More to come soon!!!

A couple of photos in no particular order

Make sure and click on the links along the way...

The main boulevard at the University of Ghana

Funeral of a well known professor and composer, the late Professor Willie Anku, in Gbadzeme-Avatime, Volta Region.

Fishing village along the coast to the west of Takoradi

Butre beach... will definitely be back here at some point!

The longtime headquarters of the Ghana National Symphony Orchestra, one segment of the National Theatre of Ghana. I just discovered this short but interesting article written about the orchestra during my time in Ghana. We can only hope that the government begins to appreciate what this orchestra has contributed to Ghana (and Africa, as one of the only orchestras in Africa) over the past few decades. Without more funding an organization such as this does not stand a chance in Ghana. Educational programs, run by the orchestra, key to the next generation of instrumentalists, have been cut in recent years due to lack of funds. Of course this is a tremendously complicated issue in a developing country where seemingly more pressing issues demand attention. However, to the best of my knowledge other segments of the National Theatre have not had such tremendous financial difficulties in recent years. I hope that someday soon those in power in Ghana will realize what the GNSO can contribute in their country.

Music department at the University of Ghana, Legon.

The music department at the University of Ghana, Legon, just outside of Accra.

Eating dinner on the beach in Cape Coast not too far from the slave castle. Kind of an eery sight in such a beautiful place.

View from the slave castle down the beach.

Fufu!

Check out the video below too...

This is the E.P. Trinity Parish Church, Madina, where I spent a lot of time with the Good News Choir and attended worship on most Sundays.

Mills is the current president of Ghana. I don't care who you supported in the last US election... I think we can all laugh at the bizarre ways that people perceive politics in the world. It's almost comical driving down the highway and seeing all of the local Ghanaian political billboards with the word "change." However, maybe there's something to it?? Either way, sorry for this.

Only in Ghana will you find a sign pointing towards an evangelical church right next to a sign advertising grasscutter (lower right corner), a type of cane rat often eaten for lunch or dinner. I will try just about any food, but I will say without a doubt that I will never eat grasscutter again! It does not taste like chicken.

Ghana's cheap alternative to water bottles... "purified" water in plastic bags. An interesting article on these bags and the environment.

Madina, a suburb of Accra and a major Islamic centre in Southern Ghana. This was my home base during my trip. Often times I would be woken up in the middle of the night by the call to prayer. In many instances the power was out due to a thunderstorm from the previous evening leaving the entire town in complete silence aside from the amplified singing coming from the 4 or 5 mosques nearby.

"Papa"owns a large compound where he rents dirt cheap rooms to foreigners such as myself.

Fufu Preparations

Last fufu meal in Ghana just before heading to the airport... pounded cassava, cocoyam and plantain.

farewell Ghana!

My time in Ghana is coming to an end for a second time. Frankly, it is quite an odd experience leaving here this time. I am almost positive that I will find a decent excuse to come back here over the next two years. However, that is a very long time away and life has a funny way of being tremendously unpredictable. Travel and communication with people far away has become quite simple over the past few years. Who knew that a text message could travel CHEAPLY across the Atlantic in just a couple of seconds! It will be easy to stay in contact with friends and colleagues here, but at the same time Ghana is very far away. It's a strange experience to come to know and enjoy people that I will rarely be able to see. I'll be back ASAP though!!

I have made the decision to close the door on my project and to focus my energy on saying goodbye and exiting gracefully. I feel confident about the fieldwork that I have performed here and know that something good will come out of it. The funny thing is that the work has only just begun. I don't even want to think about the dozens of hours of interviews, numerous compositions and documents that I will go over during the next few months. It will be an incredible challenge and I am looking forward to it!

Just a quick update about the past week or so. I spent most of last week/weekend in Cape Coast and even headed to a new part of Ghana that I had never visited before. After wrapping up with a composition professor in Cape Coast I decided to hop on a tro-tro and see where I ended up for the night... the best way to travel! I ended up staying along the coast near a series of villages just to the west of Takoradi. $5 to anybody who can find the village of Asemkow or Butre on a map! I spent a night in a cheap little bungalow with the ocean literally at my door step. It was paradise without trying to be paradise if you know what I mean. You know that a place is remote when the best means of transport out is to walk 2 kilometers down the beach to the next village! This is definitely somewhere that I will visit again.

