Africa, ATR, and other neat things

Greetings family and friends!

I miss you. I’m coming to terms with the fact that I miss you, however, and have decided that this in no way diminishes how much I appreciate this experience, just as the value of this experience in no way diminishes how much I miss you. Sometimes it’s hard for me to reconcile both of these things in my head, but it’s ok, I’m learning ;)

Things going on: exams are starting, but my personal exams don’t start till May 9^th. To fill this new huge amount of time that I will (in theory) have from now until I leave, I have these things to do: study, finish a couple of papers, learn about the subtleties of parking at Emory, carve a block of wood, travel, read a few books, and have talks with a surprising number of people who keep saying “we should make time to talk”. Tada! :) That time has arrived.

I’ve actually had a few such talks already, and they’re quite interesting. Not precisely relaxing, I’d say, but rather stimulating. I always learn a lot, regardless of whether I’m doing most of the explaining or most of the listening. Thus far I’ve had talks with David, Obed, Ocansey, Dominic, and Obri. The first two are boys I know from UCC, and the latter three are seminarians. Things we’ve talked about: African Traditional Religion, how ATR relates to Christianity,

You’ll notice that all the people I’ve had these talks with so far have been men, and there are many complicated and perhaps unknown reasons for that. Giftie’s theory is that women simply have less time to hang out and make new friends, because they have more responsibilities in their home lives. Also, there are more men than women at UCC, though I think that all of my classes are roughly even in terms of gender. The seminary won’t have women until next year. Finally, lots of guys talk to me hoping to date me. I try to avoid such friendships-hoping-to-be-dates, but occasionally I fail. At any rate, I don’t date anyone here, and just constantly hope that such friendships don’t become awkward, since they rarely just dissolve ;)

A brief word on friendships in Ghana: traders will say all the time (in Fante), “I’ll call myself your friend”, and it’s not precisely something you can politely say no to. And why would you? Except for then they say “take me to America”, half-jokingly, and unfortunately I still haven’t figured out how to say “I can’t” in Fante. I do know how to say “no/ I refute the statement that you just made”, but that doesn’t precisely fit in this circumstances. Friendship in Ghana will also occasionally subject you to phrases like “you are not a good friend”, which is a positively depressing thing to hear. However, it occasionally follows arguments like, “you were sick and you didn’t call me?! Not having my phone number is no excuse. I would have visited you. You are not a good friend.” I’m betting that this phrase has an exact equivalent in Fante. But anyway, speaking of visiting sick people, it’s very important here. Nevermind that while I was sick with malaria I was either sleeping or truly ill- when I got back to school everyone who had known I was sick professed that they had wanted to visit me, but lacked knowledge of where I live. This visibly caused them some degree of distress, so if I get sick again I’ll know to better announce it ;).

Now then, as for the topic of Appreciating the Taste of Your Own Teeth vs. Congratulating Mediocrity: this is actually a discussion that arrived in my mind a month or two ago, just from hearing various Ghanaians comment on the “state of affairs” from different perspectives. You see, there’s an Akan/Fante proverb (which I unfortunately forgot to look up for it’s precise wording) that’s about appreciating the taste of your own teeth: that you should appreciate them, because it’s all you have, and all you ever will have. You should learn to like their taste, or you’ll just live dissatisfied. This proverb is said to people who are having trouble particularly with their families, because especially here there’s no real way to escape your relatives. They’re the people who always have tabs on you, and who you will one day need to depend upon. You’d better strive to make things sweet between you.

However, when we first discussed the proverb in my Fante class, the metaphor was extended to the way that Ghanaians feel about Ghana. So many young people here want to leave, thinking that things are “better” elsewhere. Of course, this is entirely debatable based upon your standards of “better”, and I bring this up often, but the fact remains that many people are dissatisfied. They are frustrated with the state of the utilities, with the state of technology, with the limited availability of luxury items, with the lower salaries- all these things, and so sometimes people complain publicly. The proverbs argument is this: it’s all we have. Sure, it’s not perfect. It’s unclean, it’s occasionally crooked, but these are the teeth we have to work with. How can you be ashamed of something so much a part of you as your teeth?

The counterargument came up in another class, where a professor was talking about how much people have to put up with here. Ghanaians truly laud sacrifice, and in official events when things go wrong, people often say, “well, you know, we are a developing country.” But, Professor Anum asked, couldn’t Ghana do better? Couldn’t we all do better? When we say “well, this is what we have to work with”, are we not settling? Are we not in fact giving people excuses for sub-par work? Somewhere in the midst of these arguments, there’s an intention-filled balance that needs to be found. Something that’s more about being than seeming, and about accepting the facts without congratulating unnecessary mediocrity. I think it’s an issue everywhere, but Ghanaians are particularly hop-scotching this issue at the moment.

