Update: I sincerely apologize for the full month gap in posting. However, there will be compensations coming soon!
Ghanaians often pass on wisdom through proverbs and metaphors based on their folklore. Kpanlogo, a popular drum and music rhythm, is one such tradition. For three months I have learned from local master-drummers and participated in a workshop to build my own instrument. Although I had something of a musical background before, learning kpanlogo was a completely different process. In Western music, there are endless ways in which a musician can perform a style. Jazz, for example, has characteristics that define its identity, but the execution remains open for creation. Inventiveness is part of what makes a musician unique.
In traditional Ghanaian drumming, on the other hand, each rhythm or style has a correct order and technique. Improvisation has limited space, and even specific dance steps go with the beat. Also, there is no such thing as composing a new kpanlogo rhythm; it was created and is played with very little variation.
Many aspects of cultural learning follow this pattern; the process is centered on emulating the “correct way” of doing things, according to each culture. In Ghana specifically, you must eat with your right hand only, excuse yourself and greet every time you cross paths with someone, and pronounce words with the correct intonation, lest they become meaningless. As a visitor eager to be treated as a local but conscious of always being seen as a foreigner, replicating customs trumps combining them with a Western background. Thus, adapting to live as a Ghanaian has in many ways been like learning to play kpanlogo: learning and reproducing the rhythm. Following a reasonably clear set of expectations as an oburoni in Ghana, I tried as many aspects of the culture as possible – studying traditional Adinkra symbols and their meanings, sampling any local dishes (rat soup on a really brave afternoon), and elbowing as much as the next person for a spot in a trotro van during rush hour.
My approach towards service work in Accra diverged from my approach to cultural learning. The four months were split between SISS, a grassroots vocational-training NGO, and DAI – AFRICA LEAD, an agricultural development training project for leaders across sectors in West Africa. In both places I aimed to understand and tackle issues from a local perspective. The biggest challenge, however, was to deliver results despite obstacles from developmental lags. I found it more effective to work through my previously built personal expectations and ways of thinking. This led to what I believe will be a valuable perspective adjustment, a more objective analysis on poverty and on which means are most effective in dealing with it. Social entrepreneurship and development work are often under-scrutinized because of their altruistic ends, by both developed and developing nations, as if doing a good deed nullifies the obligation to execute well. Indifference to results contributes to the present inefficiency of development work. I believe the importance of the ends calls for a combination of the local understanding with inventive action.
In the many facets that Ghanaian and Western cultures and realities differ, music is one that holds many parallels to what I have experienced and learned in Accra. Through apparently opposing ways of thinking – liberty of creation and mirroring of traditions – Ghana has provided the stage for testing each method. I am still unsure whether the cultural aspects of this experience will influence my set of beliefs as much as the service placement has. While the daily life in Ghana has been like kpanlogo drumming, applying the experiences will be done in more of a ”blues improvisation” manner – no actual patterns to follow, just a harmony to refer to.