I've been back in Madina since Saturday wrapping up and conducting my final interviews. Now I'm in the process of photocopying all of the art music and articles on art music located in the library in the Legon music department. Tonight I say goodbye to the man who set me up with many of my contacts here, somebody I am eternally grateful to. After that I'll spend a little time with the Good News Choir at the E.P. Madina Trinity Parish Church. I fly out at 11 pm tomorrow evening and head straight to Washington D.C. From there I'll fly to Chicago (wish I could stay!), and finally Edmonton.

Last night was incredible! As many of you know Ghana was beaten 1-0 by Germany. However, thanks to a win by Australia in Group D Ghana is going to advance to the next round. The celebrations on the street in Madina were incredible. It's fun walking around with my Ghana football jersey and seeing people's confused looks and screams as they try to figure out if I'm Ghanaian. Thank God I'm not German. The funny part is that the next game on Saturday is against the US... definitely cheering for Ghana!

I know that the next couple of weeks will be quite interesting. Getting accustomed to North American culture again has always been a real challenge no matter how long I am away. I promise to share a few of my thoughts over the next few days. AND once I am around some better internet connections I'll post some photos so that you can actually see what I have been talking about. Check back over the next few days!!! Even though I'm bummed about leaving Ghana I know that there are many incredible times to come over the next few weeks. A couple of days after I arrive back in Edmonton I head down to see a good friend in Banff. One week later I'm off to Philadelphia to attend the wedding of two more close friends. Can't wait!! Closing doors here and getting ready to open new ones at home... ciao for now.

Patrick

coconuts

Okay, one thing (besides the people) that I'm definitely going to miss- fresh coconuts on the roadside. Every day I stop by a guy with a cart full of coconuts as I pass through the Legon bus station across from the University of Ghana. He spends all day there selling coconuts for 50 pesawas, asking people whether they want a soft or a hard one. I'm now a regular at his little stand and he has learned my order over the past couple of weeks (kind of like being a regular in a coffee shop)- I like the soft ones with a lot of water/juice. A couple of machete chops later I'm in complete heaven. It's just one of those things that you can't find in North America.

Just taking a break in a busy day of interviews... 1 down 2 to go. Good times... I'm having a great time. Tomorrow a friend and I are traveling off to Winneba to meet with a composer and then I will go on to Cape Coast to wrap up with a couple of people there. So much to do over this next week and a half! It is going to be hard to leave here, but part of me is excited to be home, to be around familiar food and to sleep in my own bed. Okay, more updates over the next couple of days. I hope that everybody is well!!

Patrick

CONGRATULATIONS GHANA!!!

World Cup Time! Congratulations on the first win Ghana! Football is serious business here... noisy celebrations in the street over the past couple of hours have been pretty cool. [written as cars honk on the street with massive flags hanging out of the windows]. Keep your finger crossed for their next match against Australia next weekend!

Wrapping Up

Over the past couple of weeks I have been humbled by the characters that I spend my days with. I am an incredibly fortunate person to be working on this project. Speaking with individuals here reminds me how lucky I am to be a musician and a student in ethnomusicology, especially to have the opportunity to make a living off of these fields. To be surrounded by such deeply passionate musicians on a daily basis is a true honor that I can only hope will be represented in the final products of this research.

It’s a funny thing that I am doing, coming to a place for such a short time and working to walk away with something meaningful for people at home, but most importantly for people here. This project can never be complete. Until we have super-computers that can instantly comprehend the internal processes of the minds around us we will be dealing with incompleteness. But is looking for the “complete” picture really all that worthwhile? For me, life is more interesting, more rich, when we realize that we can never completely engage with and appreciate the entirety of the individuals and communities around us. Struggling with the messiness and realizing that people are far too complex to ever appreciate completely is a much more worthwhile way to engage with the world. I would rather spend my life getting to know a bottomless well than simply conquering the small bucket hanging above it (my attempt at constructing a “traditional Ghanaian” proverb. Haha!).

