Sound literacy

Ghana’s cultural soundscape is unquestionably a significant heritage. In speech as in listening, there are sounds that cannot be transcribed. These are sensations that could only be inadequately expressed in words. It is therefore important to be literate in sound as certain sounds are meant to send definite messages.

All our socio-cultural activities are interlaced with peculiar sound waves. Indigenous farmers have their sound codes. Names are not expected to be called out loud on a farm land; the traditional belief is, spirits, both good and evil, reside In nature and calling out one’s name in the forest may unnecessarily expose the bearer of the name to attacks if their name falls in the ears of evil spirits. Instead of calling out a name a “huuuuuuu” sound, among the akans, is made to get the attention of company that may be on the farm.

Beyond normal language we also speak sound. The sound you make blowing a gush of air from your nose when something stinks. Or the click sound you make in your throat to signify (depending on the rhythm of the sound) agreement or disagreement. We instantly comprehend sound made from sucking the teeth, or pressing our lips tightly together while forcing out air. Everybody speaks sound; people from northern Ghana hit their fingers repeatedly on their lips emitting a bubbly sound to call for attention or to complement the excitement in a dance performance. A mother rounds her lips, and lets her uppers set of teeth sit on the lower tightly as she blows out air to produce a sound similarly made of cut onions thrown in hot oil to induce her child to pee before going to bed.

The list is long on the different sound bites that make communication complete. Snap your fingers and someone is bound to turn. Like snakes hiss many Ghanaians (though largely considered rude) would make a prolonged “sssssssssssssss” sound to call the attention of someone on the street whose name they do not know. Men especially like to “sssssssssssssss” at women they find attractive on the street. Ice cream sellers in Ghana “sssssssssssss” or make a prolonged “kiss sound” to advertise their products. To call for silence, the “ssssssssssssssss” or “shooooouuuu” sound can also be made.

We must make a conscious effort to explore and comprehend the sounds that live around us. Apart from music, other art expressions like theater, film and dance is affected by sound. In understanding and experimenting with sounds we expand the prospects of Arts. Sound effects in our performing Arts affect our feelings. We for instance tend to get edgy about unfamiliar sound. “What is that?” we may ask, upon hearing a sound unfamiliar.

When you enter a village and you hear the voice of drums you can be sure that something is happening. When you pay attention to the particular sound/rhythm being made by the drum you will be able to, at the very least, gather clues on what exactly could be happening; is it a warning signal?, is it an indication of a celebration? is it a solemn moment? How does the sounds you hear make you feel? When a person clears their throat, can you tell if they communicating disapproval, teasing you, or perhaps just clearing their throat? In another scenario, a fresh student would have to learn and know the different sound codes of their school; from break time to assembly time, all the way through to ‘run now, the headmistress is coming!!!’ there are pinpointing sound signals.

The gong, the talking drum, the horn, the secret sound codes of farmers and hunters in the woods, the messages river music and bird songs carry, the rhythm of our heart beat; these are sounds one must learn to interpret. Days of fluent sound communicators may have passed us by; the variants sounds that converge to form the music of our daily activities have little of our attention now. New influences have sucked out the traditional sound consciousness; natural sounds of market squares; bus stations, the class room, a busy street etc. Could you for instance tell where you are if your eyes were closed? Makola sounds different from Kejetia, Teshie sounds different from East Legon, our emotions; joy, pain, disappointment, relieve are more often communicated in sound than in words. It is time to explore familiar and unusual bites of Ghana’s soundscape, how much sound do you know?

Kwesi and the other kids were allowed to burn the toilet papers but I wasn’t. My mother said I couldn’t go to back of the house to play around fire. She burnt the toilet papers herself whenever it was our turn to burn till I got to JSS 3. I was now a senior, I was 12years old! and I was grown. Burning toilet papers became my favorite chore. Every night I stole toilet papers and burnt them after I took my shower.

I preferred the smell of smoke on my body to the foal odor from the catchiest with the smelly mouth. Sometimes the smoke failed me, the catechist smell was stronger. His order got stuck on my skin, in my nose, in my mouth; but I kept burning, his smell was better mixed with something less revolting like smoke than nothing else.

Kwesi caught me one night as I walked behind the house with stolen toilet paper.
“What are you doing Brema?” he asked.

