Give Me That Old Time Religion

Sunday began with a trip to church. One would be hard pressed to find a story more filled with contradiction, ambiguity, confusion then the role of religion in the catastrophe known as Colonialism. When relationships begin based on money and power, everything gets twisted and the effects echo down for centuries. And not all of them are necessarily “bad,” but they sure are strange if you step back and think about it.

Imagine a ship of West Africans arriving in England, planting their flag and claiming the country as their own. Well, sure there are people already living there, but that’s just a minor inconvenience. They simply will have to obey the West African laws and worship a god and gods who are black. And everyone will be required to dance and drum in church. The new story about Jesus is that he is the incarnation of evil and everyone who worships him will be punished, the churches burned, the Bibles confiscated.

Of course, we would find that intolerable, but just reverse the players above and that’s precisely what happened throughout the British Empire. The conquerors come first seeking gold and then the missionaries quickly follow with their god of a different skin color and their story from a different time and place and “convert the natives” by any means necessary. And because we mortals seem to need some contact with a world beyond or behind this one, some omnipotent power beyond our own, some reason to gather together in community in worship (not to mention social pressure, punishment and violence to complete the “conversion”), Christianity takes root in Ghana and other West African countries. (And Islam, the other monotheistic religion convinced their god is the true one, in the northern parts of these countries.)

So today in Ghana, there is the black and white and all shades of grey in-between. There are the Catholics who follow the European model of the Mass, but with drums and bells and movement accompanying the singing. There are the Pentecosts who have a Gospel electric band and three-hour services assuring everyone that they’ll burn in hell for their lustful thoughts and denounce traditional African dances as the work of the devil. There are Christian sects that ban dancing and drumming altogether. There are the traditional religions that draw deeply from the traditional dances and music and often include trance to have the gods directly speak to the community. There are Ghanaians who worship both sides of the line, going to a Catholic Mass in the morning and a traditional ceremony in the afternoon. It’s a wild and crazy ride.

I still find it so weird that folks in Ghana or Korea or India worship a blond-haired blue-eyed man (the English model) who himself was certainly a black-haired and darker-complexioned Middle Eastern Jew, but as a I said, things get strange when money and power are the guiding principles of cultural exchange. On the other side of the equation, the missionaries also brought schools and hospitals and a story that somewhat unified different ethnic groups in Ghana to help create a national identity above and beyond a regional one.

Religion’s role in the slave trade also is a fascinating (and again, shameful) story that explains a lot of the music and culture that followed, from Brazil to Cuba to the American South to Harlem. But I’ll save that for another time.

As for the storyline, we went from church to the lovely garden of a hotel shaded by palm trees for lunch. With 20 out of us dropping in unannounced, we knew it would be a challenge for the kitchen so we all ordered the same thing, jolof rice and chicken. After two hours of amiable talk, we began to wonder when the food might come. I helped fill in the next half hour with all the jokes I keep in my back pocket and a folk tale about a banquet where people kept waiting for their food. When it did finally come, it was delivered three plates at a time, with a pause before the next three. So in the next half hour, we ate in canon. Everyone found the chicken leg quite tough and we realized later that they had probably just killed the chicken and the muscles were still quite tight. So our three-hour plus meal made for a cute traveler’s story, but also was mostly a pleasure. It was Sunday, we had nothing else on the schedule, why not just sit in a lovely spot and talk and enjoy the slight breeze?

Tomorrow it’s back to the class schedule. Dancing without dogma, singing without sin, playing without penance, the old time religion fused with the new thought that Spirit is best without the names and stories that divide and conquer.

Everybody Loves Saturday Night

Are you ready, oh armchair traveler, to take a little trip? Settle in, it's a long entry. And just so you know, I could say, “Be grateful you’re in your comfy chair, because this place is beastly hot, crawling with bugs and pesky mosquitoes, the food is far below your average San Francisco restaurant, the buses are crowded and filled with chickens and the hotel rooms dirty with dubious electricity and running water.”