My time here is wrapping up far too fast. Just over 2 weeks. Damn. There will come a time, likely when I walk in the door of my apartment, when I will begin to understand part of what is going on here. There are certain perspectives that can only be gained once leaving the field, when you are no longer living in it. I just wish that I had a little more time before this happened. The exciting part is that I have a number of open doors available for me next time I come. Next time I will be able to join the Ghana National Symphony Orchestra, and I have some tentative plans to teach with a music institute that is just starting up in Accra. Who knows what the next few years will hold, but I love having the option to come back and become more involved with the art music scene here. I really like what is happening here with art music and have realized that I could actually play a role in the communities here in the years to come. We’ll see : )

The past couple of weeks have been tremendously busy… so many people to speak with all over Accra and Cape Coast. Just a couple of high points to share. I had one of the funniest things happen to me last weekend when I attended a live filming of a popular TV show here called “Talented Kidz” on TV3. I was there with a friend and a group of kids from one of the churches that I am attending here for their performance on the show. Think of it as Ghana’s version of “America’s Got Talent.” The show itself was really fun and I got to sit right next to the announcer, so every time she said something my obruni face was broadcast all over the country. The funny part though occurred afterwards when an interviewer with a camera was walking around getting perspectives on the show and predictions for the grand finale the following week. Of course they walked up to me, and I did my best to pretend like I knew what I was talking about, saying that I really enjoyed the show and thought that all of the kids on the show were incredibly talented… probably not the most insightful thing to say on a show called “Talented Kidz.” I assumed that the editors would immediately toss my interview aside. But the next day people at church informed me that they had just seen my interview on the 7:00 news!!! Haha! Bummer, dude.

Fieldwork has been tremendously fruitful over the past couple of weeks. I spent most of last week in Cape Coast following up on some previous meetings and getting together with some new faces. People are being incredibly helpful. Over the next couple of weeks I am going to get to know people in the National Symphony better and also spend some more time around a couple of churches. My family will be excited to know that I have been getting involved with the Presbyterian community here. The Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Ghana has a vibrant musical scene in all of its churches that I am really enjoying getting to know. And yes, Presbyterians here are just as cool as Presbyterians at home!

Ok, busy day ahead. Off to Accra for most of the day to spend some time down at the National Symphony right by the ocean. In the evening a composer is taking me to a choir rehearsal at an E.P. church where one of his pieces will be rehearsed. On tap for the rest of my time here… not quite sure yet. I definitely need to head back to Cape Coast after I get some more work done around Accra this week. This will probably be my final trip out there. After that, I am feeling the need to do a little traveling. If things wrap up around here I am considering traveling to the Northern part of the Volta Region (north of Hohoe) and possibly crossing over to Tamale right before my flight home. I have heard that this is a really beautiful part of the country and it would give me a good opportunity to do a little hiking/enjoy a more rural part of Ghana. We’ll see how time works out. If not this time, definitely next time : )

Ok, that’s all for now. Happy graduation season to all of the DePaulites. Safe travels to those hitting the road. Back again soon…

Patrick

Back on mah feet again...

Tough week. Thankfully all is back together again, my health is more or less normal, and I am seriously ready to head into the final exciting stages of this trip!

Following my run-in with what was initially diagnosed as malaria last week my symptoms continued. I was initially so exuberant that the drugs seemed to be working that I went ahead and took a trip to Cape Coast. Probably not the smartest thing that I've ever done in my life, but I have absolutely no regrets. I was able to take part in some great conversations there and hear a performance of the National Symphony Orchestra playing students' pieces from the University of Cape Coast. Traveling by myself, I was able to stop off at Cape Coast castle before meeting up with people for a rehearsal. The old slave fort sits along a beautiful rocky stretch of beach. Two years ago I had been sitting up on the castle with a friend listening to a guy sing/pray at the top of his lungs as waves crashed around him. And yes, I am pretty sure that the same guy was there, standing on top of the rocks as I sat nearby. Beautiful place.

After attending the concert and doing an interview on Friday I became concerned with a persistent nasty headache and decided to head back to Accra the next morning. Not a fun day of travels with an achy body. A friend took me to the doctor back here in Madina and he diagnosed me with an upper respiratory infection. I don't know if he diagnosed me correctly, but I have responded really well to the antibiotics. Thank God that is over!!!!!

Now on to more interviews here in Legon, Madina and Accra. Time is quickly wrapping up here and I know that the next month will be done before I know it. No time to waste!

Malaria round two??

