In the Cutting of a Drink

My nephew was gone a long time.

He was gone from the last of Lent to Christmas. Too long for a son who will come back. But he did come back. He came home again in time for the celebration of Christmas, but he did not bring Mansa.

My nephew went to Accra to a place called Mamprobi to find his sister. He tells us he stayed in the house of his friend Duaywaw. He took a long time to tell us this story. My brothers and my sisters and my littlest neice, we waited for him to bring her back and then we waited to hear the reason she was not there.

He told us of the dizzying cars in Accra. I do not understand these cars. Where in our country are there so many people with the money to buy cars? Our money goes to our children, to the growing of yams. But these people, they have cars to drive them to their farms. Perhaps they have no farms. I do not know. I do not know of these people.

My nephew was patient in his telling. Our family had many questions and gave him constant interruption. He allowed our questions but answered only a few. He requested a drink from me to clear his throat. It was then that I knew he was telling a sad story. Only the sad stories are difficult to tell.

My nephew found a bus to take him to Mamprobi. I worried that the driver would decieve a confused young man, but my nephew assured me he met Duayaw safely. Duayaw was asleep, in the afternoon on a Saturday. My nephew says Duayaw has gained much wealth. The Lord has blessed his family.

Duayaw in his youth went to school with Mansa. Duayaw became wealthy. My neice, she refused school after Klase Tri. She caused trouble for her mother until I found her a teacher who would educate Mansa in the ways of a woman. She came back for Christmas and showed us her skill in sewing and keeping the house. But the next Christmas she did not return. For twelve years she has not come back to her home. That is why my nephew went to find her.

Duayaw made my nephew believe Mansa has found a big man. As my nephew told the story, I believed too that perhaps she had found a big man in the city. Ei! That would be well for her. But Mansa was a good girl in her youth. If she had found fortune she would have come to her family to bring them wealth. But she has not. Because of this, even though I hoped, I knew in my heart she had not married a big man.

Duayaw knew much about Mamprobi. He knew that it was too big a city to find a young girl. But Mansa was only young when she left. She was ten when I last saw her. She would be a woman now. Duayaw discouraged my nephew. But all the same he would help.

My nephew told us that Duayaw has a woman. She is not of his tribe. They should not marry. A man should respect his tribe. Duayaw has been blessed by the Lord, but will be out of favor if he continues with this woman. She even eats with the men! I did not believe when my nephew told me this. I shouted, "Ei!" but my nephew says it is true.

It was just before my nephew told us of his night out in Mamprobi that he asked for a drink. This began the sad part of the telling. I knew it was sad because he asked for a drink.

I did not believe him when he said he went to dance in the big city. People in the city do not dance. They do not have the schooling of their elders to teach them. They do not have the cloths to dance in. Ei! But they dance all the same. My nephew tells me, so it is true.

I did not believe either that Duayaw's woman would drink beer. But my nephew says she did drink, and sitting with the men. He says there were many women in the place. The women of the city drink beer. They drink beer even with men who are not their husbands. This city is not blessed by the Lord.

My nephew danced. I am proud that he danced in the ways of his people. He even began to dance with the women there. These women, they are not married and yet they drink beer and go together to a dance with no men. They dance with any man they choose and paint their lips to look the same as their blood. My nephew tells me this is true.

He danced with one of the women. She laughed when he spoke Fante. Then he danced with another woman. She took him to a place with bright light. It was there that she screamed at him. "Any kind of work is work! You villager, you villager, who are you!" he tells us she said. This girl, she had painted her face too. But in the bright light my nephew knew her. He put his hands on her shoulders to calm her but she threw them away. A sister treating her brother so! But she did not know him. When she did recognize him, she only laughed. And she did not come home with him She is a bad woman, a woman who will take a man to a corner of a dance in the city. But it was Mansa. And she is coming home at Christmas.

My nephew asked someone to cut another drink. I asked for one too.

