The Rainy Season, Naa, the Healer, May 5th - May 16th, 2009

May 5th, 2009, Ghana Cultural Centre, Kumasi:

While doing batik.

grey tremulous line, proud layers,
emboldened blankets, upward frontier,
nebulous mighty thrusts, palatial movements, dark princes,
trampling, resurrecting, African Grey
Elephants, downward bubbling and
boiling, sky chieftains, entrancement of rulers,
overseers, arrivals of distant ships, outerspace
treasures, from foreign skies, sails bellow,
heavenly engines of hippopotomas form spirits
dancing to pounding drums, dark storms of
angels' songs fall, season of moist depth and
plunder welcoming crowns of green winds
and springs, African independence thunders fresh,
clashing tin, striking new breaths, hearts puddle
into brown, gushing rivers beating roofs and
life's belly, visits of lovers, receive,
smile, gravity sounds drop morning's darkness
animal hides smooth puff of balanced saturation
teeth immense, pavement of sound, emptying,
filling, playing, conquering, cowering,
absorbing, penetrating

Large palm leaves sweeping refuse, leaves
of golden confetti, dust and dirt, reds,
brown stones, sprinkled sounds brush my ears,
overlapping voices sweeping layers, piles,
clean textured concrete, purple dyed, batiked,
breezes dance with leaves skip the freshly
swept place. This earth space. This earth
spot, a visitation noticed, the few arrive
slowly, fallen sunlight, moist, flowering
wetness sprinkling stained streams of
Ghana yellow amongst the purple, textured
hardness, praised natures flows and follows
rhythms ancient and known and remember and
forgotten, embraced anew, prodigal and
welcomed, passing through, alive,
grey, blue, green, white, yellow, pour,
sift, let go, refrain, morning songs,
birds, communication of bark, insects, green
fingers massage air, branches carry and drop
transform to dirt, break, proud, observe, relax,
touch, notice, reflect, memory, birth, stone, carry,
part, conceive, trace, dance.

May 9th, Saturday Night:

Past midnight? After the hard rains, yelling, men shouting
and running about. Scurrying and shouts. I thought
someone had stolen something, maybe wronged someone.
The next day I asked Mr. Atta. He said, "It is our
custom when a royal person dies, on the day of the funeral,
after the royal is buried along the way, any stray goat, sheep,
or chicken can be caught and killed."

This is why Nana had the goats shut in the animal room for
a couple of days. Mr. Addo said the royal was the Queenmother's
Sister's Mother?

May 12, 2009, Tuesday, Cultural Centre, Kumasi:
Breezes, heat, a tight landscape, shortened limbs
and crutches, bent limbs, sitting on concrete with
metal bowls. A place for a soul with rivers of humans
like ghosts amongst these physical bodies, testaments.
The sitters, head covered cloth, heat infested and hand
stretched with eyes shut or looking blank or looking
upward, potential history, short contacts, clinks,
maybe bread, rice, yams, coins press the hand and
open ears, hearts beat through these currents,
saturated, emptiness, guilty filters, closed, numb,
overwhelmed filters, thoughts elsewhere, no thoughts,
walk by.

May 13th, 2009, Wednesday:
Walking to the Cultural Centre, saw the the woman who's face
is disfigured, sucking on a rag with a shawl. Gave her 20 pesewas.
She recognizes me, stands up right away and starts shaking my hands
vigorously. I ask her how's she's doing? Wo ho te sen?
She says, "Me ho ye." (I am well). I walk a little ways and
a young man comes up to me and asks, "What did you do for that
woman to start talking to you." I told him I just gave her some
money and asked her how she was.

G Circle, Hospital, Kumasi, radio tro-tro, brash,
loundness breaks the green nature, beats in space,
taking space, expelling, flout, tout, pass.
A girl selling water runs after a white tro-tro, black shirt,
one of her sachets of water falls, her last, breaks on
the pavement, splatters. She sets her silver basin down
to run faster, catches the white tro-tro to return change.
She runs back to her basin, big smile.

The barber with all the paintings of haircuts near the zoo.
We greet each other. He says, "How do you find Ghana?"
"Great", I say. Just near him a boy getting his hair shaved.
A painting of two haircuts, Step #2.

May 15th, 2009, Adugyama:

Woke up 4:30 to the call to prayer, 5 or so the music from the
neighborhood spot (bar) starts blasting. IN and out of sleep til 6:45am.
Disoriented, wake up and study a little Twi, eat bananas and ginger
cookies.

Today, I am going to the village healer and masseuse.
Rose talked me into it. My lower back is still bothering me and
they see how slowly I get up from the low benches. I've been
saying, "maybe I'll go" for the past three weeks now, but I'm
curious to see what happens. Ama says the healer will make me cry.
I joke that she'll make me lie down and use one of those 6 foot long
wooden pestles (woma)used for making fufu and start pounding it into my back.
They assure me she'll just massage my back. She also doesn't take anything
for her service saying it was handed down to her mother.

We walk to the other side of the village, Nzongo, and go into the courtyard.
There are about ten people sitting on benches. A man is sitting and applying a
cloth to another man's shoulder. We sit down and watch them for awhile.
A couple of elderly ladies, a man with crutches, and others that look
injured and tired. Rose say's that's the healer's son. Rose goes and finds
the healer named Naa. She's kind of retired but she will do this for the Obruni (white man).

She comes in . She looks strong and weathered, has a nice smile. I show
her the area of the back that bothers me. She says that she'll break
every bone in my body and put them back together again and does the
hand gestures to go along with it. She laughs, everyone laughs, and I
kind of laugh.

She leads me into a dark room with dark walls. I sit on a low bench and
take off my shirt. She starts using her strong hands to massage my back,
deep pressure, shiatsu-like with her thumbs. Her nails just barely keeping
me from saying something. She applies very hot water with a rag which feels good.
She applies shea butter and some other "Ghana medicine" made from herbs and mud, and it's over.

Then she talks to Rose and Ama. They translate that she wants to make small
cuts in my back and apply medicine. I get nervous. I'm not quite sure what they mean and they assure me that they're very small. Now, judging from my life experiences, I do consider myself a masochist in a karmic sort a way, but I
did decide to say "no" to this one. I thank her and offer to pay her but as I was told she won't accept anything. She jokes that I can take her to the States. I tell her she could find a lot of work there massaging people. She says she wants to see me later in the day.