Hey all,

Okay life is back on track now. I just came out of a couple of frustrating days dealing with a mysterious illness. There is nothing more irritating in the world than having to stay in bed in a place like this. I went to the health clinic this morning after I started to get a little concerned... won't bore you with the symptoms. Tests for malaria came out negative, but they decided to treat me for it anyway since the parasites sometimes hide in the liver. Good news- after the first dose I feel amazing! I guess I had malaria since I feel better now??? I'll probably never know for sure. Either way life is back on track. Honestly, there probably isn't a better place in the world to get sick with an illness like that. It is very common here and the doctors know exactly how to treat it. I remember going to my doctor in Chicago after having it last time, and in the end I had to explain to him that malaria is spread by mosquitos, not by human contact!! Absolutely clueless.

Things are still going quite well here. Yesterday I had an incredible meeting with Professor Nketia, definitely one of the highlights of my life as a musician! I forced myself to suck it up and ignore my symptoms for an hour and a half while I spoke with him. In the end I walked away from our conversation more excited than ever about what I am doing and with more confidence than ever that what I am doing has the potential to actually do some good and is not just me having a good time!

Tomorrow I leave for Cape Coast to attend a performance of the National Symphony Orchestra of music written by composition students. I am truly thankful that I am feeling better because this could be key to my research since instrumental art music is rarely performed here. Other interviews are still going very well. There are many open doors right now and the fun part is just beginning. Things have really picked up here as I get to know people around me better. A couple of my contacts' families have opened their doors to me in a very moving way. This means much more home-cooked food!

Okay, short and random post for now. Family and friends, I will respond to emails soon. I hope everybody is well!

Patrick

Obrunis and the next steps

Hello again!

The following was written over the course of a few days… hence the length. Enjoy!

Everything is still going really well here despite the waiting game that I am in the midst of. I am having to be very patient as I wait for more interviews to be set up. Waiting has never been my forte. I always want to get up and go and be doing something useful and productive at all times. But I think that there is an important lesson there. I am a visitor with an agenda and have to play by other peoples’ rules since they don’t necessarily share the same agenda. I need to be patiently assertive and things will get going when it is time.

It is an interesting challenge finding the commonalities between myself and certain people here, things that form the basis of my interactions and relationships with them. This is immediately complicated by the fact that here I am given a very specific identity due to my status as a North American and the color of my skin. This is something that I can never get around and something that I am reminded of dozens of times a day. I would like to draw attention to the “Obruni factor” in Ghana. Obruni (not sure about spelling) is the Twi word for white person and is often used to get my attention and for people to point out that they just saw a white person. There is absolutely no malicious intent in the use of the word and sometimes it can be quite fun, especially when you learn the word for black person, obrabini. The kids yell it at the top of their lungs when they see a white (or even Asian) person and wave wildly when they are acknowledged. Adults use it too to get my attention, often in the context of trying to sell something to me or just to say hi. It can be quite fun if dealt with in the right manner. Frankly though, it can be exhausting having this yelled at you all day long. And it’s an interesting experience watching a mother teach her daughter in her arms what my name (obruni) is.

Now, just a couple more thoughts on this. It would be a fruitless (and impossible) goal to try to blend in completely and set aside my identity as an outsider here. There are plenty of worldly travelers out there seeing the world to escape themselves and their lives in search of something better than what they know at home. Perhaps there are certain things on distant corners of the earth that are better than in one’s home country. However, I firmly believe that a person should never set their home aside. Travel should ever be used as an escape. The “obruni factor” can be exhausting even if it is hidden below the surface in an interaction with a person and is not immediately verbalized. However, it can be used to open a window into new interactions with people who initially seem distant. I think that the trick is to bring the commonalities to the surface as soon as possible. I am here to learn about music that I find interesting for the numerous ways that it is perceived by people here, for what it has done and is doing in Ghana and just simply because I like it. In this case art music is one of the commonalities. Conversations about Handel, Puccini and other composers, European or Ghanaian, allow me to make this connection despite my obruni status.

One more thing that I’d like to share. It’s funny coming back to a distant place where you have been before. Things seem normal after a while. Daily life here feels normal and does not feel as exotic as it once did. I am pretty sure that this is a good thing. Exoticism builds boundaries and quite frankly I am convinced that nothing good comes out of it. Just to hammer this point in a little more I’d like to share a little something. While here I have been fortunate enough to have lengthy conversations with friends and family in North America. What kind of world do we live in where somebody 6000 miles away can speak instantaneously with a friend or family member back home? The world is not very distant any more. I do not have service in some of the more rural areas in Ghana, but when I get back to the cities I can call somebody back home and share the experiences that I had at a funeral in the middle of nowhere Ghana just a couple of hours earlier. What a fascinating and “un-exotic” world we live in.

