University of Ghana – Alex B. Hill

the nature of africa: rhythm and socialism

The nature of Africa is all about rhythm. Rhythm pervades everything. There is a great love of music that is almost unseen anywhere else. From the very birth of a child there is rhythm in that tiny life. The child enters the world with built in rhythm: crying, kicking, blinking. This child is then exposed to the natural rhythms of the world: frogs croaking, dogs barking, crickets chirping. We all move about our days in rhythm, we talk, chew, sneeze, laugh, go to the bathroom, speak, and walk in rhythm. A child develops this sense of rhythm in Africa as it swings wrapped on its mother’s back – she fetches water, walks, and dances and the child learns rhythm. Rhythm is present even on a less basic level. In many parts of Africa the ritual of greeting someone is very rhythmic – asking the health of the greeter, his family, and his work. This is all done in an almost sing-song rhythm.

This rhythm is transferred from the natural happenings of the world into the lives of the people through drumming and dance. Drums are a key part of life in Africa. Many communities still use drums for their traditional purpose of calling a community together and sending messages. The tradition of drum and dance is never lost in Africa, that is an aspect that I think will never be lost from the cultures. We have experienced a great deal of this drum and dance tradition as part of our escapades around Ghana and in our course on the art, music, and culture of Ghana. As soon as we arrived in Ghana the rhythm of drums surrounded us. I met the rastas on the second day and began learning from them right from the get go drumming in the market. In Cape Coast we had the performance by the traditional drum and dance group and interacted in the performance with our mostly unrhythmic attempts to dance. More recently we have been coordinating drum and music lessons with our professor and professional music teachers. We had a lesson from the University of Ghana,who is a master drummer, for one of our lectures. We used the traditional Ghanaian drums for this session, they hurt the hands a bit more.

We have also been receiving lessons from Kwasi, who has traveled extensively in the US performing and teaching drumming. He taught and did his dissertation at the University of Michigan. We took the bus to his home which was far from the center of Accra because there is a noise ban. The noise ban was in place from the government so as not to upset the gods before the harvest. Kwasi is an older, stylish and spunky man. He has a nice short afro, dark aviators, creased khakis, and an awesome tie. We start each session with creating random musical rhythms out of words that pop into Kwasi’s head and we often dance around his compound singing and stomping our feet to a rhythm. When we finally got to the drumming we were almost too tired from the dancing workout, you wonder why Africans are so fit – take up some type of African dance. Kwasi was amazing to learn from and was extremely excited to be involved with teaching students music again. He group is supposed to perform for us before we leave. we only have two more days of our course on art, music, and culture.

Along with rhythm consuming life in Africa, there is a certain natural socialism that seems to work quite well. The idea of socialism was attempted across the continent, but it failed – why – because the elites in power were too interested in keeping that power. In much of Africa, specifically in Ghana, people live in secluded hamlets (communes). These hamlets are often isolated, but they remain connected with one another through traditional festivals. In these housing groups there is an idea of communal labor. If your neighbor’s fence has a hole in it the community comes together to work and fix it. This concern for everyone in the community builds the connectivity and social care. This is also evidenced in the ritual greeting and concern for the well being of a fellow community member. Within the hamlet everyone learns how to do every job, everyone knows how to do everything – so everyone helps with everything. There is also a communal yard, court, open space for market, dance, festival, and meeting. I think that this natural socialism helps to build and grow the rhythm of the community.

Professor Dzokoto, lecturing us on the music of Ghana, told us that if you are not part of the community you will not know the rhythm of the community. If you are a stranger to the community you will not know the rhythm of the community. Rhythm pervades all. Kwasi told us that from a young age he began drumming, first on people’s heads. I like to think that I understand that rhythm. As far back as I can remember and as I am told, I was drumming on everything. From my leg, to my desk, to the church pew, to the dinner table – I loved rhythm, rhythm pervades all.

News from Africa:
If you may have missed the news President Bush has placed sanctions on Sudan over Darfur. This marks a great point in his botched presidency. Placing sanctions on companies that operate in Sudan or with Sudan will create a stronger push for a change and hopefully a peace in the Darfur region.

Today the government of Niger dissolved. Yes dissolved, their parliament voted no confidence in the Executive branch because of troubles and corruption in regards to money usage. What this means for Niger I cannot say, but this will definitely be something to keep watch.