“I’m just going to burn the papers”, I said, “what are you doing following me?”
“But it’s not your turn!, I’ll tell…”

Before he could end his sentence, I begged, “please Kwesi don’t tell my mother… you can burn the papers if you want”

“No, I don’t want to, it’s late, what if a snake bites you?”

“ah Kwesi, a snake will not bite me, my mother says there are no snakes in this area”.

I lied; my mother and I never discussed snakes or any other reptiles. Maa was sacred of snakes; she would abandon any movie that had snake scenes even if her favorite actor, ‘Araba Stamp’ was lead character.

Kwesi waited for me as I watched the fire burn all the toilet papers into dark ashes.

“I burn every day; do you want to come with me tomorrow?”

“ok”, he said.

Kwesi become my burning partner but he never got close enough to the fire. He didn’t feel what I felt; the fire burning the little hairs on my skin, the smell of my burnt hair blending with the smoke that rose. Kwesi just waited by the side till I was done, always. We walked back home every night with him trying to convince me a snake might sneak up on us one day to bite us hard in the behind. I would laugh at his fears while pretending to kill an imaginary snake. Even though each trip made Kwesi more frightened, each trip was also more fun. He was always at the gate before I got there. He never told my mother about our nightly flames and I learned to trust him.

One evening I took my shower later than usual, it was past 8.pm, the time we usually met by the gate to go burning. Kwesi came to the bathhouse.

“Brema?”

The catechist with the smelly mouth sealed my lips with his palm.

“Brema, I can smell your soap, stop playing” Kwesi said, “are we going to burn today?”

The catechist with the smelly mouth started muttering “shit shit shit!”
“Brema!”

Kwesi, snapped the bathroom door open. The catechist with the smelly mouth spoke;

“I have caught you two!, I am reporting you to your parents, you bad children!”

He held Kwesi by his shirt and grabbed my arm, shoving me naked to my mother. Kwesi’s chalewotey slipped of his feet.

“my chalewotey my chalewotey”, he cried.

The catechist with the smelly mouth just dragged us both to our door. He knocked and my mother came out.

“I caught these two in the bath house”, the catechist with the smelly mouth accused.

Kwesi’s cry was intermitted with “my chalewotey, my chalewotey”

“Maa, it’s a lie”, I said.

“shut up! , what do I do with you heh?, she said, “I wish your father were here”.

I was glad my father had gone back to Togo. My mother scolded but she never hit me.

“get inside” she ordered.

I looked at Kwesi. He was still in the grip of the catechist with the smelly mouth. It was all my fault, I thought. I wanted to tell Kwesi, I was sorry but I knew I would cry if I opened my mouth again.

“thank you very much catechist, may God bless!”

My mother thanked the catechist with the smelly mouth and walked him to Kwesi’s parents.

I want nothing

I would gather spittle in my mouth; stretch my hands over my head to reach the coffee stained teacup on the headboard of my bed. My little brother, Kwame always remembered to put the pills under my pillow. Into the coffee stained teacup, I spat. If there was not enough spittle I would gather some more in my mouth, till it was enough for which I could swallow the pills with. No one will come into my room till Sunday night; that is when the pastor said the demons would have left. It was important that I, the possessed, fasted too.

When Kwame left the pills under my pillow he also put a bottle of water by my bed, but my mother came for it. The pastor had said the fasting had to be dry. There were sixty nine male demons and a very powerful queen demon who lead them. The demons had made, my body, my mind and the last particle of food in my teeth their home. I couldn’t be allowed to drink or eat; otherwise my madness will drive me to kill my mother and our last born, Adwoa.

With my spittle, I swallowed the pills. In the night I felt someone looking at me from the window, I knew it was Kwame. He knew exactly when I run out of pills and he replaced it when he thought I was asleep, in the middle of the night, when my dad was snoring. Sometimes he puts a slice of bread under the pillow. When I tried to eat it, I could taste nothing, so I didn’t eat it. I would pick the bread up to my nose and smell it. It offered a different smell from the stench of urine in my room. The piece of bread kept me company, it invited ants. When the ants walked on my skin, I imagined I was earth. When the ants bit me, I believed I was food. I didn’t care what the ants did to me or with me, I was just glad I could feel them.