Thanks for letting me preach. Hopefully I can hash these ideas out a little more over the next couple posts. Now on to some more basic stuff. I just arrived back in Madina after a short trip to Cape Coast on Friday and Saturday. While there I was able to conduct a few more interviews and have already made plans to return sometime next week. My next trip involves a concert!! It is also likely that I will stop off in Winneba for an interview on my way to Cape Coast. I now have a much better idea of where my research is going and have begun to put more of a boundary around my topic.

Cape Coast is just about one of my favorite areas in Ghana. The drive along the coast is absolutely incredible… rolling hills, rocky beaches and massive trees. I did my first highway driving in Ghana and lived to talk about it! Thank God. It’s kind of interesting trying figuring out how to drive here. Apparently, constant honking and aggression are key as well as knowing exactly when to pass the semi as traffic speeds towards you! We spent a night there and I was able to speak with some really interesting people whom I will meet with again soon. The next day we attended a funeral in a small town called Abura Dunkwa not too far north of Cape Coast. The service took place in a Methodist church and included some really incredible singing and dancing. I couldn’t understand a word of the service as it was all in Fanti, but just watching people and taking part in it was tremendously moving. For some reason I really like the style of worship in many churches here. I attended the Ghana Police Church (an interdenominational Presbyterian/Methodist/Anglican church) on Sunday with the man and his family whom I am staying with (he is an old “army man” at the army base not too far from the church). Much of both of these services were very similar to home with many hymns and organ playing. However, at some points, specifically during the offering, the aisles turn into a giant dance party with drumming and electric guitar amplified over huge speakers. Pretty cool if you ask me. And no, this is not the shy and awkward back and forth swaying that so many North Americans practice during singing in worship. This is all out full contact dance till it hurts dancing. Who says that worship needs to take place with both feet on the ground. I like it. Oh, another cool moment in the village where this funeral took place. Some of the kids had never seen a white person before and so it was quite an interesting experience walking through town. One kid in particular nearly lost his lunch when he shook my hand. All joking aside, it is a very cool experience interacting with somebody who has never seen a white person.

Yesterday I began exploring a new route in my project, compositions for the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. We’ll see what happens. Frankly, I am not sure how much this will be connected with my final topic but you never know. I’m in the process of defining the boundaries and making sure that the boundaries that I set are defined by reality here, not the reality that I want to exist. On tap for the next couple of weeks besides my work here in Legon: a trip to Ho (hopefully… keep your fingers crossed) to look into drum/choral music compositions, a trip back to Cape Coast and my first attempts to learn more about the National Symphony Orchestra. It’s a hard life but somebody has to do it.

Okay, today was probably one of my best in Ghana thus far. I was introduced to Professor Kwabena Nketia and have an interview with him next week. This is the professor who is often referred to as the father of modern art music in Ghana and is quite likely the most reputable scholar on African music. Our short interaction was an incredible experience to say the least. After that I wandered over to the library on campus, curious what kinds of music might be housed there. I ended up in a small, sweaty and dusty room/closet and spent what must have been about two hours inside. I came across numerous scores of Bach, Schubert and Beethoven, but my most incredible find was a number of copies of the Grove Encyclopedia of Music from the 1930s and 40s. I’m not much for historical document worship, but it made me wonder about the history of such books that ended up in Ghana pre-Independence. They were stamped as belonging to the Library of Gold Coast University, the old name of what we know today as Ghana. I will definitely have to make my way back there again. Anyways, I trust that everybody is well.

Patrick

First week

Howdy all,

Happy Cinco De Mayo everyone! And happy birthday to my little bro… 16!!

Things are going quite well here. I feel like I am jumping into the midst of my research right now and am dealing with a lot of the difficult issues that come about during a process like this. It feels really good to finally get going though. I did my first 2 interviews today! Starting out today led me to realize how much work I have to do. There is so much to learn and quite frankly I have some huge challenges ahead of me, but I can’t wait. Too bad I can’t share the details with you. I have been set up with a number of interviews over the next two weeks, composers small and large and all over Southern Ghana. I think that I need somebody to pinch me so that I realize that this is actually happening!

