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July 17, 2006
Cultural Encounters, pt. 2
Two weeks ago we took a group trip to Kumasi, Ghana's landlocked, second-largest city. It's a commerce hub and home to the largest open-air market in the nation and perhaps in West Africa. Driving up -- a trip of more than four hours, some of it on roads under heavy construction -- the differences from a country like Mozambique were again evident.
Despite lack of electricity or running water, there was a sense of industry and action among people doing business on the side of the road. Instead of the idle woman selling homemade charcoal, people sold soft drinks, roasted corn, plastic bags full of water and snacks like that looked like empanadas. There were billboards advertising goods that were within reach of the people reading them. Also ubiquitous were "phone booths," just desks, staffed mostly by teens, on which rested old-style touch-tone phones. These have been retrofitted as cell phones, and for a small fee you could use them. Barbers and metalworkers seemed to be in high demand; every few miles we saw giant, intricate, shiny gates for sale. No one looked malnourished.
The sprawl struck me as we drove on and on through dense neighborhoods before finding the city center. At one point we crested a hill and looked down into what appeared to be a massive shanty town. Rusted metal roofs stretched as far as I could see, with no paved roads to break up the dirt paths between them. As the bus approached, things became clear: This was the market. Everything for sale. Shoes, bags, cloth, corn, brass and oil, fruits and vegetables, baby clothes and toys, firsthand and third-. In the raw meat section, all parts were available and the smell was literally dizzying.
Among our scheduled activities was a visit to the palace of the Ashanti king, the most powerful ruler in the nationwide monarchic system that coexists with the federal government. You can seek an audience with the king, but we were just there for the museum. Peacocks dotted the well-kept grounds of the palace, cawing at strangers like cats in heat. We learned about the old ways in which kings were chosen (matrilineal), and their symbols and artifacts--staffs and stools of gold. Without any irony, the tour guide showed us wax statues of the last several kings, preserved, frighteningly lifelike, for folks like us to come and see.
The more indelible cultural details came as we got on and off our tour bus. There, kids teenaged and younger crowded around the bus, banged on the windows and shoved goods in our faces: bracelets and necklaces; Black Stars gear; wood carvings and maps. They asked our names on the way into the palace, and if you told them, on the way out they'd have a bracelet made with yours on it. (They had back stock for common names.)
Just as unsettling was the way that some on our trip, despite having been here for several weeks, misunderstood what these kids were up to. (Not that the organizers provided any warning or guidance.) It is sometimes hard to separate poverty from opportunism, but a few things should be clear: These salesmen do not want your phone numbers and e-mail addresses in the hopes of pursuing romance. To them, "no thank you" means "maybe." No, he's not giving you that for free. Calling us "obruni" (the name for a white person or foreigner) and grabbing our arms -- they don't do it because we are unfamiliar; they do it because it works.
At our second stop this affair was repeated, and by the third some of us had lost our appetite for "culture." Over lunch, we Americans watched a group of Ghanaians drumming and dancing, performing routines that, traditionally, were not meant for the general public, and some of which had been "updated" by this troupe. More heartburn. I thought of this scene again a few nights ago when some of the (white) students here were at the local bar, demanding first American music, and then that the (black) bartender dance to it. They clapped, pointed and yelled instructions as the man got down.
In Kumasi, we stopped between a soccer field and a traditional weavers' workshop. The mob that greeted us was made up of children under the age of 10. They crowded around and asked us for money or pens, or to sign their books, in pitiable tones. They offered suggestions, throwing their arms around each other at the sight of a camera: "You take our picture. Look, take snaps! Look, we are best friends!" I wished I was back with the prostitutes in Mozambique. It was a lower-pressure sell.
A soccer game started up between us and the children, but it broke off every time someone raised a camera. One of the broadcast journalists tried to take video and had to be physically rescued from the crowd. The Ghanaian leader of our trip, handing out leftover rice from our lunch, became instantly popular. "They're not hungry," he told us later -- and indeed, they all looked hearty, and all were well-clothed. "They just don't know this isn't American food."
I looked back at the kids gamely running after the soccer ball, dodging around guys twice their size. Was that, too, staged for our benefit? When they got trinkets or money, which some in our group were passing out freely, the younger kids funneled the gifts through some invisible hierarchy to older ones who probably ran the show. Still, the kids were talented soccer players, and the weavers and printers made unique, beautiful cloth. But after this rude awakening some people kept to the air-conditioned safety of the bus.
Then, on a side road out of the city and back toward Accra, the bus broke down. After a few minutes some filed off to get drinks at a stand set up just a few feet behind us. A group of children came out of the shacks nearby to say hello. Some of us who had just bought African drums started playing, amusing themselves and the kids. Soon some older men who really knew how to drum emerged and took over, and quite suddenly we were having the most unmediated and positive experience of the day. While the old men drummed, some of the performance artists from the bus led an impromptu course in dance for the children. Culture, perhaps, lives after all.
Posted by Adam Graham-Silverman at July 17, 2006 09:19 AM