I really am not good at improvising. I wasn't good at it in high school (or college) jazz band, and I am not good at it in real life. Working in a developing country requires expert skills in operating on the verge of chaos and trying to make something sensible come out of it. I can be flexible, though. I can change gears when needed, though I sometimes need a few minutes to get my brains and emotions used to the change of pace. However, flexibility doesn't require leadership; improvising does. Improvising requires creativity under pressure and then, most though not all of the time, requires one to make decisions and then somehow implement those decisions with your original plans crumbling around you. This was my day yesterday, and I unequivocally failed at it. The day, the event, was not a total failure, in fact it happened to produce a lot of successes, but my ability to operate productively in a situation that needs complete rejuvenation on the spot, was totally not there.
Yesterday was our big Family Planning and Cultural Dance Event that Kwesi and I have been planning for the last few months. The idea was to disseminate family planning education and mix it with a celebration of cultural dance. We needed a draw, if you will, something fun that would bring many different people from different places. For HIV/AIDS education last July, we used football, but that really only draws the boys and men. We could go to the schools, but then we would only reach the educated, and there are many non-schooled people in these areas. Everybody, though, loves cultural dancing. It would bring the young and old, the men and women, the educated and uneducated. Family planning is not an unknown or new concept here, it is just underused, especially in the smaller villages farther away from the community clinic. It is my impression (purely anecdotal not quantified) that some (men) are still resistant to it, but most people think it's generally a good idea, but other things get in the way of participating in it. Men and women don't talk to each other about it, don't attempt to plan their families and leave it more or less to chance. Some don't want to travel to the clinic or don't take advantage of the community outreach days. Others are turned off by going and then having to pay the small fee. Others (women) are worried about prostitute reputations or the myth that birth control makes you sterile. Given these obstacles, we thought a good start was a community-wide conversation about family planning.
So, I wrote six short dramas about family planning, two of them addressing issues surrounding teenage pregnancy and promoting family planning use among adolescents (my stab at stepping outside abstinence only education). We invited over 15 community groups (many from villages surrounding Damanko) and we enlisted four of those groups to present the written dramas. The two talking about teen pregnancy, we gave to the two junior high schools in town.
So, the day of the event comes. Kwesi and I are very excited. I am excited because I get to see a whole day of cultural dancing—and not just Kinachung, the dance performed by Konkombas at every funeral, but dances by other groups that are only done a certain occasions; one of them so rarely performed that the younger generation has seen it very few times so it can be considered “endangered.” Anyway, on all the of invitations and all the meetings and announcements, we said the event would start at 7:30 in the morning. Even though many Ghanaians arise before 5 am, this is still a ridiculous hour to start something, but in Ghana, nothing EVER starts on time (except football, Kwesi tells me) so we allowed a hour or two leeway. But the upsetting part was that not a soul (aside from the several hundred school children running amok) appeared until ELEVEN O'CLOCK. I was so angry. Here Kwesi and I had worked to get everything in place, written the grant, written the dramas (not to mention all the actors working hard at their parts), visited everyone, set up the stage area that morning; I even traveled to Tamale to borrow special cameras from Peace Corps, and it's perfectly fine to make everyone wait, purely because you don't want to be the first group to arrive. Drives me absolutely bonkers. I could feel the passive-aggressive animal rising in me that says, okay, fine, everything's canceled then, since you all can't show that you care or take this thing seriously. Somehow, no matter how many times Kwesi assured me with “that's how Ghanaians behave; don't worry we will do it, everything will happen” and no matter how much I reminded myself that a year in Ghana has taught me that everything that is supposed to happen will happen, just not as you planned them, 20-some years of deeply ingrained (and possibly genetic?) punctuality is difficult to overcome no matter how many yoga-calming mantras you try to repeat to yourself. Needless to say, the day's schedule (even with an anticipated delay worked into it) was completely moot. Which meant that everything had to be done on the fly as groups showed up, which also meant that everyone was clamoring to know when this group would go and that group, when should we have this person's speech, and so on. Two of the dramas didn't even happen because, well, in one half of the actors decided it would a good day to travel, and the other one, I still didn't know what happened. And those two were my most important. So that's it. No more big, community-wide events for me.