I spent the end of last week and part of the weekend amidst the funeral events for a most outstanding professor of music who passed away in February. I feel truly lucky to have taken part in it. On Friday I went to a viewing and ceremony at the department of music. I never met the man but am definitely familiar with his work and a lot of his colleagues. It was quite moving being a part of the funeral. This is a very trying time for the people that surrounded him on a daily basis and for the department of music here. Following the viewing I met up with one of my key contacts here and arranged a ride out to the Volta Region for the funeral. It took place in Gbadzeme-Avatime, not too far from Ho in the Volta Region. Pretty much the second most beautiful place in the world (after Idaho duh). The funny thing is that less than two years ago I had been sitting on top of Mount Gemi less than a kilometer away from the village. At the time I had looked down at the village and thought that it sure looked like an interesting place that I wish that I could visit. And there I was on Friday night and Saturday looking up to the peak of Mt. Gemi. Life is funny.

I spent Friday evening and most of Saturday in the village and then traveled back to Accra (over what must be the bumpiest road in the world… that even Ghanaian complained about!). People from all over Ghana came to the funeral and there was even a pastor from a Ghanaian church in Chicago. It would be a hopeless task to describe the ceremonies on this blog, but I’ll just say that it was an incredible experience. Interesting music (including some of his compositions!), many life tributes from family members, students and scholars, and much preaching and praying. This was very different from the funeral that I attended in Dagbamete two years ago as no traditional drumming and dancing took place. There were a couple of brass bands in town and recorded gospel music was amplified throughout the village. Only in Ghana…

I am now staying in Madina with an elderly man who opens his doors for people like me looking for a cheap and stable place to stay. Basically it is perfect. It’s inexpensive, safe and the man is really fun to talk with. He’s always very concerned for my wellbeing and always wants to check up and make sure that everything is all right. Everybody calls him “Papa.” This is going to be a great base for me over the next couple of months as I travel about.

A friend of mine will be driving me out to Cape Coast and Winneba starting on Friday. These are two cities along the coast just West of Accra. He has some business to do there and is setting me up with 3 composers who are at universities in the area. On Saturday we will both attend another funeral of a relative of a PhD student at the university. This will be a different experience as I believe that it will be a Ga funeral (perhaps traditional?), not Ewe. Should be pretty interesting. So many funerals so little time!

It is a little strange getting used to the slower pace of things now that I am all settled down and not moving around as much. As I am quickly learning, I can’t be doing my project 24/7. This leaves a lot of hours in the day. It allows me time to get to know other people, Westerners and Ghanaians. And it gives me time to refine my questions and interviewing methods and to listen through some of my interviews and other recordings. Other than that I take the extra time to do a little reading… while in Frankfurt I picked up a copy of “Gulliver’s Travels”… thought it might be appropriate. Haha. Tomorrow I might head into Accra to see if I can track down any video-films down as a number of composers here wrote compositions for films and commercials. It looks like I might have another couple of interviews coming my way over the next couple of days. Keep your fingers crossed for me! Interesting note: As I’m writing this I can hear the evening call to prayer a few blocks away. I've always found that quite moving.

Funny English usage of the day- The following was painted in bold letters on the side of a pickup truck driving down the road today: “[Somebody’s Name]’s Land Scalping.” Haha! I wonder if they landscape as well.

Okay, dinnertime. Banku with fish and okra soup. Mmm. Check back again soon!

Patrick

P.S. Dear Edmontonians... just checked the weather. Sorry to hear about the snow! Ugh!

Made it!

Hey everybody,

I'm here! Everything went very smoothly during my travels here. Tremendously easy flights. I basically just walked through customs and was in my hotel room within an hour after stepping off the flight. Weird.

It's really funny being back to a place after having been away for two years. I end up just kind of stepping back into the pace of life here. Honestly, it feels really good. It's nice to know that I can get from point A to B without any troubles and know how to get decent cheap food. I was expecting this to be much more difficult, but here I am, just getting down to business.