But none of that is true. The weather has actually been lovely, a lot of overcast days to protect us from the sun and when the sun has come out, the Ghanaians, seem to understand the blessing of shade trees and there are plenty in all the outdoor performance areas we’ve gone to. I haven’t once put on sunscreen nor bug repellent. Fact is (knock on wood) I haven’t felt a single mosquito. The food is not only fine, but is really growing on me. Things like Jolof rice, banke, a dish made from corn flour topped with wonderful vegetables cooked in a kind of tomato sauce, fresh mangoes and pineapples and more. The buses may be crowded with the proverbial chickens, but for long trips, we have our own so haven’t had to use the others. And the hotel rooms at the White Dove Hotel are basic, clean and cool with ceiling fans (and air conditioning if you like that). Yes, occasionally the electricity goes off or the water doesn’t run, but neither for very long. And now they have an Internet service that works!

So please enjoy your armchair travel in the comfort of your home, but if I were you, I’d put Ghana on your bucket list. Because none of it’s true power can be captured in words. You just need to be physically present to feel the vibrations of the music and feel the ground shake as the drums boom and dancers dance. And you can feel a little of the beauty of the kids and adults with a few photos of their smiles, but you’ll be missing the touch of their hand.

Back to the story. The day started with a quick trip to the market, where I had fun bargaining for an outfit for my grandson Malik, some lovely fabric and some large wooden spoons that you could play as well as use to dish out rice. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I love bargaining, the play of it, the chance to engage with the seller, consumerism as relationship.

We then set off to a village where they weave kente cloth, that multi-colored fabric that stamps Ghana with a character recognizable to the rest of the world. On the way, we stopped on the side of the road to enjoy some fresh coconut. The woman with a child in her lap expertly hacking away with her machete to cut off the top so we could drink the juice and then breaking it open further so we could enjoy the meat. Swinging the machete with the kid in her lap and us close by would have sent the Risk Committee at my school to the hospital with a nervous breakdown. After I ate mine, I was stepping the beat and lightly clapping one of the drum patterns we’ve been working on and I noticed a group of kids across the street mimicking me. (Remember my blog about the ability to notice and respond?) I crossed the street and went through my repertoire of Steppin’ body music moves, with them imitating on the spot. No breaking it down a phrase at a time, just jump in with both feet the way kids do and having a great time doing it all. Instant connection.

On to the village and remarkable technology of the looms, simple materials expertly put together and the breathtaking speed and dexterity of the young men and older boys weaving. Working both hands and their feet, a bit like playing the drum set. Extraordinary to me how they held the pattern in their mind, no instructions or sample piece of cloth to copy from. Some of us than bought some of the cloth while others played with the kids. Learned a few name games and I finally understood and played the ubiquitous game “Ampe” which I first saw in 1999 and is played by kids throughout the country. Two kids face each other, jump and clap and then put out one foot. If it’s the same foot as the partner one wins, if it’s different, the other. Hours of exercise, connection, fun and strategy. No electricity needed.

Quick lunch back at the hotel and then off to the Nunya Academy Festival. Have I mentioned that Nunya Academy is Dr. Kofi Gbolonyo’s dream, to create a school for children to not only carry on the traditional dances and drumming, but also learn Western band instruments? This and the last Orff-Afrique trip are a big part of that project, as we bring some feet to that dream not only through gifts and some contributions for instruments and resources, but through the many interactions our teachers on the trip have with the Nunya kids. (Nunya is the Ewe word for Wisdom).

Our presence helps give the project some presence and publicity in the local community as well and the other day, we all went to the land where a physical school is planned, saw the architect’s plans and watched the chief dig the first two strokes in the sod for the foundation. And I was given the honor to do two more on behalf of the San Francisco International Orff Course. A grand moment and one we hope to look back on in a year or so when the buildings become a reality. At the moment, all classes are held in ad hoc spaces. (If you’d like to contribute, there is a Website for Nunya!)