I started screaming, an ant had entered my left ear. It walked deep into my ear. “Nooooo! Lawd!”, I screamed. My family gathered behind my door, it wasn’t time for them to come in yet, it was a Thursday, they had to wait till Sunday night. My mother was repeating herself, “yesu, awuradi, yesu awuradi yesu…”

My father ordered Kwame to bring his phone. My father became a reporter, “osofo she is having a spiritual attack.., ” “osofo, nobody has touched her ooo, she is screaming” “osofo, she is slapping herself” “osofo her finger in her ear… osofo…”

I heard my father direct my family to move away from my door. He said the osofo said, I was receiving instructions from the demons. He said, the osofo said it was important that they stayed away from me, or the demon would enter another person in the family and multiply.

“Osofo will come in the evening to rebuke and tie the demons up, everybody should go to their rooms”, papa said.

About 3mins later something was dragged on the floor and placed behind my door. I imagined it was the bookshelf as it was the closest heaviest thing by my door. My room became totally dark. The darkness calmed my nerves. Apart from the sound of water, darkness also calms my nerves. The ant had stopped moving in my ears. I wanted to take another pill so I could fall asleep but I had only three pills left. I was afraid I would run out before Kwame could replace it. I wondered if Kwame would go through the trouble of removing whatever my parent had place behind my door to get to my room. I wonder why they thought I would try to get out when I had never tried to; or was it to prevent the demons from getting out of my room?

I remembered one of the poems I wrote when I had the mind to write;

Wants on a Tuesday morning
I want music in a language I don't understand.
I want the possibilities in mystery.
I want the freedom in uncertainty
I want pieces of my forgotten self
I want meaningless laughter
I want nothing

Do demons like poetry? Perhaps ants do… “I want nothing” I yelled anytime I heard footsteps, “I want nothing”. “I want nothing” I began to mumble when I run out of yelling energy. I began to laugh, and then I cried, I cried in my sleep, and woke up to cry.

The thing behind my door was pulled away. A ray of light stole its way into my room. The pastor entered and blocked the light. “I want nothing” I mumbled and then I yelled, “I want nothing”. He started praying in tongues, it was “music in a language I didn’t understand”, I began to laugh, he prayed louder, I laughed louder. I broke into tears, I cried like a little girl. I went back to yelling “I want nothing” but my tears were not ready to dry, I cried some more, anytime I cried, osofo, slapped me, the pastor slapped me with his bible.

My mother began to cry too, osofo shut her up. Kwame tried to hold my hands, I didn’t let him; I was slapping myself and laughing.

When men bite dogs

The line is sometimes difficult to draw; high mysteries and concocted protective devices. My grandmother calls last Tuesday with news about being sued by the palace court. Her offence is keeping a dog in a village which forbids entry of dogs. Granny was fined 200 cedis and two sheep. My want for reason is discontent with a less perceptive response as: “dogs are a taboo here”. Why are dogs a taboo? Why should my lonely grandmother be fined for wanting some company as all humans do?

For the same reason mosquitoes nets were made, taboos are essentially protective devices. I would learn that this provocative taboo against keeping dogs as pets is not exclusive to Maabang, my village in Ashanti region. Our dear canine friends managed to get themselves in trouble also in many other communities across the central region. What did dogs ever do? A taboo, in its pompous free-floating capacity, may be useful for as long as it doesn’t get eroded by pointlessness. Let the palace elders in my village stick to their story of high mystery on the adversity dogs will bring to Maabang if allowed to live there. My research holds much comprehensible findings; not that I love taboos less but I love reason more.

Today’s dogs are paying for a spate ill-health of their ancestry. Rabies, a rather nasty disease, hit many communities in Ghana in the early days. This taboo, needless as it is today, saved lives yesteryear. Although unfair to my grandmother’s rabies-free dog as it is to groom jilted because his family has a history of poor mental health, people can be excused for panicking. I admire my ancestors for their astuteness in managing the outbreak and their inclination to prevent such future crises. Yet the time to let go a taboo is when it is bankrupt of reason for present justification. I trust health professionals and veterinary officers in Ghana to handle any case of rabies.