Good things did happen yesterday. Like I said before, everything (or something) will happen, just never as you plan it. The dramas that happened were excellent, a couple even exceeded my expectations, lots of people (and all different kinds of people) eventually showed up, the people who gave speeches spoke very well and gave excellent advice, and those watching seemed to be into it and enjoy it. The biggest disappointment was that I had a very effective event planned, but with such a big delay and the helter-skelter and hurried way we had re-do everything, a lot of the effectiveness was lost.
But enough complaining now, and on to the dancing. Though I unsurprisingly enjoyed this portion, that delay of the morning still lingered as a dark shadow in my mind, so I didn't have the same ebullient feeling I would have had otherwise. Konkomba is the major tribe in this area, so most of the dances belonged to them, but there are large minorities of Ewe and Basare tribes here too, so we asked them to represent themselves as well. After some light pleading, the Basares agreed to perform their Fire Dance, a dance traditionally performed at the funeral of a chief or other important man, and the “endangered” dance I mentioned before. The Traditional Believers (a group of people irrespective of tribe that still adhere to the older, traditional animistic beliefs) begged for a spot too since dancing occupies a large part of their worship, we couldn't turn them down. The Konkombas are widely known for a dance called the Kinachung. It is one of several dances they do, or have done in their history, but this is the one performed most frequently and by the younger generation (so its healthy tradition will continue), and so most favored by the tribe and those outsiders who are familiar with it. This dance is performed by both men and women, though men's is definitely the showier of the two. The Konkomba women have two dances all their own, dances that no man would even think of participating in. They are called Nbanbae and Yechenoi. The latter is set up in a circle with four seated women hitting empty earthenware water jugs over the opening with empty calabash bowls.
Traditionally, women didn't touch drums (though no one really cares anymore) and so this was their replacement. The women dance with one arm in the air and stomping their feet in a quick, rhythmic pattern with (if available) rattling shells tied around their ankles for extra percussiveness. Nbanbae is essentially the same, except that in place of the water jug drums, the women use only their hands and voices.
The runaway hit of the show, however, was the Basare Fire Dance. In fact, the crowd kept mistakenly running over the where the fire was set long before they had were to dance, just to ensure they had a good viewing spot, ignoring the other goings-on and further diminishing the effectiveness of the messages we were trying to convey. A major part of funerals in the tribes of northern Ghana is a traditional soothsaying ritual. Through a practiced soothsayer, the deceased can convey any messages to living. These messages, however, usually pertain to the manner and circumstances of death, thereby providing an explanation of a traditionally unexplainable event. The Fire Dance is a spiritual dance performed by the soothsayers to enable them access to the spirit world. How that works is beyond my ken at present. This dance has not been performed by the Basares of Damanko for many years and what was performed yesterday was merely an appetizer portion. I am told that it is rarely performed anymore, mostly due to the fact that to do the dance and the ritual properly, a lot of money needs to be spent. Animals need to be bought for slaughter, drink needs to be brewed and distributed, firewood has to be gathered or bought, and, of course, soothsayers have to make a living. Most of the money goes to animals, though, such as cows which are very costly. And, if it is done properly—for an important man, say—they will invite their relatives and their more expert soothsayers from their original homelands in Togo or the Northern Region. Given the rarity and the spiritual circumstances surrounding the dance, I am impressed, but not surprised, that they chose to air out this old tradition and show it off a little.
So the crowd gathered in a small circle around the fire with three drummers off to the side. There were four men dressed to the “tribal” nines, if you will, men I'm assuming were the soothsayers. Women were performing their own dance in a cluster around the drummer. Logs on the fire were all about the same size and shape and stacked parallel to each other making a small pile with small flames licking the top logs. Dancers cross these logs barefoot, even stomping on them a little, stepping up and over them like a small staircase. Though the flames are licking their toes, it is still a little reminiscent of the walking-over-hot-coals trick.
Everyone had a good time, and I hope they learned something about family planning. Needless to say, I slept well that night.
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