Utopia
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Bea and Kinda and I are sitting around after breakfast. Kinda taught me how to disable the ground on the Gambian electric plug to allow me to insert the two-prong adapter, so the AASUS is up and running and charging. Last night’s experience at the Banjul internet was the worst yet – couldn’t get past loading on Gmail, the AC wouldn’t work for some reason, and I couldn’t even get a phone call through to Paul or Ram to orate the blog. Amazing how quickly you can get so far away.
Bea is telling me how I have to make it clear to Papa that the project is a labor of love, that the budget is the budget, and that if there is any money made we all share it. I’ve been working with Papa ten years, so of course he knows this, I reply. It’s a utopian idea, I say, and Kinda, who’s 14, looks at me with that May I please know look and I ask him if he knows what Utopia means. It’s a country, he replies, his intelligence burning. Where is it? I toss back. Now he thinks, and tentatively replies, “I think it’s Africa.” So I launch into Sir Thomas More’s book where everybody’s good and nobody’s hungry, where there’s no war, no crime, no poverty. Bea is surprised – he made it up? “I thought we always had that word!” she says with her Brazilian lilt, then launches into a folksong about Utopia, “Quero a utopia.” Don’t we all?
Because this is a Utopian project, NDAI. Yesterday’s first-ever Gambian Kora Festival was a great example of that. It started at 10am, we got there at 11 (by get there I mean riding the back roads of Old Jeshawang or whatever townships we passed through, roads so rutted the car was tilting at 5mph, at one point through three feet of water, at another a pile of sand covered half the road so we had to pull the mirror in to get through, past storefronts “The Bosom Restaurant” and “Harlem Nigga Store #2” ((electronics) everything is adventure), things weren’t really underway, “waiting for the musicians,” but there were plenty of koras in evidence. I was given the cook’s tour, literally (Vegan Alert) – two horned sheep tied to a tree out back, that’s dinner.
So we head into Banjuil. First start is Mamadou Joof, Chief Director of the Department of Arts and Culture for the Republic of The Gambia. It’s all those “the”’s, especially the one for “the” Gambia, that adds the oomph vault from orality to High Literature. Papa and I had sent two emails to Director Joof, no reply. But here we are told to wait, he’d see us soon, so we do, and within ten minutes are ushered into a leather-chaired African office (for definition of African office watch the truly extraordinary films of Senegalese master, Osmene Sembene). Joof, broad smile, affable, tall, urges us to make ourselves at home while he attends to something, which we do by moving the furniture around completely so Bea can have a bookshelf backdrop rather than the blank wall. When Joof returns I apologize, sorry for commandeering your office into a set. “I told you to make yourself comfortable,” he replies wryly, “I’m honored that you did so.” We hadn’t expected much from the interview, hopefully to gain a way to shoot the taping of griots for Gambian National TV – the move of oral into digital. But we got a live one.
We started off with some questions to establish who and what, mainly the evolution of Department of Art and Culture from the original Department of Arts, Culture and Sports through the Department of Oral History and Antiquities – believe me, you can trace the decline of colonialism, rise of nationalism and the accompanying academic-folk culture clashes through these byzantine bureaucracies. Doesn’t exactly make for great TV, however.
But when we dug into the theories of Endangered Languages, Joof sparkled He really is a politician with a grand view, a pragmatic cultural advocate. As a native Wolof speaker in a Mandinke majority, he’s on the ground in the language wars (I’ve been hearing about creeping Wolofization of Gambia (Wolof is number one in Senegal). Basically, Joof hears the insertion of English into Mandinke or Wolof as evolution (creolization?), inevitable, but that this does not preclude the necessity for maintaining the griot traditions (jeliya in Mandinke). He rests easy with these contradictions, and is doing all he can to maintain and further the griot tradition, The delightful Museum next door has a room full of koras and other stringed instruments, balafons (xylophone-like), drums. Culture preserved. And culture maintained – he’ll see us at the Kora Festival this afternoon.
On the way out of town we stop at the arch that is the vantage point of the City. Looking over the port and the whole rather small city (Banjul is an island, pop. 50,000), Papa plays and I freestyle:
Where the big river gets bigger
Where the land yawns and says enough
Banjul, take these kora strings
Untie the words from their sounds
We stop off at Susso compound. Dchepn-jen (fish, veg, rice), which is indeed my favorite so far, is served and is delicious. Bea, Papa, Papa’s friend, and I at one bowl, ten at the other. Then our bowl goes there. Eat with hands. Learning to pack the rice, clump and pop.
Joof says that he’s not sure if the national variety TV show, “Goody Samedi,” has griots this week, but it does shoot on Wednesdays 11pm and airs on Saturdays at 11pm. He gives us the phone for Mamadou Sanyang, head of The Department of Television and Radio of the Republic of The Gambia. Again, we bumrush. And again, we’re escorted directly in, to a bigger office, and finally I understand: THE HALLS OF POWER ARE AIR-CONDITIONED.
I’d really forgotten about air-conditioning after less than a week in Africa. What a sensuous luxury! Sanyang is affably brusque, one eye glued to his watch. We’ve agreed that Papa will start this one – he slept through the meeting with Joof. He quickly turns to me, but Sanyang obviously gets it, supports the project, we should see him on Monday, I realize we have to flip the trip to Papa’s village, Sotuma-Sere, way upriver, so say we’re back on Tuesday, he’s free all day on Wednesday, I think we’ve got a verbal contract here!