*This story is a retelling of In the Cutting of a Drink, the short story by Ama Ata Aidoo

Pan African Film Festival

The Pan African Film Festival seems a little known wonder, a moment of geni

us snuck away an unexpected spot in Los Angeles.  The festival takes place in the Magic Johnson theatres in Crenshaw and the attached mall.  Not only is there an incredible film festival featuring literally hundreds of shorts and feature films, but in the mall is a splendid array of African art.  From the moment you walk into the festival, it becomes clear this is no Hollywood affair.  Although the names of stars like Danny Glover and Forest Whitaker abound, the atmosphere is pleasant even to the lowly student walking in.  Instead of red carpet there are friendly people at the ticket counters and lots and lots of volunteers helping with a project they genuinely believe in.  

The first program I went to was a series of short films.   The first was an accident (the wrong film in the wrong projector) but worthy of mention just the same.  It was an exceptionally well put together documentary of  the evolution of hip hop by ex-football star Byron Hurt.  Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes is remarkable and although we were cut off from full viewing when the mistake was realized I would still highly recommend the film.

The two intended films of the program were Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl and Victims of Our Riches.  The first is a period piece, a drama set in the midst of slavery.  The plot mainly concerns a young woman, who questions the irony of being "inherited" by a five year old girl.  The young actress plays a convincing part, although the dialogue and direction don't give her any help along the way.  The director seemed more involved in the visual aspects of the film, i.e. the constant use of water and bright colors to signify the spirit of the young girl, than in directing the actors.   However, the title card in the beginning of the short tells the audience that the film is "based on a true story" (actually an adaption of Harriet Tubman's

 autobiography), which makes the delivery of the lines less important than the story line.  In reality, the story line is where this film exceeds expectations.  Without giving away the drama of the film, the young girl becomes pregnant and must make a choice concerning the evil caretaker of her "owner."  Eventually it even takes on a feminist vibe, with the other woman slave protecting the protagonist.  In the end our hero chooses her form of freedom and finds happiness.  The film is uplifting even amidst the dark theme and awful script.  I'd give it three stars.

The second film, Victims of Our Riches, is a sad, sad, sad documentary.  It covers m

any aspects of African life like agriculture and economic worries while pointedly (and subtly) remarking that Africa is richer than any country her inhabitants might be working for.  Warning: this film will make you cry.  It opens with footage from the World Social Forum in 2006, where a man addressing a large crowd affirms, "Historical Truth is the Key to Freedom."  The director (Kai Toure) creatively intersperses these quotes at key points in the film.  He uses reoccurring security images of illegal immigrants trying to cross into Morocco, followed by their subsequent beating, to segue into black and white interviews with those who have crossed the border and been sent back.  There are six of these heart-wrenching interviews, ending with a young woman culminating her interview by saying she has learned to say, "No,

 that's not right."  The film brings to light little known facts about the African economy, like that the countries together owed the World Bank a debt of $545 billion, for which, with interest, they have paid $3485 billion.  "No, that's not right" is an apt description.  But the film also addresses the frustration of these people.  Another interviewee says, "We have only eyes for the north" and so although his country of Mali produces enough cotton to clothe all it

s people they continue to buy clothes from, "the north."  Indeed, it is noticably odd that in the moments where the camera sweeps a vast landscape and comes to rest on a person, that poor impoverished farmer is wearing a shirt proclaiming, "Reebok."  The constant movement of the handheld camera echoes the stories of these immigrants, who explain their journey from Mali to Niger to Algeria to Morocco, or something of the like.  The film then details the life these people are subjected to once they come under European law, if indeed they make it at all.  The hour long film comes to an end with the reading of a poem that was begun towards the start of the short.  With the poem as a voice-over, bright images of women and children playing and learning in cluttered streets slowly gives way to a night-vision sequence with a camera man following a band of illegal immigrants as they try to cross the border.  The ensuing violence, together with the calm man's voice speaking a poem of peace, makes the end of the film a tear jerker and a half.   Five stars. 

