GERMAN CULTURE, KEBOBS AND AFRICAN MUSIC

It’s Friday night and I can hear them downstairs.  While I’m working on my courses, the party has started.  Ken runs upstairs and sees me.  “Would you like to go over to the Goethe Institute? Carolyn and Dwight are coming”  It took me just a moment to say, “yes, I can be ready in five minutes”. 

I know there is music tonight as I was there this afternoon for lunch and saw the announcement.  I had pasta with an orange spicy sauce and a piece of chicken for lunch, obviously not German food.  Most of the Ghanaian food is spicy. 

The Goethe Institute is in many areas of the world, including Los Angeles, D.C., London, Dublin and the list goes on.  Its purpose is to promote an understanding of the German culture.  They offer free language lessons in German (as well as Twi which is pronounced with a soft almost unrecognized “ch” sound).  Lectures and other information to promote cultural understanding is also featured.

We are on our way after flagging a taxi for the two mile journey to the Institute.  Taxi’s here are plentiful and extremely affordable for us.  The two-mile ride is five cedi.  Had we negotiated, I think we could have brought it down a cedi or two, but I am not feeling ripped off.  Five cedi is about $1.30.

As Dwight says, “I’d think about riding in a TroTro, but I’m not motivated because it is so inexpensive to ride in a taxi”.  I needed to buy coffee last week and hailed a taxi to take me into the city.  There is so much traffic that the ride takes a good twenty minutes to get there.  I asked the driver to wait for me and then take me back. 

I was in the store for about a half hour trying to interpret the coffee packaging.  I was also excited to find Pringles!  It goes with my Saint Lucian diet of peanut butter; a diet which I have eased into since my arrival in Accra.  Frances, the driver brought me back.  The entire trip was about an hour and a half of his time.  I paid him ten cedi, about $2.50. 

 

We arrive and I can hear the music playing and smell the BBQ grilling.  There were twinkle lights strung up around the area and plants in pots that create pleasant surroundings.  We pass the grass bar and make our way to a table.  A waitress comes to our table and gives us the menu: chicken, beef, swordfish or lamb kebobs.  Beer and wine was ordered and an assortment of kebobs.  I ordered one kebob while others ordered two.  The cost was four cedi, about a dollar and a price worthy of risk.  After our first taste, we call the woman over and order more. Simply amazing. 

But even more amazing was Shidaa, a group from Jamestown, playing instruments like I had never heard before.  Shidaa appears to mean welcome in the Ashanti Tribe of Ghana.  The music that flowed from flutes and drums did things that one must hear live to fully grasp.  I recall how Jimmy Hendrix became his guitar when he played.  Shidaa became their instruments as they play.  

(Link to signature song.  I cannot find a YouTube video with the same depth I heard that evening, but regardless, it is great music and they are incredibly talented.  It is worth clicking the link. I have linked a video I took.  Why is there no picture?  I have no idea.  I did something wrong, but you have audio.)

I look around at the people who are eating, drinking and enjoying the music and I quietly think about my life.  I think about my walk home in the past few dark evenings, listening to the bullfrogs communicate in their deep voices and hearing bats fly overhead. I'm carrying a pineapple cut and packaged for three cedi, my breakfast for the next morning.  I hear my footsteps on the gravel and think about the freedom I feel and the breadth of cultural knowledge I have acquired in these countries.  I think about the verse that crosses my mind as I negotiate the footpath with care.

If darkness had not fallen 

If he had kept his promise

If I had become the envisioned destiny

Would this path be lit?

Just as my thoughts become extreme, Shidaa is finished with their set.  I quickly reach for ten cedi to buy their music, Asesegwa Shidaa.

Then the next group begins to play.  It is possibly the worst rap music I have heard in my lifetime.  The piercing confusing noise following Shidaa jolts me from my thoughts.  I look over and Carolyn, another instructor who is bewildered.  Ken is beside himself.  They are out of tune and completely out of touch with their audience…with one exception.  

Dwight has had enough to drink that he is amused, tapping his feet and encourages them by taking pictures.  I do the logical thing.  I take pictures of Dwight, tapping his feet to the music, laughing and encouraging them by taking pictures!  And then I order another glass of red wine.  Obviously I need to catch up with Dwight or this will be a long evening.