There were 24 items on the Festival Agenda, going back and forth between short speeches by various dignitaries (including James, Sofia and myself), the Nunya kids performing both traditional pieces and band music, other groups performing including some of us from the Orff-Afrique course sharing a stirring acapella gospel piece and some Venezuelan singing and drumming. An unexpected highlight was two men on tall stilts breaking into the center and doing some remarkable dances and tricks. Near the end, it was party time and at one point, there were two different drum ensembles with two different dance groups playing two different pieces some 20 feet away from each other, then 20 feet across the way, some of the Nunya kids playing their band piece, with the stilt walkers in the middle of it all. Then various kids following some of our Orff-Afrique teachers, one group clustered around James trying to figure outa cute little hand-trick, another around our SF School P.E. teacher Tina copying whatever motions she was making. In other words, complete and utter joyful chaos that would have intrigued Charles Ives musically and made a county fair seem like a tame polite gathering.

Back for dinner at the hotel and then a free night that included a long jam session with the electronic keyboard that had been brought in and funky drum set while others played cards, learned Ghanaian dance club moves from some of the hotel staff and just generally hung out enjoying each other’s company. We had had yet another rich, full day and now everyone was loving Saturday night.

“Everyone loves Saturday night” is also one of the first Ghanaian Highlife songs I learned a long time ago and carries a story beyond just the fun of partying at the end of a long week. The British rulers in the colonial period got nervous that people gathering would start talking and wondering why these invaders got to run their country, so at one point in the 1930’s, they imposed a curfew making it illegal for Ghanaians to be out after dark. After a while, they saw that the tension caused by forbidding such gatherings where people could dance and socialize was threatening to overflow and explode, so they relaxed the curfew for one night a week? Which one? Why Saturday, of course.

Needless to say, it’s such a pleasure to come as guests to this place, so happily learning some of the rich assortment of music and dance in Ghana and bringing and sharing some of our own. That’s the way it always should have been. What a beautiful history lesson that would be to teach the children! “From the time of the first Portuguese traders landing on the west coast of Africa, there was a delightful exchange of goods, ideas, culture, with mutual respect and admiration.” Well, it’s not too late. Let’s write that history for tomorrow’s generation. 

You Are Welcome to Join In

I’m continuing to wonder about the problems we humans have created and continue to create for ourselves. Why do we reduce whole population of human beings to narrow definitions to justify exclusion? What pleasure do we get by shutting the door in the face of others who dress, eat, worship, move, think or sing differently from us? What’s in it for us to huddle in some small corner of our hearts with other people hiding in small corners of their hearts?

Today we went to a village where some school kids presented songs, games and dances, it began as it always does here in Ghana: people start dancing and they come over and take your hand and invite you in. There’s a little formula to the dance—a short preparatory step, the main motion (a set motion here with a million personal variations) and a coda with a period at the end made by a gesture. It’s relatively short and then you go sit down again. That is, until the next person invites you in.

After the opening dance, the kids shared games and our host said, “You are welcome to join in.” I did and held my own in a stone-passing game and almost won a Ghanaian version of The Cookie Jar. After the games, we went for a walk around the village to see the process of making various things from palm trees. Everywhere people young, old and in-between greeted us with a smile and an affectionate touch. A perpetual hospitality that sings over and over again, “You are welcome to join in.” It’s so simple and everyone leaves happier.

And then I think of all the shame revisited on that Social Justice field trip to Georgia and Alabama back in April, that photo of Elizabeth Eckford of the Little Rock 9 walking head-up to Central High School while faces contorted in hatred screamed at her and said in no uncertain terms, “Stay out! You are not welcome! You are not wanted!”

The contrast is stunning. Coming from a country where we excluded so many, where far too many white folks were—and are— screaming at black folks or Latinos (for starters) to stay out (that is, after they did all the work that made America rich and sustained the economy), I can’t help but be struck by the generosity of these black folks greeting us white folks (and some African-Americans and Latinas and Persians and Asians) with such open arms. As I said, the contrast is stunning.

