Culture conundrum (2)
One big plus for Ghana lies in the abundance and richness of our cultural offerings.
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From our coastlines through the forest zones to the savannah regions, there is a vast variety in diet, dress, language, etc. To the visitor, this certainly cannot be boring.
Another interesting reality is that whether it is formal or informal, the atmosphere of a typical Ghanaian occasion is usually charged with colour. Trust me, elsewhere, and even within Africa, it is not everywhere that you see such a variety of colours, vibrancy and energy.
Small though this nation is, the different languages, traditions and lifestyles make it interesting for the visitor. This diversity allows us to adapt and merge styles and forms to create new expressions.
Our open-mindedness and intermarriages also foster this. The rich cultural diversity also creates room for creative energy to be released. That’s how you'd hear someone say in Akan, ‘fama me la!’ To wit, ‘give it to me!’ The ‘la’ is an interjection of emphasis in the Ewe language.
It is this same readiness to accommodate innovation that allows a celebrant to dance kpanlogo to an agbadza rhythm. It all sounds nice and rosy up till this point, right? But if you ask me, we could achieve far better as a nation than we are doing. And I shall get there in a minute.
In several respects, Ghana’s cultural traditions can be exploited for development. One can mention traditional games and some performance forms.
Museums provide the enabling environment and care for the collection of artefacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural or historical importance. Each regional capital in Ghana has one.
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A visit, especially a guided tour, offers a good sense of the local culture. Private art galleries and art shops across the country also showcase our ways of life.
Our rites of passage ceremonies, such as outdoorings, marriages and funerals turn out to be a good gauge of Ghanaian culture and traditions. Festivals bring to light the cultural essence of society. To many people, the aspect of the festival that they are familiar with is the durbar celebration which usually climaxes the event.
However, behind every Ghanaian festival is a series of rituals and consultations. These engagements reinforce tradition, serve people’s aspirations and cement relationships.
But there are threats, oh yes there are. Negative external influences are always in the wings to adulterate. Globalisation and technology are among the culprits. There is no “pure culture”.
But when you watch a Ghanaian movie set in Ghana but the customer is Nigerian, you can understand my drift. Managing these cultural weaknesses is a collective responsibility of a responsive cultural administration.
How come in this country, foreign donors, embassies and institutions are the ones putting in resources to develop our culture? I have been involved in cultural training as a resource person.
These workshops are hardly funded by our own government. Such training programmes are paid for by the EU, Danida, Goethe or the World Bank! For lack of space, the other cultural weakness I would mention is poor service in our hospitality sector.
In Ghana, it seems the average attitude of the hotel, restaurant, waiter or manager is ‘You should be grateful that we have managed to provide this for you.’ This doesn’t fly in tourism.
Last Friday, I was doing some rounds at Osu and decided to eat lunch at a popular local eatery (I actually had fish light soup and fufu in mind). I drove to the restaurant at about 3:30 p.m.
I entered and decided to free my bladder before settling in my seat to order food. As I approached the restaurant’s washroom, I noticed three men standing in front of the doors. In a minute, I knew why. All the washrooms had been closed with padlocks. I counted about five.
The only one available was one with ‘Ladies’ written on it. So I joined the other guys to wait. The occupant was a well-built middle-aged woman with a Nigerian accent. I heard her because having used the toilet, she was looking for water and soap to wash her hands.
At this point, we all got upset. So not only has the restaurant closed all but one washroom, there was not even water to wash with! Someone said the tap was not flowing. But is that new in Ghana?
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Couldn’t a restaurant that popular afford a polytank to enable it to open up all its washrooms to customers? The woman started screaming and at this point, I took out my phone and called up a Quality Assurance Officer at the Ghana Tourism Authority.
All of a sudden, a young lady, a woman and a man who are all staff of the restaurant, appeared with two buckets of water. Actually, the girl ran back quickly to get soap from the dining tables, I presume. Ghanaian culture has the potential to take us places. But if our culture would hurt our tourism, what happened at Osu last Friday is a distasteful example.