modern myths, urban legends, and the yinyang of night
GHANA | Thursday, 19 April 2007 | Views [754] | Comments [1]
you could spend eternity in the hollowed out entrails of a wooden unicorn, or sleep away forever in the back seat of a four by four fashioned out of mohogany. its funeral fashion, and its a ghanain obsession. death is the biggest party you'll ever have, and you best be arriving in the barrel of an AK47 larger than His magesty. or perhaps you'd prefer to be interred in a seventeen footlong coke bottle? whatever your dying wish, the craftsmen here in ghana can carve your coffin to your withering heart's desire. ghanains spend more money on their final resting places than this country's GNP can account for.
but otherwise, the curious kin here have been asking some odd questions of me lately, pulling laughter and compassion from what is left of me. a young girl today asked me: do you bathe with regular water, like black people? yes, of course! i answered. well then, what is it that you wash with that makes your skin white?
how perfect and innocent!! as though i used to be black and i scrubbed it all off with some expensive american bodywash! the next question was: is it true, that white people think africans live high up in the trees and eat eachother for breakfast? well, i answered, i certainly don't think that is true. i mean, i've never been served humans and eggs on white bread before, and there really aren't that many trees here..
and then-one question asked of a landlocked burkinabe: is it true that there are people who go out into the ocean in big ships, dumping salt in the water so that when you swim you can taste it and it tastes like salted fish? oh my, the salt was there long before the boats were..my sweet, we do not put salt in the ocean. (how does it get there? and, they want to know, how do i get such fine hair extensions sewn into my arms?)
bless such divinely innocent questions, coming from the sweetest people who have never journeyed more than 10km from their village, where the population is maybe two hundred; where there is no electricity, no literacy and the people cannot count to ten. it is so amazing. if only i could wonder such magical possibilities in this world, with the inexperienced mind of a newborn and the curiousity of a wide eyed kitten.
Tags: Culture
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