A Musical Life

The chief is calling. Bum buda bum bum buda buda bum bum bummmmm. Monday morning – 4 a.m. The talking drums are calling all the sub-chiefs to greet my neighbour, the chief of Damongo town, at his palace. The summon goes out every Monday and Friday, at the same night-shrouded hour of the morning. The sound only half-rouses me now . . . it is only another part of the ceaseless melody – rhythm – sometimes just plain noise – that defines my life in Ghana.

The drums are followed soon after by a chorus of roosters – the first crow is spontaneous . . . the twelve proceeding ones are a competition between all the roosters within a chicken’s range of hearing. The grating sound of the neighbourhood crow-off is settled by the lyrical prayer call of the muezzins. There are a number of mosques nearby, and so their voices seem to call and respond. But it isn’t a fight, as it is with the roosters. The Arabic words and chanted prayers overlap, underscore, and intertwine – their voices gently rise and fall, making room for each other and creating unintentional harmony.

As pale blue light gradually fills my room, I can hear my family wake and begin to prepare for the day - this too is a full volume activity. “FAISA!!!”, my host mother screams. Faisa is ten years old; she has a curious nature, a hot temper, and an insatiable appetite – her nickname is “pregnant fish”. She has to rise early to walk to school across town, but has no easy time waking up. My mother is powerful in both physical form and nature – she is known in town as “the fat lady” and all her emotions are extreme. When she screams Faisa’s name from the verandah each morning, I can feel her voice fill my sleep, my ears, my lungs – it shocks me into wakefulness. But it takes a few screams before the small girl stumbles out of the house into the quickly brightening morning.

And this is only the morning. I am not even out of a horizontal position yet. But music and rhythm runs through the rivers, voices, and veins of Ghana. Music is played always at full blast, even if conversation is impossible. Greetings are thrown to friends and neighbours from more than a block away – this often leads to whole conversations about the state of children, wives, farms, homes, and health at full shouting pitch. School days and church services are defined by the songs that pepper the less important lessons and sermons. Special events like weddings and baby naming ceremonies are marked by music and dancing from dawn until dusk: everyone is invited, and those that decline are unlikely to sleep through the joyful din.

The evening hours are filled with the comforting “tok tok” of women making fufu by pounding yams in mortars - their lithe, graceful bodies perpetuating the rhythm while providing for their families. After dinner, as I lie in bed, I hear to my host-father’s interference ridden radio. Sometimes I can pick out part of the BBC News mixed with Stefie Shock on Radio Canada International - no station is ever really in tune, but it doesn’t matter. The crackle is only a background noise to the gentle conversation and undulating laughter that spills in through my mosquito net as I read silently in my room, before it falls into my dreams as the world turns quiet.