And it’s worth noting what they’re inviting us to join. Not some cult or gang or harmful institution where we have to check our intelligence at the door and obey and comply. Simply to share the pleasure of joyful things in their culture—music and dance, for starters. Friends, let’s work on feeding the joyful things in our culture we can be proud of and invite all our guests to join in. If you’re not sure how to do that, come to Ghana.

I know I’ll be coming back time and time again—at least, until I win the Ghana version of The Cookie Jar!

Mother Tongue

I should be used to it by now, but I still can’t help but be astounded by what these children — and adults— here in Ghana can do. This afternoon, the Venezuelans and few more of us were drumming and some kids came to play along. Our master drummer Jackie exchanged a flurry of inspired messages with a boy on the djembe and then more came and before we knew it, they had taken over and we all rushed to our rooms for our cameras. The drummers in Golden Gate Park are in infant school compared to these kids.

There’s no more words beyond the ones I’ve used—in their bodies 150%, able to mimic movements effortlessly, play complex drum patterns as naturally as asking to “please pass the butter,” responding to drum signals that they understand as a home language. And language is the correct way to think about it.

Consider. Every infant born on the planet starts to hear and recognize phonemes from the mother’s speech by the 5^th month in utero. Within one year, after birth, those neural connections are firmly established so the child can speak Chinese, Swahili, Hungarian or Farsi (depending on the mother tongue) with perfect intonation and no accent. Within the first two years, they’re creating their own sentences, sentences that they are not just imitating, but creating from an intuitive understanding of grammar and syntax. It all happens below the belt of the conscious mind, absorbing it without willful effort as Nature intended.

Now consider that in addition to the language of actual human speech, there is a language of tones and gestures and movements spoken fluently and constantly in everyday life. Won’t the child absorb those in the same way? The answer is a resounding, “Yes!” So here in the Volta Region of Ghana, there is a drum language closely related to speech. Yes, it’s true that master drum parts often tell small stories and quote proverbs and with intonations related to the tonal Ewe language. And, like all music, there is a grammar and syntax to these drum ensembles, one that is extraordinarily complex, especially rhythmically, far beyond the average foreigner’s comprehension, but as easy for the children to understand and speak as—well, please pass the butter. And just the way the young toddler rearranges speech to communicate within the proper grammar and syntax, so were the kids today fluent improvisers, sometimes returning to clear patterns they knew, but often re-arranging things to make a live conversation.

Us adult foreigners can learn how to ask for the butter and mimic the style of buttering the toast, but we will just about always speak and move with an accent and rather clumsily having had to go through the left hemisphere’s neural pathways. And much too late for Nature’s generous offer to give us those gifts of musical culture for free.

And of course, this is not simply an African phenomena. Kids born in Europe surrounded by Mozart and Beethoven will absorb an intuitive understanding of the grammar and syntax of that musical language, will anticipate certain chord shifts and melodic developments and announcements that a final cadence is coming. It’s the same for Chinese Opera or Appalachian old-time music or Aboriginal didgeridoo music.

But what just about all of sub-Saharan (and much to the north as well) Africa can claim is the commitment to speak and move that musical language just about every day of their life and always with the full inclusion of the children of all ages. It’s too easy to just say with starry eyes, “In Africa, music is part of the everyday life.” But it’s true! It knits the community together, calls on the ancestors to be present, gives energy for hard labor, teaches the moral lessons every healthy culture needs to develop in the young and old alike. I know that alone it is not enough. Ghana also has corrupt politicians and cheating husbands or wives and narrow notions about certain things. But it sure brings a useful frame to the needed conversations and animates life with such extraordinary energy, stamina and joy.

