Just Another Sunday

The last time I went to the Catholic Church Service here in Dzodze, our colleague Sofia took a photo of James and I sleeping in church. And got a great kick out of lovingly shaming us by showing it around. 

 

So to avoid further embarrassment, I decided to skip the Sunday morning service and catch up on e-mails and business and such. Best decision I ever made! The grounds usually buzzing with some 40 people and chatter and laughter and the sound of xylophones or drums were blissfully silent. And I had the whole place all to myself! Sat on my little front porch to do the busy work and then walked to the pool and again, only me there! A refreshing swim, a bit of reading under a shaded roof and still drinking in the solitude and silence like some heavenly manna. 

 

When the crowds returned around lunchtime, I was ready to greet them again wholly refreshed. Off we went on the bus again to the village where they perform their traditional religious ceremonies, the ones passed down from distant Ancestors long before the Islam and Christian invasion. The center of it, of course, is drumming and dancing and singing, with the intention of evoking trance and possession in some of the community members. This is an ancient method by which the gods re-enter the community and have their say and offer their healing. The bridge between this world and the other world.

 

Of course, as contemporary Westerners, this seems strange and exotic and as characterized by many, bordering on demonic. But having gone some five times now during our 11 years of Orff Afrique, it really doesn’t seem at all like a big deal to me. They invite us up to dance as they do everywhere, even as a women two-feet away might be going into trance with her helpers surrounding her. As always, the kids are everywhere, sitting just taking it all in, the babies on the back, some on their mothers’ laps while they sing for a few hours in a row. 

 

At the beginning, each walked down the rows of where we were seated and one-by-one, shook our hands. Again, the constant generosity of welcome so polar opposite to the greetings black people in America have gotten or would get if they came to a white gathering. In the middle, there’s a moment with some syncretic overlap with Islam as the women kneel on mats and sing some quite haunting songs in what appears to be a Phrygian mode. At the end, they seemed to play a light-hearted game, singing and bumping hips together with great laughter. And yes, there is division here, the men playing the drums while the women sing, dance and clap sticks together, but who cares? I suspect that the women feel so deeply connected to each other and the men too, each in their own way. 

 

Of course, church for so many is the social occasion we all need and many people choose it just for that. But here to combine it with the body-based, heart-based, soul-stirring experience that music and dance provide goes far to make it more than just a casual social occasion and indeed, a spiritual experience. 

 

Speaking of spirits, there’s a rumor that we’ll have some palm wine tonight with our dinner. I’ll report back tomorrow—if I’m not hung over. Meanwhile, that’s the report of just another typical Sunday in Dzodze, Ghana.