A Djembe Drum For Christmas - Our Best Christmas in Africa
The Christmas we spent in Africa is still the most awesome imaginable; not just because it was so distinct in every inherent way from every other Christmas of our lives, but because of the soundscape of the place and time. That year, 1981, my partner & I were teaching at a catholic high school on Sherbro Island, West Africa, in a leftover British relic of an African town called Bonthe. Aka Christmas Island. That's what every person called Bonthe. Mostly because even though it was now a backwater town floating somehow between a huge river delta and a swamp; it had once been a grand British colony, where every person travelled to for the Christmas holiday party scene.
A Djembe Drum For Christmas - Our Best Christmas in Africa
A Djembe Drum For Christmas - Our Best Christmas in Africa
A Djembe Drum For Christmas - Our Best Christmas in Africa
A Djembe Drum For Christmas - Our Best Christmas in Africa
The British and all their gleened out of Africa wealth, had been gone for decades by the time we arrived, but somehow, at Christmas, a bit of the old hey day returned: the sketchy electricity stayed on a limited longer, there was authentically food to eat and the incredible miracle of ice cold drinks with ice cold ice in icy cold bottles appeared on every corner. people got all happy even though the agony of crushing poverty still beat out its' relentless bell toll of death every day. By the time Christmas arrived, we had pretty much given up on our Canadian born natural cheerfulness.
In our first 4 months there, we had seen so much unthinkable cruelty, that we come to think that any expression of happiness or joy would be just rude and mean. But when it comes to attitude, the African people were just so far ahead of any of us poomwii (Sierra Leonian name for white folk), they authentically know how to push away sorrow & just get right into celebrating right away, when happiness returns, even knowing that the next devastating loss in just nearby the corner. In Bonthe, at Christmas time, the partying, the dancing, the feasting, the drumming all got ramped right up to over the top and African laughter ringing out anywhere that wailing & crying & screaming had been just the day before. One day, I authentically did ask one of our fellow teachers, who was Sierra Leonian, how every person in Bonthe could suddenly become so happy and so fiercely jubilant in the midst of all their terrific problems.
She said " Well, in Bonthe, sometimes you just have to pretend to be happy because if you wait for it to be actual, then there will be No chance for it at all." So, that made no sense at all, to our young highly educated minds, but it struck a note somewhere in our psyche, that we would all the time remember, though decades would pass before we understood those words. It will not be anyone I could construe to you either, but someday you'll be able to see it and your gratitude will explode like a whole settlement of African drummers. The partying was fantastic, drumming, amped up dance music and libations until dawn every night.
The drums just seemed to arrive more & more each day. every person started drumming on everything. Old wooden boxes, plastic tubs, each other, the ground, the calabash wine vessels, the shells & bones & tin waste cans all became tuned up, cranked up drums. No ego elitist drummers here in Bonthe. The soundscape produced by these events were right out of reality. How can the drum music, produced on a couple of hundred bits of flotsum & trash, sound so powerful? It is just In the heart and soul and hands and feet of the spectacular African people. They just authentically know how to 'bring it' like no other people on earth. They bring it to the drumming, bring it to the dancing, bring it to the sorrow and then Bring It To The Joy. On that African island, there was no conflict between joy and sorrow.
What a gift! To be able to feel joy, right at the same occasion as sorrow, means that sorrow can not ,and does not, preclude happiness. In a world so rife with misery and devastation, this way of looking at life could truly be the only way to go through it happily with your laugh, your love and your dance intact. Give it a try this Christmas as we all face what We consider hard times. Remember: Sometimes you just have to pretend to be happy and then see what happens next. Here's to every person who still can conduct a smile to uplift their friends, house and neighbors this holiday season. Peace on earth. Good will to all. every person Drum now.
A Djembe Drum For Christmas - Our Best Christmas in Africa