Index of blog post series on Ghana.

the quest for the west

On the Ground

Day 11
Applied lots of Aloe today. The sunburn is getting better. The bus arrived as we sat down to eat. Kyle and I always seem to be two steps behind. Breakfast was a large, thin, pancake thing with chicken sausage and some eggs, it was so good. At the seminar room today we got to bond with Ted (Prof. Tims). We talked about ourselves, majors, passions, and future plans. We then discussed the novel, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born. The book was mostly about corruption, the attainment of wealth, poverty, the quest to be western, and one man’s journey to live and work honestly. In the end of the book all he is left with is an “aching emptiness” and that is all the rest of his life could offer him. Kind of a downer, but it is interesting since the day before we met a woman working with some anti-corruption group doing a study on Ghana’s judicial system.

It was then lunchtime and breaktime. We wandered campus and explored some. We ventured all over the campus. We saw the Library, the Center for African Studies, the dorms, and much more. The campus is much like any you would see anywhere in the world, obviously it has its differences, but nothing too out of the ordinary. The biggest difference, as on any college or university campus, was the dorms. These are huge structures of block squares where four people live. When school is in session you see the clotheslines of each student strung out with brightly colored clothing drying in the Ghanaian sun. Surprisingly on campus you see many people walking around with ipod or MP3 headphones in their ears. Higher education in Ghana is still very much a place for those with the money. It is interesting to see, since we have come to know Ghana as a place that favors and loves human interaction, instead of the secluded american, music in ears, head to the ground, walk right past you attitude. This happens to be few students however, and most will greet you cheerily. The West cannot taint the Ghanaian tradition of greeting.

We settled down at an small cafe called ‘Tyme Out,’ got some cokes and played pool. This is where my mind recalled the idea of a hip hop planet. The walls of Tyme Out were adorned with posters of former great and popular rap artists and the music on the radio was their past hits. Even here this glorification and fascination of the gangsterism and commercialized hip hop culture exists. It is not surprising since West Africa is where hip hop was born. The radio often plays Ghanaian hits from the hip hop artists who brought the american style to Ghana. Why is the american style born from West Africa mirrored in the place of hip hop’s birth?

After lunch we learned more about Ted and his love and life of music. He was a music major turned music therapist. He has helped countless people recover from illness with music. He was trained as a concert pianist and this lecture brought us a drumming exercise. We first learned the history of drumming. The Europeans could not grasp the complex rhythms and beats of African drumming because it was like nothing they had heard before. Drumming was used to induce trances and was often used for social events. African drumming has many complex rhythms and patterns, but in the end they all come together to make one song. You cannot stop and listen to everything at once without being confused, you have to concentrate and focus from one beat to another. In this lecture we also discussed the aspects of health. The West decided to cut health to focus just on body. Where other cultures and societies looked at health as comprehensive in mind, body, and spirit. Music is a huge aspect of bringing together those aspects.

In the evening we went to a nearby Chinese restaurant. We ventured down our extremely busy road in Shiashie Accra to reach the restaurant. It was much bigger and fancier than we had thought. Sadly the food was also worse than we thought it would be. The menu was 20 pages long and didn’t really have much traditional Chinese foods. A let down at the least. I had the spring rolls, which just had cabbage and some random chunks of beef. A poor end to the evening, but tomorrow is another day.

Index of blog post series on Ghana.

for the love of america

On the Ground

Be sure to check updated Days 3&4.

Day 5
Lecture this morning was on indigenous slavery and the Trans-Saharan slave trade. All of this I have learned about extensively because you cannot study Africa and skip over such a subject. So that is why I began journal writing during lecture. As I said before it is great to be an Africa Studies major studying in Africa, but I want to learn what I do not already know.

I remember the other day our bus driver Eric was listening to the radio and there was a discussion of the importance of local chiefs. The discussion was on the need to unify the chiefs and include them in the political process because it would not matter if a policy was adopted if the local chiefs with all the power did not agree. There is no way to get around the chiefs or work around them because they hold such power at the local level. If the government is to work smoothly then they will need to include the local chiefs in the political process. Now this is the type of African Studies that you just can’t get in the classroom.