Why do Krobos not eat snail? I wonder. Our customs, believes and traditional practices make us, I know this. Upholding culture and traditional systems is essential to our continuity. Yet, it amazes me how our generation finds it easier to cling to what is petty like taboos against fluffy dogs whereas we watch our heroes, artists, festivals, songs and names and dance disappear. We are clearly unwilling to invest our time, energy and perhaps money when it comes to planning the festivals that tell our story, celebrating heroes who prepared the way, teaching indigenous songs that will uplift us and cross checking the right spelling of royal names. We are busy, we are modern, we are too advanced to pay attention to the core of our being. There is however time to propagate ethnocentrism, to discard indigenous dishes like “mpohonomu”, “apiti”, “akankye”, “adibiankyinwom”, “tumbani” and “mpotompoto”.

Perhaps it is time we employ taboos to meet challenges of our current social setup. Let us make "new taboos” against leaving elderly persons to be partly submerged in loneliness and partly in boredom. Let us make "new taboos" against forgetting our arts, our artists and our culture. We can use damage from offenders to build “canopy art centers” in communities. We must create space in the Arts for our elderly. My grandmother always has a new story. Why are we not encouraging the elderly to draw, play an instrument, write poetry and just tells stories as they wait around with nothing to do? Should it not be our business spending time with our grandparents so to enrich our life experience with whichever tales are yet to be shared? Should it be part of our school curriculum that we gather stories from time before us?

Four questions pretending to be two: what can arts do for our senior citizens and what can our senior citizens do for the arts? And beyond relevance of taboos and letting lonely grannies keep fluffy dog, what makes a people and what does not?

Wants on a Tuesday morning

I want music in a language I don't understand.
I want the possibilities in mystery.
I want the freedom in uncertainty
I want pieces of my forgotten self
I want meaningless laughter
I want nothing

Homophobia: Our ancestors knew better!

The tired excuse for homophobia in Ghana is that homosexuality is against our culture, and it’s a new thing young people are copying from the west. An “evil new thing” that ought to be condemned! People go ahead to emphasize how our ancestors punished any individual who had shown the slightest sexual interest in a person of the same sex by death or banishment. Is that so?

Openness to discussion and knowledge sharing on our individual sexual journeys, our sexual evolution and the truth on the stands of our ancestors on sexual preferences has been clamored by cultural and religious spasms from people who have obviously not taken the time to learn from our ancestors by the language they handed down to us on the matter of sex and sexuality.

Such words as Homosexual, Lesbian and Heterosexual do not exist in our indigenous languages. (e.g. Twi, Ga, Ewe, etc...) Why are these words missing in our indigenous vocabulary? One’s sexual preference was obviously not a thing our ancestors found a need to tag.

A sex offender on the other hand, example the rapist is “monaatofo” and the pedophile/child molester is “awengaa” in twi, which is by the way my mother tongue. Let me again point out, sex offenders and sexual offences have specific tags, rightful derogatory in our various indigenous Ghanaian languages. Here is my question; did our ancestor consider homosexuality an offence as today’s Africa wants us to believe?

The emphasis is on the fact that a word will arise when the concept or thing is deemed necessary to name in a community or when the community finds a concept or thing unacceptable. I wondered what my ancestors called homosexuality and so I kept in search for a word.

It shouldn’t be necessary that we find equivalent words for homosexuality or heterosexuality in our indigenous vocabulary. As old as homosexuality is our ancestors obviously didn’t think a person’s sexual preference formed any basis to be identified by, most of all to be discriminated against.

Contrary to what people would like us to believe today, homosexuality has long existed, it is no “new evil thing”. Ancient African Arts has shown women touching each other and men kissing. If there are no tags for homosexuality in our indigenous Ghanaian languages, it because there are also no tags for people based of their taste for food for instance. Since when did people get tags for their preference in anything for that matter? You can tell me when this started if you know but I know my ancestors did not find the need to name people based on ‘how they want it’. Don’t you dare blame your pointless fears, insecurity and cruelty on the ancestors!

things not done to us

We have had things
not done to us, all three of me.
I closed the door
it wasn't locked
You could have come in
You could have turned the knob

We shared one pillow, all three of me,
I didn’t have one dream
never on any night
I howl at faces I should forget
You should have come in
You should have turned the knob

We had big heads, all three of me,
I stained my memory with sleep,
my dreams lied
you cannot come in
you cannot turn the knob