “just so you know, this guy stole a wallet from a tourist when he was 15,” and when the same thing happens to his siblings, people will say that they have a thief in their family. It introduces another, darker, side of the whole issue of “community” here and how this is a much more communal society then the US. Everyone’s responsible for everyone else, and that seems to apply even to reputations.

Also, it’s sad that people have to take some of the law into their own hands here because of the inefficiency of the judicial system. It’s considered completely normal here for a person who’s considered a thief to be beaten, even killed. If someone snatches a mobile phone and the person who’s stolen from turns around and yells thief, the guy could literally get beaten to death, and it wouldn’t be considered out of the ordinary or unjustified. And no questions are asked, it’s just how things work here. My roommate said that recently a 16 year old was beaten and killed for stealing, but he wasn’t even the thief, and no one got in trouble for it. That’s scary. This even applies on the university campus. If someone steals on campus and gets caught, they’ll be beaten up, ponded, which involves a very public procession through campus with the words “I’m a thief” written across the person’s front, and “I stole ___” on their back, and potentially worse.

Another explanation I’ve heard is that people will take out all the frustrations they have about being stolen from on any thief who is caught, not necessarily one who stole from them. They just want to punish a thief. Any theif will do. Also, because robbery is on the rise here, they react especially forcefully to kids who steal, because they want to literally beat the habit out of the kid before they get older.

Whatever the explanations, having seen even a mild version of how they deal with thieves here was pretty damn disturbing, and I hope I’m not near anyone who gets caught here again. It’s hard to imagine that kind of shame and ruin done to a reputation over $30, and of course it was discomfiting to see a teenager hit, at what appeared to be full-force, by a very strong grown man. It’s also hard to imagine, coming from a society where people sue over some of the most trivial and idiotic things, that someone can hit another person, someone else’s child or someone else at all, and have it considered acceptable and/or normal. But many of the people here have lived under military regimes, and so hitting someone who’s committed such an offense as stealing must not seem so bad. It’s just hard to wrap my mind around coming from where I do.

Back to more mundane topics…

I had to go into town to get a new water-boiling jug (kettle?) for my friend because I broke hers, and I had to walk directly through the busiest market in town to get to the store. I thought that Ghanaians just went nuts when I used one of their languages when it was saying something they wanted to hear, like one of the greetings or “what’s your name, my name is X.” I literally had to spend every piece of currency I had on the kettle, and so when I was walking towards where my friend lives to borrow 50 cents to get home, I said to the people who were trying to sell me stuff, in Twi, “Please/sorry (it’s the same word here), I have no money.” Even though I was saying I’m not buying anything from you, they all still went nuts and loved it. At one point I had at least half a city block of people yelling “hey” and laughing because I said “I don’t have money.” It was pretty cool.

I was planning on going to Tamale, a city in the north, this weekend, but even though I went to the bus station two days in advance, the tickets sold out, so that didn’t work. And my friend who was going to go with me found out he was scheduled for some immigration test earlier then he’d originally thought, so he couldn’t have gone either way. I’m gonna try again in two weekends, which actually works out better, because I just found out about some stuff that will be going on around here, and because in two weeks it will be the start of Ramadan, which will be cool to see.

Friday night one of my drum teachers is performing in town, so I’m going to go see that, and then afterwards, the father of one of the guys in his performance group recently passed away, so they’re going to the Volta region for the funeral, and I got invited, so that should be awesome.  Funerals here are huge celebrations, and there’s going to be a lot of drumming.  One of the porters in my dorm also says his village is having a festival on Sunday, so hopefully I’ll be able to go to that too.  Actually, I’m kinda glad Tamale didn’t work out this weekend, I would have missed a lot of cool shit down here.