an account of the palm tree festival in dzodze

This being a timeline of the events I experienced this weekend as a part of a drumming class field trip to a festival in the Volta Region of Ghana.

Friday, October 1st
12:30 pm  So much to do before I leave. Still need to pack and I want to get there early to get a window seat on the bus.
1:30   I arrive at the meeting place half an hour before departure. I am alone.
2:00  Departure time. Still alone.
2:21  A few people have trickled in. No sign of leadership or a bus.
3:03  I need to pee but I am afraid the bus will get here while I'm gone.
3:28  Johnson, our teacher, appears with a sign-up sheet. Things are looking good.
4:19  I pee. Still no bus.
5:42  Doo doo doo doo doo.
6:17  There she is! Not what I would traditionally label a "bus", persay. But a vehicle, nonetheless!
6:59  Try to play the Alphabet Game with fellow travelers. Too dark. No signs. Language barrier.

7:51  The road moves from pavement to potholes. Bumpity bumpity. I need to get it out of my fourth grade mind that the back of the bus is the cool place to be. Not in Ghana.
8:02  I can see stars for the first time since being here. They do wonders for my soul. Bumpity, bumpity. I'm hungry.
9:24  We've arrived, hopefully, to the place where we'll be having dinner.
9:51  Banku. My favorite.
9:52  Mouth in flames.
10:00 I think this is also where we are staying. We are pointed to a small room which 12 of us will be sharing. Yoga mats made of foam are distributed and we fumble to form some sort of orderly figuration in the dark. I scramble for a spot in the middle; safe from things that creep and crawl. 
10:11 Sweet dreams of that gymnastics gym where we used to jump into the huge pit of foam blocks.


Saturday, October 2nd
5:09 am Seriously?
5:10  Ow, my neck.
5:11 Who do these loud voices belong to and why could they possibly be awake?
7:37 I wonder where/what the toilet is.
7:41  Aha.
8:38  A walk outside and what was hidden in the dark of last night becomes clear. We are staying in a compound; a collection of huts and small stone structures that form a family's home. This is where Johnson, our teacher, grew up and where his extended family now lives. There are children busting out of every nook and cranny and it is impossible to begin to understand how the family tree fits together.

