Uge 14 - 17

Okay. Two weeks after Ghana, and the festival week is about to begin. After Ghana we were all very tired, and actually just needed to find our way back to the daily life in the school and slowly get to study some of the things that we are going to do for our last weeks here. It is incredibly difficult to sum up the trip to Ghana. I can only say that it has been an amazing experience that I will never forget, and that I think it changed something in all of us – personally, but also in connection with our studies. It is going to be very valuable. Marijke and I didn’t write reports for the homepage while we were gone, but I kept a diary and I decided to translate the memories from one of the last days in Ghana that I hope can give an impression of all the different things that goes on just within a few hours. From next week on we will again report from the school as usual, but for now a short look back on Ghana:


Diary from Ghana

24.04.2009:
The date of this note was written down two hours ago. At that point I had a lot to tell, but I was interrupted in my writings. So many things happened since.
I can’t decide whether the title of this memory should be “force of nature” or force of commitment” – at least it is about force, and that might be conclusion enough. Let me sum up some of the things that happened today:

03:00 pm: We have been in Ghana for nearly two weeks now, and some knowledge about the way of living here – and performing here, are slowly about to stick in our minds. We are getting more or less used to the heat (some days 40 °C), and to the different ways of handling a lot of things. But the thing I have most difficulties with, and that is still after two weeks a big problem for me, is the slowness and unorganized way of every process in this place. Right now I am sitting with a bunch of other people in Addison square garden (our meeting place for practicing, eating and getting information), and the whole situation is as usual very confusing. The only settled plan is that we are going to perform an open air concert at Cape Coast castle at 7:00 pm, and that we were supposed to meet here in Addison’s now to get further information. However, the situation is that nobody is here, and nobody has a clue about what is going to happen. Some people took a cap to town, but it is not really clear yet where they went and why. The guy, who has the key to the room where the costumes are, is not here either, and the door is locked. So it seems a bit like we just need to set our minds on Ghanaian time and wait patiently – once again.

04:00 pm: It confuses me this way of approaching a coming up event, when I know how committed the African dancers are, when they actually work. Still everyone is kind of confused, nothing happens, and the room with the costumes is still locked. People (at least we visitors) are getting a bit stressed. A bus gets packed up with all the instruments.

04:30 pm: The key is here, and we can finally get our things for tonight’s performance. We begin to look for a cap. Apparently, we are going to meet at a specific spot in town wherefrom we are going to make a big parade to the castle, hopefully to drag a lot of people and attention with us to the castle.

05:00 pm: We get a cap (normally it doesn’t take this long, but today we are more people, and apparently the rumor already spread about the performance. A little part of me suspects the taxi driver of using his knowledge about the importance of us going to the city, to raise the price a little. Not that I don’t understand the guy, but the price is remarkably much higher than normal, so some time passes with the “no, then I’m not interested, even though you clearly see that I’m desperate”- game, and we can finally go.

05:10 pm: We arrive at the center of the town. We are now a bunch of people ready to do the parade – whatever that means. We wait and see – once again.

05:25 pm: The parade begins. Apparently we are going to walk as we are and smile while African footprint guys are walking behind us drumming and playing trumpets. After just one minute the smile is not any more a thing you need to remember to do, but a thing that you can’t help and with the big banner saying: “African footprint (Ghana) in collaboration with Performers House (Denmark) – on a journey, bridging gabs”, it’s difficult not to get a little sentimental walking through the nice streets of Cape Coast.

We walk for about 15 min. and the reactions from people are very different. The kids (except for a little girl with crossed arms who is clearly not easily impressed) are very fascinated and happy about the happening, and they run besides us and in front of us the whole way singing and dancing and showing off their tricks and moves. Some of the grownups on the way look at us in wonder, but especially some of the elders – and these are the most fascinating from my point of view – seems to show a sympathy and understanding that touches me. Their smiles seem to contain more history that I can imagine and they send us peace signs with their hands and follow us with the eyes for a long time. At the same time melancholic and happy. I follow them in my thoughts while my eyes moves on not to miss anything.

05:40 pm: Arriving at the stage. It is outside the castle and everything is prepared with the blue flat with a tree and a sun behind the stage, around 5 giant old speakers piled up on top of each other in each side of the scene and all the instruments and monitors and gear that Jeppe demanded. It already looks overwhelming with the sea just behind the castle, and it gets even bigger when the whole street is closed off by long branches and chairs and hundreds of outdoor seats are put up.

06:00 pm: Everything is finally ready, and we all kind of know what to do. The confusion and frustration fall. People are crowding in the entrance to the castle which serves as backstage room. The clouds start to gather as well.

06:15 pm: The sky becomes even more threatening and we can begin to see some flashes of lightening above the sea. Jeppe is trying to warn the performers from African footprint about rain, but they refuse to listen, and go on with their sound checks. All the small question marks in people pups up again and influence the atmosphere.

06:30 pm: All our audience – the whole crowd of people waiting for us to perform leaves the place. We suppose that all these kids with no home, the old people with the peace signs, the fabric sellers and the fishermen feel the weather changing just as strongly as we do, but the Footprint performers don’t seem to care.

06:45 pm: 15 min. before the show was to begin there is a big hole in the sky and the rain starts to fall – heavily! In less than 5 min. everything is packed, and saved from the drowning. The collaboration was actually fascinating but after that: a vast number of people including children down to the age of one, standing shoulder to shoulder in the few dry places we were to find in the entrance of the castle. After about five min. we got food. (I was told in Ghana that the good thing about African food, is that it ironically enough sometimes seems to come out of the blue, and in this case I couldn’t agree more). While I was eating a dancer from African footprint came to me and put his arm around me and asked me as always how I was doing. I answered honestly that considering the chaotic situation, I was actually fine, and he answered as if he didn’t hear what I just said: “Yes… We are all very disappointed”. Looking at him, I could all of a sudden see how much he meant this and I realized how much work and how many feelings were behind this show from African footprint that they just now had to cancel, and I understood that their denial of the rain was not at all naive but came from an amazingly big passion in all of them.

From this point I lost track of time, but I know that I waited for a while right next to a little boy, and that the electricity in the whole town disappeared at one point. After some time in the dark I was told that a van was waiting for us outside the castle, so we ran out and got home to the school. After smoking a cigarette wondering about this strange experience I found my bed in the dark, and tried to sleep. I remember that my last thought was that in the dark it didn’t matter whether my eyes were closed or open.