On one of our last days in the village, I accompanied my friend Veronica to the hair salon to witness close range one of the saddest things I’ve observed since my arrival in Ghana: the astonishing popularity of relaxers and weaves among women. Even in the rural areas.
If you are not familiar with the social and economic implications of this taming of natural African hair, I highly highly highly recommend watching Chris Rock’s documentary “Good Hair”. It’s not only absolutely hysterical, it is very informative.
It is almost shameful how American society has valued the “taming” of natural black hair to the point that research shows the diminished professional opportunities of Black women in America with natural hair. However, to see this phenomenon here in Africa is something so shocking and depressing- spending so much time, so much money, and such dangerous chemicals to simply have hair that doesn’t look your own. To have an entire society internalize that their hair is somehow bad, and changing it has become a distorted symbol of modernity.
The title quote is from Dr. Yemi during one of our earliest lectures in Ghana. It has stayed with me throughout the last two months as I continue to observe so many instances of this “confusion”. Here in Tamale, where most women wear veils, the hair thing is obviously not an issue, but the general principle is nonetheless evident.
When I chose to visit Ghana, I looked forward to getting in touch with so many cultural traditions that had influenced and shaped the Colombian ones I was raised with. I thought of music, dance, storytelling, so many cultural practices that give this region such joy and marvel. However, it’s been truly saddening to see that many of those things are dying or suppressed, not by some greater colonial force or government, but by the people themselves.
People have chosen to trade in the rich tradition of music, dance, storytelling, sharing time and games with neighbors for mind-numbing foreign TV or radio. Of the 54 families we’ve lived with in Accra, Kumasi and the villages, we all shared the same frustration with entire evenings, sitting in front of TV sets watching horrible dubbed soap operas, reality shows, or more often, lots and lots of televangelists. No games, no talking to each other, no sharing with neighbors. In the villages it wasn’t to that extreme extent, but it was the radio, listening to horrible autotune American/British music and rap, it was a luxury to blast your radio every single day from 4am to 11pm for the village to hear.
Of the thousands of night spots, bars or clubs in the Accra region, only two play live Ghanaian music, and they do so only a few days a month. Live music and traditional dancing is something almost completely obliterated by its own people, out of the schools (extremely so, no music, art, or culture classes are allowed in any public school in Ghana), out of the streets and local performance halls, restricted now to performance companies that come out when groups like us come to visit.
People have almost no interest in dancing their own music, in learning their own language, because they are too infatuated with 'modernizing'- the latest cell phones (and everybody, everybody absolutely everybody has a cell phone, sometimes two), the latest American music, the British sports, the American or dubbed Chinese television, outside everything.
The ‘entertainment’ industry consists of televangelist, dubbing foreign soaps or making your own copy of an American show, and everybody everybody absolutely everybody gathers around the TV everyday to watch for hours. As a tro tro rider once said to me, “see look at our city, we’re becoming like yours, we’ll catch up, you can’t think we’re ‘poor and African’ any more”.
To make this point even clearer, Dr. Yemi gave us an assignment in Kumasi: to go to the high school across the street and find one young boy (or girl) who could name just three players of the Ghana national soccer team. Soccer is a huge deal here, and Ghana team is quite good (in case you missed that Ghana v. USA 2010 FIFA world cup game, they kicked our butt). However, of the 30 boys I talked to not one could name three players, not even two. Even sadder, every single one could name the full line-up of the Manchester and/or Chelsea teams.
Why? Why is that people have chosen to turn their backs on their own heritage for the glamour of becoming like the West. I wish I had an answer to that question.
What I do have an answer to is a question I wish I got asked more often: why did I come here? Why did I leave the land with the best universities in the world, every opportunity imaginable at my fingertips for a land best known for its poverty and disease?
When I tell people I am here studying Ghanaian culture, I get mixed reactions. Some people just think I’m insane. Others really wonder whether they have anything to offer worth studying. For many it gives them a sort of tiny wake-up call, it makes them eager to embrace their traditions so that they can be shared.
However, deleting art and culture out of the schools is worrisome, as children grow with no embrace of their heritage. I had a child in the village say “Twi is abolished; everyone should just speak English, because Twi is the bad language of poor people”. He was seven years old, living in a village with no TV, not a lot of access to the outside world, but somehow distaste for his own culture.
I don’t know what the future of Ghana’s culture and traditions will be like, I hope and pray that a sort of “cultural revolution” could occur for more people to rise and claim the thousands of years of customs and beauty that make this an extraordinary place.
At the University of Ghana, Legon, they’ve tried to make Friday ‘African’ day and encourage professors and students to wear traditional fabrics and clothes. It’s a start. And a lot people are dedicated to preserving dances and music, teaching it to the children outside of schools, and performing for their own communities.
SIT works with groups and communities all over the country. Our presence inspires many, this is an incredible land with wonderful people, and I know that many will continue to embrace their heritage and safeguard it from the continuous bombarding of Western influence.
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