As a music educator in America, I feel how we settle for so little with our kids these days. Kids complain they’re tired after 5 minutes of dancing or clumsily bump into each other barely aware of other bodies or complain about so much when they have so much material things—but maybe not enough things for the spirit? It’s at once uplifting and depressing to see what might be and compare it to what is. There is such an open sweetness to all the kids we meet here, a comfort with adults, smiles and eye contact and didn’t I feel proud when a 12-year old grabbed my hand to dance and felt impressed enough with my efforts to feel the style and connect with his movement that he took off his beads and put them around my neck! Yeah!

Every culture has its light and shadow and once we become aware of our specific culture’s shadow, we start looking for the light to find what we need to restore balance. Specifically, we in the West need more music and dance as a mother tongue, spoken fluently by all adults and absorbed effortlessly by the young ones.

Here on the “dark continent,” that light shines bright indeed.

Africa on the Map

When I tell people I’m going to Paris or Hawaii, they all ooh and aah and smile with envy. When I tell them I’m going to Ghana, there’s a huge silence. Not their fault— folks simply don’t have a picture of what that means or if they do, it’s poverty, war, jungle beasts or famine. So much of our knowledge of the world begins with an image, an image planted by some form of media—a book, a movie, TV news—and then reinforced until it carries the weight of truth.

When I was a kid, I read a Dennis the Menace comic book about Dennis in Hawaii that tickled my imagination and stirred my longing to go myself someday. Listening to Ricky Nelson’s Travelin’ Man song (“pretty Polynesian baby, over the seas, do you remember the night? When we danced on the sands of Waikiki and I held you oh so tight”) fueled that desire and the TV show Hawaii Five-O added fuel to the fire. And so it was later with England via Beatrix Potter, Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, Charles Dickens, many places in the U.S. with Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, Paris with Debussy, Satie, the Impressionists, Gertrude Stein-Hemingway-Henry Miller-etc.etc. and again etc. When I finally arrived in these various places, I had already visited them in my imagination and they resonated with some mythic melody I had already been singing that now I could taste first hand.

But what of Africa? You can guess. The book Little Black Sambo, Tarzan movies, National Geographic magazines of bare-chested women, horribly racist cartoons of bumbling natives with booming drums, the book King Solomon’s Mines. Jungles everywhere, though in this vast continent, a very small percentage of the land actually is, primitive people who had missed the boat to civilization and were awaiting the great white saviors. Through education, reading and actual travel, I came to see that the ignorance of those portrayals was stunning (the “Dark Continent” refers to the darkness in the minds of outsiders trying to define a people and a place through their own limited and misguided lens), still, as Kofi had us do in a recent lecture, if someone catches me unaware and shouts “Africa!”, images of Sambo and Tarzan and of course, an elephant or lion or two arises from some deep pit in my childhood first exposure.

I wonder about children today. Perhaps “The Lion King” comes up first or Nelson Mandela, but I’m pretty certain that there’s little or nothing of the complex diversity of places and peoples, nothing that comes close to capturing one of the highest forms of the human imagination cultivated through song, drum and dance in complex, life-giving, welcoming and spirit-stirring performance. Kids probably are not being fed images of the beautiful kente cloth or the wisdom of the proverbs or the unique tastes of banku or fu-fu or ground-nut soup. And—this is my point—they should be.

Turns out that Africa has not only been minimized in the collective Western imagination, but it actually has been portrayed smaller on maps. The entire United States fits into just the northern part, with room for six other large countries that include China and Argentina (can’t remember the rest at the moment). Racism is not just a random failure of people who should learn to treat each other better and get along, it is a deliberately crafted and evil systematic institution that closes the doors of human minds and hearts by purposefully spreading ignorance. Even African-American kids are growing up in the land of the right side of the hyphen with bad attitudes about the left. Education—the actual facts, like the map story above—can help, but I think what’s even more powerful is the mythology that enters our bloodstream at an early age, hits below the belt. I want a kid to read Dennis the Menace Goes to Ghana and start to long to see this marvelous land someday.

And so a call out to artists, musicians, authors, filmmakers, educators and TV newscasters to put Africa on the map—with its correct shape and size and tastes and smells and sounds, its beautiful contributions to the human experiment. Yes?