Bob Holman is the host of a new travel series focused on endangered languages called ON THE ROAD WITH BOB HOLMAN on LINK TV. He traveled to West Africa, Middle East and Asia and these are his blog stories from his travels. More information at http://www.rattapallax.com/blog/on_the_road/
Bea is telling me how I have to make it clear to Papa that the project is a labor of love, that the budget is the budget, and that if there is any money made we all share it. I’ve been working with Papa ten years, so of course he knows this, I reply. It’s a utopian idea, I say, and Kinda, who’s 14, looks at me with that May I please know look and I ask him if he knows what Utopia means. It’s a country, he replies, his intelligence burning. Where is it? I toss back. Now he thinks, and tentatively replies, “I think it’s Africa.” So I launch into Sir Thomas More’s book where everybody’s good and nobody’s hungry, where there’s no war, no crime, no poverty. Bea is surprised – he made it up? “I thought we always had that word!” she says with her Brazilian lilt, then launches into a folksong about Utopia, “Quero a utopia.” Don’t we all?
Because this is a Utopian project, NDAI. Yesterday’s first-ever Gambian Kora Festival was a great example of that. It started at 10am, we got there at 11 (by get there I mean riding the back roads of Old Jeshawang or whatever townships we passed through, roads so rutted the car was tilting at 5mph, at one point through three feet of water, at another a pile of sand covered half the road so we had to pull the mirror in to get through, past storefronts “The Bosom Restaurant” and “Harlem Nigga Store #2” ((electronics) everything is adventure), things weren’t really underway, “waiting for the musicians,” but there were plenty of koras in evidence. I was given the cook’s tour, literally (Vegan Alert) – two horned sheep tied to a tree out back, that’s dinner.
So we head into Banjuil. First start is Mamadou Joof, Chief Director of the Department of Arts and Culture for the Republic of The Gambia. It’s all those “the”’s, especially the one for “the” Gambia, that adds the oomph vault from orality to High Literature. Papa and I had sent two emails to Director Joof, no reply. But here we are told to wait, he’d see us soon, so we do, and within ten minutes are ushered into a leather-chaired African office (for definition of African office watch the truly extraordinary films of Senegalese master, Osmene Sembene). Joof, broad smile, affable, tall, urges us to make ourselves at home while he attends to something, which we do by moving the furniture around completely so Bea can have a bookshelf backdrop rather than the blank wall. When Joof returns I apologize, sorry for commandeering your office into a set. “I told you to make yourself comfortable,” he replies wryly, “I’m honored that you did so.” We hadn’t expected much from the interview, hopefully to gain a way to shoot the taping of griots for Gambian National TV – the move of oral into digital. But we got a live one.
We started off with some questions to establish who and what, mainly the evolution of Department of Art and Culture from the original Department of Arts, Culture and Sports through the Department of Oral History and Antiquities – believe me, you can trace the decline of colonialism, rise of nationalism and the accompanying academic-folk culture clashes through these byzantine bureaucracies. Doesn’t exactly make for great TV, however.
But when we dug into the theories of Endangered Languages, Joof sparkled He really is a politician with a grand view, a pragmatic cultural advocate. As a native Wolof speaker in a Mandinke majority, he’s on the ground in the language wars (I’ve been hearing about creeping Wolofization of Gambia (Wolof is number one in Senegal). Basically, Joof hears the insertion of English into Mandinke or Wolof as evolution (creolization?), inevitable, but that this does not preclude the necessity for maintaining the griot traditions (jeliya in Mandinke). He rests easy with these contradictions, and is doing all he can to maintain and further the griot tradition, The delightful Museum next door has a room full of koras and other stringed instruments, balafons (xylophone-like), drums. Culture preserved. And culture maintained – he’ll see us at the Kora Festival this afternoon.
On the way out of town we stop at the arch that is the vantage point of the City. Looking over the port and the whole rather small city (Banjul is an island, pop. 50,000), Papa plays and I freestyle:
Where the big river gets bigger
Where the land yawns and says enough
Banjul, take these kora strings
Untie the words from their sounds
We stop off at Susso compound. Dchepn-jen (fish, veg, rice), which is indeed my favorite so far, is served and is delicious. Bea, Papa, Papa’s friend, and I at one bowl, ten at the other. Then our bowl goes there. Eat with hands. Learning to pack the rice, clump and pop.
Joof says that he’s not sure if the national variety TV show, “Goody Samedi,” has griots this week, but it does shoot on Wednesdays 11pm and airs on Saturdays at 11pm. He gives us the phone for Mamadou Sanyang, head of The Department of Television and Radio of the Republic of The Gambia. Again, we bumrush. And again, we’re escorted directly in, to a bigger office, and finally I understand: THE HALLS OF POWER ARE AIR-CONDITIONED.
I’d really forgotten about air-conditioning after less than a week in Africa. What a sensuous luxury! Sanyang is affably brusque, one eye glued to his watch. We’ve agreed that Papa will start this one – he slept through the meeting with Joof. He quickly turns to me, but Sanyang obviously gets it, supports the project, we should see him on Monday, I realize we have to flip the trip to Papa’s village, Sotuma-Sere, way upriver, so say we’re back on Tuesday, he’s free all day on Wednesday, I think we’ve got a verbal contract here!
Bob Holman is the host of a new travel series focused on endangered languages called ON THE ROAD WITH BOB HOLMAN on LINK TV. He traveled to West Africa, Middle East and Asia and these are his blog stories from his travels. More information at http://www.rattapallax.com/blog/on_the_road/
