Who by Fire

I'm sitting in a taxi one November afternoon and I see this...

I ask Francis, my taxi driver, "Why is there an armed tank driving through town?"  He says:  "It is escorting the chief to the outskirts of Tamale for the Fire Festival that is happening tonight."  We manage to pass this tank and see this...

"These guys, playing music, are also escorting the chief" Francis says.  "Oh and look, there is the chief" 

"You mean he is the guy waving that horse tail out the window of that white vehicle?" I say.  "Yup!!"  And another big gun...

Nobody in Tamale seemed bothered by the fact that there were machine guns driving around town that day.  As we were driving past the cortège Francis offered to bring me to the festival so that I could see how it all happens.  

Another Tamale volunteer wrote a fantastic blog entry about this festival and its supposed origins so, instead of writing it all out again, here is the link to her blog.  Please read it as the explanation is fascinating.  

http://rains.internationalservice.org/2013/11/gunpowder-treason-and-plot-i-see-no.html

Now that you have read that, here are the photos that I managed to take during the festival. We decided to go to the central Mosque area to get the full experience.  We means Francis, Leanne and I. 

(not sure who he is or what he represents but he was a little scary.  All the young boys following him did not seem to think so though) 

(these fellows were quite funny with there dancing) 

(the crowd near the central Mosque where we were stationed to see all the action)

(getting ready to set those hay crosses on fire) 

(perfectly safe use of spray aerosol cans to get extra big flames...insert sarcasm here) 

When Leanne and I were feeling like we had seen enough, maybe even felt a little overwhelmed by the crowd, the fire and the big bazooka type thing that sounded like a canon, we walked back to the car that we had strategically parked far enough from the action in order to get out without hitting traffic.  Or so we thought...

Another group had their own parade of flames in another part of town.  You see Tamale has a couple of different chiefs since it is a big city.  There is the main one who lives in the chief's palace downtown and then there are sub chiefs, I guess you would call them, who live in other parts of town.  So here we are ready to go home and we meet up with another group blocking our way.  We parked the car once again and watched them go by until we could get through.  

(They had many more torches lit) 

And then we drove home.  

A few thoughts on the "Authentic African Experience" 

Out of all of the things I did here in Tamale, Ghana, Africa this was probably the most "authentic". By that I mean that this festival is celebrated, in this specific way, only by the Dagomba tribe that lives here in Tamale.  Other tribes in the country have other festivals that are celebrated at other times during the year.  This festival has no religious affiliations and so brings both muslims and christians out into the streets together.  

That being said, what is an "authentic African experience"?  I feel like we need to be careful about this - for many reasons.  One Africa is a HUGE continent with 54 countries plus 2 that are being disputed.  In Ghana alone, there are over 70 languages and many more tribes.  Each of the 10 regions is quite unique.  The South of the country, for example, is quite tropical and the North is very much desert like.  

We must be careful not to clump it all together.  There is more than the Masaï (who are in Kenya) or safaris with lions, elephants, monkeys and giraffes.  Lets not forget the  romantic images we see in movies of white linens and four poster beds with mosquito nets wrapped around them.  These are all part of it, yes, but along with all of it lets try to learn the names of the children who run after us yelling "saliminga hello" (white person hello).  Lets also try to embrace the fact that the continent and this country is moving fast, evolving fast. We need to also include the high life (Ghana) and afro beat (Nigeria) of the 70's as well as the azonto of today.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTUIlOudlHI

(some Azonto for you) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK6rdqr7rB8

(another extremely and I mean extremely popular song here in Ghana) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rq1A8b6JPw

(please note that the term Al qaida is used in this context as the name of the dance - not sure why they chose this word but there it is) 

We need to understand that this continent does not have a single story but many stories that are layered and complex and worth knowing more about.  After all the future of this continent, although many can't fathom how, is so intrinsically intertwined with the the future of us all.  And I don't mean that in the "white man will come in, fix the economy, feed the children and make the continent just like us" kind of way.  I mean if we don't start seeing and hearing and understanding each other more, all of us, it is not going to get any better. Even after 8 months here I feel I have only skimmed the very very surface of it all.  There is much to learn about the one we call Mother Africa.  

Ok enough philosophizing and perhaps a little too much preaching for today.   I will leave you with this BRILLIANT ted talk by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. 

http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html