8:42 Johnson, age 71, is disappointed we won't take shots with him before breakfast. This is unlike any school trip I have ever been on.
9:02 We follow him to the street where the festivities are beginning. There are people everywhere; faces painted, making music. Everyone is lined up along the sides of the narrow dirt street. I wonder what we're waiting for.
9:23 A large procession rounds the corner. I first make out a small clan of boys painted blue. They lead the way. Behind them comes two Madeline-style lines of women decked out in traditional garb. They are beautiful. Next comes several pairs of strong young men with a platform and chair hoisted upon their shoulders, kind of like in Alladin. Atop the chair is an important man I presume to be the chief. Just over his head floats an tall ornate umbrella; shielding him from the merciless sun that has arrived, uninvited, to the party.
9:31 We are following the parade along with the rest of the village. Suddenly, the movement stops. Everyone turns to the chief with bated breath.
9:32 The chief is standing. He is STANDING UP.
9:33 UPROARIOUS APPLAUSE. Waving of handkerchiefs. Dancing. I try to understand. .
9:42 I'm starting to get into it; parading, pausing, cheering, dancing. P, P, C, D. The pattern continues until we round the corner to the durbar grounds.
9:50 A feast for the eyes. Narnia meets Alice in Wonderland meets the Gatorade Tournament at Beese. A huge open field of sand surrounded by various umbrellas with seating underneath. We are led to some nice courtside seats right by the stage.
10:20 It has to be 110 degrees. The drops of sweat speed down my arms and I am reminded of the raindrop races Jo and I used to have in the back of the car.
10:26 Johnson tells us the action will begin soon, but I am far from bored. There is plenty to look at. Hundreds and hundreds of people; old men and women for whom this must feel like old business, people with crowns and scepters that seem to have walked right out of the stories on my cherry-wood bookshelf, lots and lots of kids popping up between and under chairs and oozing out around the stage. The Ghana policemen are there; scawy, in their black military garb. There are all kinds of snacks atop heads; some delicious sort of fried bread, lots of plantains, and my personal favorite: FanIce- ice cream in a bag. The ground beneath my chair pulses to the beat of hundreds of drums, preparing us for what is to come.
11:11  The ceremony begins. Three prayers are said; one for African traditional religions, one for Islam and one for the Christians. I am struck by what an interesting alternative this is to deal with a diversely religious population.  In most environments I know, we choose to ignore it altogether. Here, we simply account for everybody.
12:22 pm The festival is in honor of the palm tree which gives us palm nuts, palm oil, red-red (a great local dish), and palm wine among other things. As the host introduces the day, a procession of maybe 10 community members dances along the perimeter of the open area; each somehow representing the palm tree. One balances a branch on his head. One carries several jugs of palm wine. One small boy is covered in leaves.
    I think it's really neat to set out a day of gratitude for one of God's natural gifts to us. For a tree. It seems so obvious when Johnson talks about. "The tree gives us so much," he explains. It reminds me of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, one of my all-time favorite books. Perhaps a dramatic reading could be incorporated into next year's festivities.
1:19 The speeches continue in Ewe, a language I unfortunately do not speak.
1:46  I can't race my sweat drops any more. They have become a steady stream covering all of my exposed and gradually reddening skin.
2:13 Every so often there are musical interludes which I greatly enjoy. Now there are a group of older women breaking it down and cooking something right in front of us while they dance.
2:15 They are running around feeding lucky audience members from the magical pot.
2:16 They choose me! Yum, tastes like the love-child of baked potatoes and lasagna.
3:37 There are women dancing right now while other women follow them and keep fires going in their hair. Yes, their hair has been woven into some kind of bowl out of which flames are springing. Wow!
3:38 All for the palm tree. There are a lot of festivals in this part of the world. I consider what our Western equivalent might be. Or at least, the Barrington equivalent. Sidewalk sales? Farmer's Market? Not quite.
5:00 We return to the compound and Johnson offers to lead us around.
5:10 I am taking off our shoes so that I can enter the shrine...?
5:12 We follow Johnson through a gate and duck our heads to enter under a small area shaded by a thatched roof. I am face to back of a saggy woman with a tattoo of bullets in an upside down V.
5:14 She turns around and is introduced as the priestess. She plucks some fruit down that grows from the roof and offers it to me.
5:15 Mmmmm, it is passion fruit: the size of a lemon with gooey seeds inside. Delicious. Strange, how often I drink passion fruit flavored Gatorade or choose passion fruit Skittles without ever knowing what a real passion fruit even looks like.
6:02 Banku for dinner. It's growing on me...?
7:38 We follow the sound of music out to the streets where part two of the festival continues.
10:01 I watch a small baby bounce on the back of his dancing mother. I see an old woman and a teenage guy in a soccer jersey dancing together in the center of the drumming circle. A group of little boys look on in front of two cool older girls in matching metallic belts. I am struck by so many different ages celebrating together. It is a Saturday night and everyone is here under this big tree.  No one is too cool. I love those all-too-rare moments during Easter at the Kasper's or at the Hoellerich's cabin where we can be with extended family or family friends and all just be together. Without making plans of where to go after or the little kids breaking off to go play while we text under the table. Those times when you know that no one in the room would rather be anywhere else.
    I do wish we had more of these common gatherings across generations; that we were better at celebrating together.

Sunday, October 3rd
4:39 am   I stare at the blue ceiling, surrounded by girls I've just met and have one of those where-am-I-and-how-did-I-get-here moments. I listen to the language being spoken quite loudly outside and I smile because even my wild imagination never pictured waking up here in 2010.
8:03 Discover about ten new mosquito bites. But they kind of form a heart shape on my thigh and I like that.
8:48  Just found out Johnson has TEN wives. That explains a lot.

9:42  The kids are way better drummers than us. They're trying to be patient.
11:09 We pull out of the town of Dzodze amidst screaming children and the ever-present drum beat suggesting a slow but steady pace for the road ahead.
12:37 pm  I didn't get a window seat but it is hard to miss the palm trees as we drive through the rural landscape; glowing, as they are, from their weekend in the spotlight. I just hope it doesn't go to their heads.