I'm staying in the Asylum Down neighborhood of Accra... terrifying name for such a nice part of town. Getting back into Ghanaian food again, something I have missed over the past couple of years. Eating lots of fufu (paste of yams, cassava, plantains etc.) and banku with groundnut soup and fish. Just had a lunch of plantains with beans (called Red Red). Still working on perfecting my hand-eating skills as everybody seems to think that I'm doing it wrong, haha! I'm not sure if they're just shocked that a white person is eating fufu or if I actually have some work to do. All well. Fair enough. Makes for some funny conversations. The best part is that eating like this every day will cost me under 6 dollars a day!

I've run into a lot of people that I know from last time and it looks like this is not going to slow down. I've even started making some contacts with some of the people whom I hope to interview! This is a huge relief for me. I am confident that the "web" actually will open up. Last night I attended a "Night of Tributes and Songs" for a well-known and highly respected scholar on African music who passed away recently. Lots of brass band music, singing and spoken tributes. It was actually quite moving even though I had never met him and I got a number of additional ideas for how to go about my fieldwork. There will be many other events around his funeral over the next couple of days and I am hoping to attend a number of them. Might even end up heading out to the Volta Region this weekend.

It looks like I will end up staying with a family in Madina, near Legon, just north of Accra starting tomorrow. A number of people have been very helpful in getting me set up closer to the university where I hope to be doing a lot of my research. We'll see how this ends up working out, but I am hopeful. It also looks like I might be making the trip over to Cape Coast sometime during the middle of next week. Interviewing is about to begin and I get more and more excited as the time comes!! Time to nail down the final list of questions and make some basic interview plans (all of which will self-destruct of course... this is the nature of interviewing, but it's good to have a basic framework).

I kind of have the day off as there is not much in terms of fieldwork for me to be doing right now. Tomorrow there is a memorial service for the same scholar in Legon and I might make the early morning trek over there. Lots to figure out right now in terms of scheduling stuff and coordinating my plans around the funeral events, so I have quite a few calls to make today.

All things considered, things are going quite well. I can tell already that time is going to fly and before too long I will be headed home. No time to lose!!

Ok, off to buy a coke. I am pathetically dysfunctional without caffeine and there are definitely not any coffee shops around here (which is a good thing). That's all for now... Hope everybody is well.

Patrick

oh boy...

To be completely honest with you I'm a ball of nerves right now. Frankly I don't have any clue what is going to happen while in Ghana. It's a humbling experience getting ready to hop on a plane tomorrow without any certainty as to what I will find. I think that's a part of the deal though.

So many last minute questions. Am I really ready for fieldwork in another country by myself? What if I make a fatal error and all of my "participants" decide that they don't want to work with me? What right do I have to study Ghanaian art music? Only a handful of people actually know that I'm coming to meet with them. My hope is that from the contacts that I have a "web" of sorts will open up and I will be able to meet with many more. What if the web does not open up? What if I find myself "dead in the water" so to speak? These are some of the last minute questions running though my head, but I think that this is exactly the way that it's supposed to be. There is so much up in the air right now, but from talking with others this is just the way it goes. I know that something will happen, and something tells me that it will be good. Guess we'll find out soon enough, eh? I think that I've kind of forced myself to have these doubts just to balance HOW INCREDIBLY EXCITED I AM!!!

Amidst all of this there is some amazing news: Tomorrow is my last day in Edmonton for 9 weeks. Please don't take it personally Edmonton, but you are not my favorite place in the world. Forecast for Edmonton on Sunday: high of 47 degrees F with a mix of rain and SNOW. High in Accra, Ghana on Sunday: 92 degrees F with a chance of thunderstorms. Yep, I'll take that. : )

Patrick

One week till departure...

So, here we go one more time...

I thought that it would be a good idea to start up another blog to document my time in Ghana this summer. This is the space I will use to stay in touch with friends and loved ones while I am away over the next two months. Please contribute with comments and questions... after all this is a worthless endeavour "without a little help from your friends."

What in the #$@& am I doing? I have asked myself this question numerous times over the past few months. Well here's the basics and then we'll get into the hard stuff... after starting my MA program in ethnomusicology here at the University of Alberta I decided that I should base my thesis research upon West African art music. This general category of music peaked my interest last time I traveled to Ghana. After meeting a number of Ghanaian composers based around the University of Ghana in Legon in 2008 I was hooked.