Now then, putting all of that behind us, there’s something that Ghanaians are dying to tell the world which I feel I should pass along. I’ve had several conversations concerning this at the University, and witnessed many more references to it elsewhere: Ghanaians want the world to know that not all of Africa is a wreck. Not all of it is war-torn, lawless, completely ridden with corruption, or anything of the sort. Not all of Africa is lost to AIDS, nor starvation. They feel like the world’s media paints all of Africa black (this in their own words) and that it’s not fair – Ghana has been basically peaceful since before its independence. It currently has a working democracy, schools, medical systems, and all kinds of good working culture. Knowing that so many people think of ill of Africa, or even pity Africa, hurts Ghanaians.

Of course, they’re a mixed group. Some of them are happy that the colonizers came because they brought Christianity. Some are angry that the government tries so hard to attract foreign aid when they could be focusing upon their own assets. Some were happy that the government spent so much money to buy new cars for chauffeuring diplomats at the anniversary celebration, because it made Ghana look affluent. All of these people, though, wish that the world wouldn’t look at Africa as “all bad”.

Interesting tidbit: in most of the graphic representations (relief sculpture, drawings) of the continent of Africa, you only see the mainland. It’s the same for Chantal’s Africa necklace, and most such things that you’ll find here. You may be surprised to know that it’s hard to find trinkets and knick-knacks in most of Ghana. But anyway, when Akwasi was looking at Chantal’s necklace, he said “that’s not Africa! Where’s Madagascar?” The island was missing from it’s place beside the continent, and therefore for Akwasi, it wasn’t a good/complete picture of Africa, and he said so right off the bat. I wonder how many people from the US would automatically say the same thing about a US map lacking Hawaii & Alaska?

Speaking of which, when my host parents went to the US a few months ago, not only did they bring back a load of Disney movies, but they also brought back a US map puzzle. Not a jigsaw, but a jigsaw puzzle that might put 3-5 states together per piece. Odd as it is to have in the house, this puzzle has been extremely handy whenever I’m trying to explain things about home, like how far apart things are, climate, where my family has lived and migrated, and population density. I have Eric Mortensen to thank for my new appreciation of geography as an awesome thing that affects the rest of existence. Yay ;)

And now for some brief commentary on African Traditional Religion and how it relates to Christianity here. (By the by, I now have some understanding of Muslim ethics from my class, which I very much enjoyed, but am in no position to comment upon how Islam has interacted with ATR). So, strangely, even though there are plenty of ATR practitioners around, I mostly learn about it from Christians. Even my ATR professor is a Christian (a Methodist). Here are the things that most of them want to impress upon me:

1) Hierarchy. In African Traditional Religion, there’s the Supreme Being, aka God, Nyame (Get Satisfied), Ewuradze (Almighty), but even though God is always considered, always in the back of people’s minds, and always a part of their speech patterns and vocabulary, God is very far away. So many legends and folktales describe God as being up in the sky, distant. It’s not necessarily that God is uncaring, but who is clean enough or important enough to ask for the attention of God? So, as intermediaries to take care of small matters and bring big matters farther forward, God created smaller gods. People can appeal to smaller gods, and if they have sufficient authority and are sufficiently appeased, they will help. There are hierarchies within the gods, however, and if one god isn’t working for you, you can try a more powerful one. It doesn’t even have to be a local god, but can be a famed one from another region. All of them, however, work for and only with the authority of the Supreme Being. Evil and/or self-serving forces of varying powers can also work against you, however, and charms and ancestors also somehow fit into the hierarchies of good things, depending on one’s culture. People consider these hierarchies to be very neat, handy established things: a brilliant, elegant system, if you will, though from the outside (and perhaps having far too little information) it doesn’t look that way at all too me ;) But the hierarchy is highlighted in people’s minds.

2) Fear and discipline. Ghanaians also want me to understand the fear and discipline that was inherent in ATR practitioners. You see, if you committed a taboo or a crime in traditional society, it was believed that your own god would strike you dead. There were harsh punishments for everything, and certain desecrations (cutting down certain trees, for instance) were unthinkable because they were also spiritual beings. Many Ghanaians lament the fact that Christianity carries no such immediate punishment for crimes, and they attribute modern lawlessness and lack of decency to the loss of ATR in people’s lives. People in traditional societies also practiced divination more, and so people believed that if they did anything wrong, they would certainly be found out. A Catholic friend of mine here even thinks of fear as the primary reason why he’s a Christian – he does good for fear of not going to Heaven – but I don’t think this is the case for everyone.
3) That it really works. Many Ghanaian Christians have stressed to me that they believe that African Traditional Religion is true, and that it works. Even though they’re Christians and are prohibited from doing certain things, there are also certain things they can’t deny. When people don’t get cut by machetes, when people get unexpectedly healed, when people know things they shouldn’t – Ghanaians believe that they witness these things regularly, and they stress to me that they know I don’t understand, that I can’t quite believe, but that it’s real. Witches, evil eyes… these terms are technically European, but they’re used here to explain to me many strange things. And Ghanaians believe in both the good and the evil forces. It’s really interesting.

Ah, I would love to write more, but I am out of time! The power, and therefore the internet, are both about to go out, and I couldn’t write this one too far in advance ;) Forgive the shoddy writing.

I love you all! Thank you for caring! Happy graduation, Guilford friends and all other friends in my year. Be well, everyone, and I pray you hold each other up.

With very much love,

Rachel Rose