The traffic goes by outside, a car alarm triggers, I am sitting in a classroom listening to a boring lecture – it is almost as if I am back at MSU, the AC masks the intense humidity and heat. The only difference is that the professor standing before me is actually teaching in his home country. I have had a total of 7 professors from Africa in my two short years in college, so there is nothing new: traditional dress, accent, and use of odd American sayings. Professor Passah likes to preach his own ideology and views to us during lectures. Today he brought up the Iraq conflict (falsely called a war). He noted that the money spent on the conflict could work towards the development of Africa. Not just Ghana, but the whole of Africa. I could not have agreed more. He then went into how Ghana became a target for international corporations and NGOs. He noted how this is seen as no problem and makes him very happy because a Ghanaian gets a lot of money in his pocket. He said to not think of him as a bad man for saying that, but this is where I worry. So he is not a bad man, but a man blinded by the Western desires promoted and unaware of the possibly and often negative effects of a huge international involvement and presence.

At the end of the lectures we were again on our own until 2pm. We went to the internet café again to check emails and blog some more. No time to eat. The University is very interesting because there are houses, living complexes, dorms, a primary school, fields, horses, and more all within the campus grounds. It is like a small city in itself. We boarded the bus to have our tour of Greater Accra. Accra is the second largest city in Africa behind Lagos, Nigeria. Eric showed us all around Accra. This is when we got to see the more impoverished parts of the city; the slums and rundown areas, the wood scrap and sheet metal housing, the shirtless and hungry. As we neared the coast the poverty seemed to increase and the development decreased. The wide streets, colonial fortresses now used as prisons, and the old style colonial shops have all slipped in to decay and have been abandoned to ruin. The wealth and high class has left the coast of Ghana. We toured the private homes area with their western styles, gates, barbed wire, guards, and tennis courts. We saw the president’s personal residence – no pictures – and the palace. As usual there are hawkers everywhere. Later we returned to the art market to exchange money and met up with some of our old ‘friends.’ This time the hawkers calls were more subdued, but nevertheless relentless.

This is the exchange for a $100 bill into Ghanaian cedis. It is quite a stack of money:

After manuvering the thick traffic we returned to Catters Hostel near the village od Shiashie, which we have learned is not a road name, but a village that was engulfed by the growth of Accra. You can’t help but notice the signs on the corner of every intersection telling you of the direction of each embassy, organization, hostel, hotel, business, or resturant. The foreign investment is at a very high level. So much for fighting neo-colonialism.

Sitting in the courtyard, listening to the birds in the tree overhead, hearing the end of the day traffic go by, looking at the clouded over sky, and nearby hotels, enjoying a Star beer – life in Ghana could not be any more relaxing. No one here walks fast or runs, unless they are making a sale, no one is rushed and everyone is involved in the customary tradition of greeting their fellow human being. Everything runs on GMT (Ghana Maybe Time). This is Africa, this is life. Last night one of the hostel workers was hanging out with us as we sat. When someone asked what we were doing tomorrow he responded, “This is today, it is now today, you will know when it is tomorrow when it becomes 12 o’clock. Then it is tomorrow.” I could not have agreed more, live always in the present.

After relaxing and writing for a bit, Kyle and I left for Osu to meet the group. The gatekeeper, Stephen, has started helping everyone to get taxis so as not to be charged the Obrooni price. We were supposed to meet up at the Asanka Local Chop Bar. Asanka means bowl, and local means you will be only eating the local foods out of that bowl. The directions we were given were to head down the street from Frankie’s and turn left. So we walked ‘the strip’ of downtown Osu at night. Quite an experience, not bad at all. An Obrooni walking the streets is not bothered, but Obroonis on a University bus – target for hawkers. We ecided we had headed too far in the wrong direction and turned to go the other way. We really had no clue where we were going and finally a Ghanaian called out and we asked for directions.

Francis and Abraham knew exactly where Asanka Local was and took us there. Francis had a friend in New Jersey and Abraham and I listened to his MP3 player on the way. They joined us at the chop bar, where our friend from the market, GQ and the rest of the group was hanging out. The food was great and the servers were very nice. The chop bar closed and our rasta drumming friends met us outside to take us out on the town. We headed for the main road. Just as we turned the corner, one of the girls in our group tripped and disappeared completely from view. We all jumped to grab her and the drummers pulled her out of one of the ubiquitous sewage drains next to the roadside. She was soaked in sewer water and had some bad scrapes on her knees and arm, but was only a little shaken. She said as she fell she was on the phone with her mom, just as her mom said “hi”, she fell. Bobo, a drummer, wiped her down with his shirt and Akwesi said, “You have to be careful this is not america, this is Africa.” Jerod and I took her back to the hostel in a taxi.

