Music, the kora, ceremony, trash and breasts.

Saturday, March 18, 2006

“Toubab! Toubab!” Wherever I walk little children shout it gleefully. There is no onus to being a white man. It is simply what I am; like “old guy” or “baldy”. And the children are fascinated. I will frequently be surrounded by a gaggle of 9-year-olds wanting to shake hands and try out their English, or 3, 4, and 5-year-olds who come up and take my hand, or stroke the hair on my arm, or even hold my hand to their cheek and kiss it. Nothing fawning about it. Just a pure, sweet kiss. Sometimes I’ll have three or four children holding each hand as I walk, until I am far enough from their home compound, then they peel off and run home, waving goodbye. If there is time some of them will take a little pinch of skin and rub it. I am told they are checking to see if the color will come off.

A few days ago I was sitting in front of a music shop listening to some CDs they were demo-ing for me when a little girl of about ten walked over and stopped a couple of yards away. She stared at me interestedly. I put out my hand and said, “Hello. How are you?” Her face opened up in a delighted smile, eyes twinkling. She stepped up, shook my hand and said very, very precisely “I-am-fine. How-are-you?”

“I am fine. Thank you.” I replied.

She turned and as I watched her walk away I saw her throw her arms up in the air and do a little dance of pure joy. What a pleasure to make a child’s day just by being. I met a very interesting American today. His name is Grey Parrot. He comes from Maine near Bar Harbor. He plays the cora, and has been coming to The Gambia since 1990. Grey makes arrangements for people to come here and stay with families while they study music or dance, or art, or what-have-you and his wife does import/export, mainly fabric and dolls. He knows a lot about African music and culture and I learned a great deal listening to him. We met at a very lavish naming ceremony in one of the subdivisions of Serekunda. I’d gone for a cora lesson. When I got there, Alhaji said he needed to go perform at a naming ceremony and then we’d return to his place and do my lesson.

Alhaji Kuyate: have cora, will travel.

So, off we went through the deep-sandy streets with the sun shining and a nice breeze coming off the ocean. We’d stop often so Alhaji could chat and introduce me. (I think there’s a certain cachet to having a toubab doctor as one’s pupil. I also think I “show well” as I’m getting reasonably adept with the greetings in Mandinka.)

At length, we made it to the compound where the naming was being held. A large sheep was being led off to be slaughtered. Two tall towers of speakers were set up in the dust of the street with African music blaring. A crowd of jelis and jelimusos were gathered outside the gate and soon the jelimusos, all dressed in the same color green-and-white traditional outfits, started to sing and all danced into the compound. Plastic lawn chairs were stacked up by the scores and by the time things got rocking there were several hundred people. Huge cauldrons of rice, cous-cous, and the mixtures of sauce and vegetables collectively referred to as “soup” were being stirred up with spatulas the size of a little league baseball diamond. There were drummers and cora players and electric bass and jelimusos clapping bamboo sticks together and lots of singing. Big energy and smiles galore and the colors were brilliant. One of the women pulled me into the circle to do a bit of buck-and-wing. Children were everywhere. A babe-in-arms would start to snuffle and mom would flop out a breast and suckle the little one. Dogs slept in the dust and half-fledged chicks and hens dodged feet and scurried for dropped scraps. Overhead, the ever-present vultures circled or perched on nearby palms and walls, awaiting their turn and the ever-present African sun baked it all.

We did eventually get back to Alhaji’s house. He seems to be very pleased at my progress and is pressing me hard to come and “train” more often than I am really willing. We’ve already settled what I’ll be paying him weekly for my lessons, so his insistence surprises me. Maybe he really thinks I have some promise as a cora player.

The whole musician-thing here is interesting. In Mandinka culture only jelis make music. No one else played an instrument or sang. I’m not clear yet on whether it was a right reserved to them or whether others were prohibited. From Essa I understand there is a class division of “those who praise” and “those who are praised”. Aristocrats would not bow to play music; they are the ones for whom music is played. After all, Queen Elizabeth attends concerts, she doesn’t perform in them. In fact, Essa tells me it would be very bad luck for him to even touch a musical instrument. But what about the rest of society? I guess music was not something one did to entertain oneself. I have a feeling some of this division is gradually breaking down. Interesting.

Friday, Essa, Mussekebah, Essa’s brother, Ebraima and I are going up-country to his village in the Badibu District. Each year there is a village reunion to feast and pray for all the families in the village that they will have a good year. The event (or “program”, as they call it here) is Saturday. Essa tells me the family will slaughter a bull to eat and he wants to take me to see a baobab tree that looks like a pregnant woman. He’s quite emphatic about the tree.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Trash.
It is everywhere. Everyone litters. Plastic bags, orange peels, banana peels, aluminum pop cans, plastic motor oil bottles, all sorts of wrappers, solitary, worn out flip-flops,solitary, intact flip-flops, rags, bits of paper, foil and metal, unidentifiable organic somethings, more plastic bags ! especially plastic bags. As in Latin America and the Caribbean my first impulse was a self-righteous, “Why don’t these people take a little pride in their environment and keep it clean?” Until I began to think a bit. To avoid litter you have to have infrastructure to centralize and dispose of the litter. Trash cans, trash pickup, a place to put it, processes to do something with it once it’s there, etc. To do this requires money; resources.

Litter-strewn streets in Guinea.

Each year, the Third World experiences a net loss of gross domestic product. Raw materials are taken out by the First World nations, refined or turned into manufactured goods, and sold back to the Third World. A net loss to the so-called “Developing Nations”. So, the resources are not available to create the infrastructure. Let’s face it. How many of us would carry the piece of paper our sandwich was wrapped in all day until we got home and had a chance to throw it out? How many of us would do it, or would we seek a spot to surreptitiously ditch the greasy wrapper?

Then, there’s the organic vs. non-biodegradable problem. Not too long ago everything these people made, used, kept or discarded was biodegradable. The banana peel will be eaten by something pretty quickly. The plastic will not. And who is it that floods the Third World with plastic? There are no plastic factories in The Gambia, or the Bahamas, or Panama.

On the last Saturday of each month there is a government mandate that all businesses close from 9AM to 1PM for National Clean-Up. No one is even permitted to drive a vehicle without a special permit. Teams of students pick up litter from the roads. Businesses clean the street in front of them. Trucks come around to pick up the trash. Could you imagine the uproar in the US if business closed down for half a day each month?

Women and Walking
African women have this sultry, languid walk. Part of it is that few people hurry. I remember an episode from Cannery Row where Doc’s girlfriend discovers that the secret to appearing elegant is to do things slowly. The women here don’t walk fast and it is both sensuous and elegant.

I discovered part of the reason, however, when I bought a pair of flip-flops. You can’t walk fast in footwear without a heel-strap. Try to rush and you’ll immediately lose a flip; or a flop. So that’s where some of that elegance comes from. The sultry hip-swinging, though, is pure style.

Breasts
They are not considered sexy here. Lots of women go bra-less under clingy or even transparent tops. Babies are nursed openly and ubiquitously, as should be. And there are a lot of babies.

(My mother would have plotzed. There was nothing in the world she loved more than babies, especially brown ones with huge eyes.) But I digress. I asked Essa what African men find attractive in women; physically speaking. First of all, he told me, they like big, fat women. He doesn’t understand why toubabs like skinny women. Fat women are strong and healthy. Secondly, he said, “The back is more important to us. We like a woman with big butt-tocks, especially when they are well organized.”