Over the past two years I have learned about the origins of this music. West African art music came out of the Christian church as church leaders (missionaries and Africans) slowly learned that hymns in a European style didn't always work for their congregations and that indigenous music wasn't actually Satan embodied in rhythm. Composers began to integrate their "traditions" within their church compositions and wallah, West African Art Music (WAAM- I claim full responsibility for this acronym) was born. Over the past few months I have continued to look into WAAM and have become more and more interested in what this MUSIC DOES. Despite its undeniable origins in Western colonial missionary work I am intrigued about what it achieves in the context of modern West Africa for those who are involved in its composition and its performance. It is no longer always tied to the church and it has become something completely new. It is doing something today and judging from what I have learned I'm pretty sure that it is playing an important role in the lives of certain composers. All of this comes from a fundamental belief of mine: Music is important in this world of ours for what it DOES in our lives, not for how nice it sounds or how perfectly it is played. How does WAAM function in the lives of modern composers and performers? Where is it going and why?

I am intrigued by how a musical tradition that clearly originated as a Western phenomenon involving aggressive and culturally unconcerned colonial and missionary powers can be reconfigured to serve a specific purpose in the lives of those who were culturally oppressed. Now the tricky part is that nothing in this world of ours is unidirectional. Complex webs exist within issues like this and the road is never straight. There will be contradictions within those whom I speak with I want to map the complexity that surrounds this type of music, to show the ways that it has been used to assert various African (nationalistic, Pan-African and ethnic identities) as well as what is REALLY going on. As many have pointed out to me these boundaries (nations, continents and ethnicities) are often constructed. Do they really exist or do people just build up their worlds to make it seem as if they do? What is really going on here? Sure this music has been used for nationalistic purposes following the tumultuous transition from European to African power over the past century. However, what holds the communities together right now? I suspect that something else is going on here. Something makes this community (which I will probably end up redefining as I go) tick.

Now, all of this said, this blog is NOT going to be academic. And frankly I'm not allowed to share the content of my interviews or details of my interactions with people outside of my thesis. So basically, I am posing a lot of questions that won't be answered in the context of this blog. I recognize that my choice to travel to Ghana over the next two months is motivated by my personal life as much as my academic life. This is a place for me to share more of the personal side of this trip and to stay in touch with those whom I care about.

Music does something and I want to better understand how this happens. To illustrate this I want to share an experience that I had this afternoon. I was walking home from the train bummed out about how much work I have to do tonight and just generally not too happy about life. That's when I heard the bagpipe. (Cheezy I know... keep reading please and try not to laugh too hard). A lone bagpiper was playing Amazing Grace and other tunes on the steps of the Alberta legislature building. Just a random guy, no official event or kilts or anything. Just a guy in jeans walking back and forth next to the giant columns looking out over the pools and legislature grounds. I sat down for a moment along with ten other strangers around the dry fountains and listened until he decided he was done and packed up and walked away. What happened here??? Frankly it was an incredibly profound moment for me. And judging by the number of people with video and digital cameras pointed towards the man, it was profound for others too. I was reminded that music accomplishes something in our lives and that it exists beyond the books and the scores. This lone bagpiper (cliche as it is) and his music DID SOMETHING in the lives of 10 strangers today. I truly believe that music functions in the life of a community in ways that nothing else can. It fulfills a specific purpose. And I am pretty sure that what it does occurs between people, in a community, not just within an individual person. What purpose does it have? This is hard to see in such an individualistic society as our own. But I am convinced that it is still there. It is quite more evident in a place such as Ghana where music IS about the community, PERIOD (well most of the time). Music is a process of being together

I use this example to point out how amazingly excited I am for this project. This experience was a simple reminder of what I am doing and why I am excited about this summer as I try to understand what music does in the context of modern Ghanaian art music. Now, the trick is to keep my mind open, to not place constructs around what people tell me and to get into their world, to understand what is really going on, not what I want to be going on. A tremendously difficult task, but it has been done by many people (scholars and friends) before.

Now, just to keep this interesting I will share all of the little adventures along the way. Consider it a bribe for agreeing to read things like I have shared above. Yes, I will share the contents of my dinner and my latest battles with viruses, parasites, bacteria and all of the other things that North Americans deal with when traveling to Ghana. Please read and comment and ask. Until next time....

Patrick