She cleaned up and later laughed about the ordeal saying that it was an experience to remember. It was too late to drum so we practiced our Twi and learned some more. We had a great conversation with Richard and Joseph. It was great to hear them talk about their lives and how life is and should be. These guys are some very great Ghanaians. They are not looking to make a buck off of you and they do not want anything but to share experiences and be friends. These Ghanaians actually genuinely care about us and we care about them. However they had very skewed views about America. They could not believe that there was poverty, that you did not get shot on the streets for driving (as someone told them), and that we have very different city lives than Accra. Not bad assumptions, many people make them. They also said that Bush is their friend. They love Bush and they have no criticism of his ‘war.’ They like Bush because he acts like a man. I almost lost control of my body, but held back. Voice of America (VOA) is a highly publicized radio station. Kyle has this joke where everytime we pass the billboard he mockingly quotes VOA saying, “America did something awesome today.” VOA probably doesn’t help with the skewed view of America. Many of the popular radio stations here also play American top songs. We heard all the classic from our childhood on one bus ride. Many store owners paint the American flag on their shop and some taxi drivers have Uncle Sam stickers. Where does this unknowning love of America come from?

Everyone returned safely and headed to bed. All was well and we had an early morning the next day to leave for our Cape Coast field trip.

Index of blog post series on Ghana.

off to the continent of my dreams

Development

It crowds my thoughts; it accompanies my dreams; it wrenches my heart; I am so close to arriving on its glorious soil: Africa. In less than three days I am going to travel back to the continent that stole my heart. Six years ago I was captivated and moved by my travels in Uganda and now I will be headed to Ghana to continue my journey. This summer I am going as part of an official study abroad through my university, Michigan State University’s study abroad program in Ghana: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. And so this blog’s title is about to become a bit oxymoronic, however regardless of title this blog will cover my experiences in Africa this summer and will continue to chroncile my work in and for Africa.

From the MSU Ghana Program Handbook:

Introduction to Ghana
The Republic of Ghana, the first country in colonial Africa to gain its independence in 1957, is roughly the size of the state of Oregon and lies about four degrees north of the equator in West Africa. Formerly the Gold Coast, Ghana bordered by Togo to the east, Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) to the west, Burkina Faso to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. The country is divided into ten administrative regions, each with a capital city, and the capital of the country is Accra, a port city. English is the official language, and at least seventy-five African languages and dialects are spoken, generally divided into Akan, Mole-Dagbani, Ewe and Ga language groups. Twi is the main Akan language, it is the first language to approximately half of the population, including both the Ashanti and Fante, and is widely spoken in the central and southern parts of the country.

The current population of Ghana is approximately 20.7 million, 63% of Ghanaians are Christians, 16% are Muslim, and 21% practice indigenous beliefs. Christianity dominates the south and Islam is the predominant faith in the northern part of the country. Most Ghanaians maintain some traditional beliefs and customs no matter what their professed religion.

Politically Ghana is a constitutional democracy – John Kufuor is the current president, elected January 7, 2001. The currency is the cedi, $1 = 9,445 cedis.

Climate
Ghana’s climate is tropical. In the south it’s usually hot and humid (average daily temperature is 86 degrees F). There are two rainy seasons, from April to July and from September to November. The heaviest rains usually fall in May and June. The Harmattan, a dry desert wind, blows from the northeast from December to March, lowering the humidity and creating hot days and cool nights in the north. In the south the effect of the Harmattan is felt in January. In most areas the highest temperatures occur in March, the lowest in August.

University of Ghana
You will be spending much of your time on the University of Ghana at Legon campus, about 14 km outside of Accra. The University of Ghana began in 1948 as an affiliate college of the University of London. In 1961, however, the University of Ghana was, by an Act of Parliment, reorganizaed as the University of Ghana to award its own degrees. The University has over 20,000 students, including many international students. The campus is large with many buildings, dorms, cafeterias, a botanical garden, bookshop and library.

Field Trips
– Elmina Castle in Cape Coast
– Kumasi, capital of the Ashanti Region, home of the Ashanti, the richest and most powerful people in Ghana, with the largest open-air market in West Africa
– Bonwire to observe the kente cloth weavers
– Volta Lake, the world’s largest artificial lake created by the Akpspmbo Dam in 1964
– Kakum National Park

Be prepared to read of some great adventures and be sure to check back often for updates! I would say Africa awaits, but Africa does not wait for me, I am waiting for Africa.

Index of blog post series on Ghana.