The second program I visited consisted of a single feature film simply titled Drum.  This film is anything but simple.  It details the little known story of Henry Nxumalo (played by Taye Diggs), a South African journalist who becomes instrumental in the downfall of apartheid.

This drama is especially poignant because it is based on a true story.  The film opens in Sophiatown (pronounced Sof-eye-a-town in Digg's wonderful adopted accent) and is

 immediately recognizable for it's rich costuming and smokey lens shots.  The first scene is Henry and his other friends from Drum, the Sophiatown newspaper, sitting in a dingy bar getting drunk.  One of Henry's friends, a forward thinker who will later be violently reprimanded for his heartfelt and devastatingly illegal love affair with a white woman, speaks the first lines, "Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse."  The script (by screenwriter Jason Filardi) is full of little pieces of gold like that line that both speak to the mood of the time and foreshadow the movie itself.  Later in the movie come another gold piece, when Henry says of the violence in the streets, "I don't see anything heroic about young black men killing each other... almost like they were fighting to be someone."  

The nuts and bolts of the movie are perfectly put together.  The casting is superb. Henry's wife, Florence, is a strong female role, a difficult part played brilliantly by 

a young woman who's name is unfortunately not part of the program.  There is noticably little makeup on the women, making them more natural and simultaneously stronger (somehow less feminine).   The soundtrack, driven by hypnotic drum beats, is as essential to the movie as the dialogue.  The use of a "dirty lens," film speak for a fragment of something in the close foreground blocking a part of the intended focus, together with the dramatic use of smoke, visually shows the confusion of the time.  The only problem with this movie is the consistent use of modern phrases like, "kicked my ass" which would not have been prevalent in the 1950s.  Other than that, this film documents a sadly unknown story in an entertaining  and moving way.  Also a tear jerker at the end.  5 stars for this film as well.

Things Fall Apart

Currently I am reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. To be perfectly honest, a part of me expected it to be boring. I mean, how interesting can an assigned book be, right?

Wrong!

Turns out I love the book. And I'm not just saying that because I know my professor will read this blog. The writing style is engaging and the characters draw you in. I love it and very much recommend it.

In particular, I am drawn to a character named Chielo. Chielo is the priestess of Agbala, the Oracle of the Hills and Caves. In Umuofia (her village, or rather group of villages) the priestess lives a double life. Although at times she is the priestess, Achebe says, "In ordinary life Chielo was a widow with two children" (this is on p. 49 for anyone reading the book) . In my stereotyped misunderstanding I had believed that a woman in pre-colonial African culture could never be of much importance to the community. Yikes, that makes me sound like an awful person. What I mean is, I believed the women did incredible work but were not outwardly acclaimed for it. Surprisingly, the priestess is described as fearful and, more importantly, powerful (17). This is actually the second time power is attributed to a woman in Things Fall Apart. The first time is in reference to the old woman of their oral tradition who created the "medicine" to which Umuofia attributes its' good fortune. I love that the person highest to the god is a woman.

(African Priestess)

I also appreciate Chielo's softer side. She is described as quite friendly in ordinary life, completely unrecognizable as the priestess of Agbala (49). She has a special connection to Ezinma, the spunky daughter of the book's protagonist Okonkwo. She calls Ezinma, "my daughter" which to me reinforces her image as a motherly kind of woman within the village.

Interestingly, these two lives seem to come together at times. Towards the end of the first part of the book, Chielo comes to Okonkwo's home as the priestess of Agbala and demands to see Ezinma. Surprisingly, she refers to Ezinma here again as, "my daughter" (101). Does this mean that Ezinma is affectionately called the daughter of the village widow or of the god itself? Looks to me like she is both. Chielo has the capability both as a woman and as a priestess to recognize the power in Ezinma. I love that the women who show bold traits are given the highest honors in the village.

Here is the genius himself, Chinua Achebe