The Azonto

The next morning I was brought before the chiefs of the village, usually there were seven chiefs but today one of them, the eldest, was in bed ill. They asked me what my mission was – why I was there. I told them I wanted to see what village life in Ghana was like and also that my friend Zoe had sent me here to see how the bakery was coming along. They told me I was welcome to stay. Through Sammy’s translations I was told that Zoe was considered as one of the elders in the village, and honoured with the title Mama Nyo so any friend of Zoe’s in their presence was a blessing. Work on the bakery floor was beginning today, and I insisted on helping. They also told me that I was to be presented to the entire village the next day and again I will have to explain ‘my mission’.

I went to join the workers already sweating away at the bakery site. There were twenty women there and only eight men. The men were chipping away at the ground to crack rocks, then shovelling the rocks into bowls that the women would place on their heads and walk the 30 meters to the bakery, empty the rocks onto the floor then head back to collect more.

Elaine had a bowl for me. It was a salad bowl that was a third of the size of the buckets the other women had on their heads. I looked at it disappointed. I wanted to be seen as an equal, as someone who works hard, but how could I manage that with this salad bowl on my head.

I put my bowl on the ground to be filled. One man put a scoop of rocks into it before moving onto the next bowl. “Hey it is not full!” I exclaimed. Everyone stared at me then back at him. He reluctantly put another scoop into the bowl filling it up. Everyone muttered to each other, I couldn’t understand the words but I understood the conversation ‘could she really do it?’ they wondered ‘is it too heavy for her?’

With the help of the woman beside me we lifted the salad bowl of rocks onto my head and I waddled off after the other women. Boy did I end up glad that all I had was a salad bowl! I made sure I didn’t show it but the pressure on the crown of my head and the strain on my neck was really weighing me down. I carried it to the bakery and tipped it all out on the floor. The people around me cheered and I walked back for more.

This is how the next couple of hours went. The weight of the rocks on my head got so bad that it hurt more to take the bowl off my head, somehow with the full weight it was just a dull headache but it seared with pain when the bucket was empty. Sweat was pouring down my back and dirt was raining on my head and shoulders as I staggered under the weight like a drunk person trying to find the toilet bowl. When I walked passed the women they would cheer for me or ask ‘tired?’ After a half dozen loads they started to snatch my salad bowl away from me, insisting that I sit and drink the cold water Elaine had ran off to fetch for me. I retaliated by pretending to take their 20 litre buckets and they burst into laughter. I was able to tease and laugh with them, perhaps the strain of the work had beaten my tension. By 11am they had all agreed that work was over for the day, that it was too hot to continue. Everybody retreated, back to their huts or back to the shade of the mango tree.

It was a strange mix, here in Ghana, of people having to work exceptionally hard and then not at all. Without machines and technology simple tasks were exhausting. Laying a floor meant dozens of people carrying unsafe loads on their heads in the burning heat of the day. But then a huge portion of the day, hours on end, were spent literally doing nothing: sitting, sleeping, not even conversing much. I had loved the work in the morning, but now what could I do?

Once again I sat on the step of my hut wondering how to pass the time. I wasn’t alone for long before children and teens were drawn over to me. They were asking to see my tattoos and when one caught a glimpse of my tongue piercing they all gasped “no!” and hid their faces in their hands or reached in to pull it out.

They took it upon themselves to teach me the Azonto – a popular dance in Ghana that involved a swivel on one foot with a shake of the hips and shoulders and a bent arm action that was repeated for the entirety of the song. Another dance, similar to the Azonto, was a hand washing action accompanied by the words “wash away”… I found it peculiar that a dance was created around such a menial domestic task. The way the girls, and even young children shook their hips and asses was well out of my capabilities, they laughed affectionately at my jilted attempts to dance and I am convinced Africans are born with rhythm.

I pulled out my camera. An hour later I regretted that move. For hours on end everyday for the rest of the week, the children, and sometimes the adults too, would beg ‘photo photo’ and pose or dance for the camera or video recorder. They took so much delight in seeing themselves. They shriek at the sight of themselves, grab the camera and wrestle it out of each others hands. I was on edge – worried about the fighting over my new camera and picturing it smash on the floor in a thousand pieces. But they have a different relationship to technology here, when they recklessly man-handle children and their own bodies, why would they handle this plastic box any differently? From that day on it became a ritual to spend the evenings in my room posing for the camera.

The young women here are distractingly sexy! Their dancing really magnified this. They generally have broad shoulders, muscly arms, perfect posture with their heads held high even ‘til old age. They share in common smooth, flawless chocolate skin, big arses that shake to life’s rhythm, big lips, full cheeks and deep brown eyes and the fact that the majority of them have a shaved head makes them enticingly androgenous.

Despite being hardened over the years even the older women are relaxed with a good sense of humour and seem to exist peacefully. They are not stiff like Westerners, they seem less self-conscious, they don’t try to cheat nature with make up and push-up bras, rather they age quite gracefully.

I still worry about what I am wearing, how I am smelling, what people here think of me. I get stared at constantly, but they are stares of curiosity not of judgement. People wear the same old clothes day in and day out, the women don’t pluck the whiskers from their chins, they don’t dye their grey hairs. On more than one occasion I have seen a bra-less breast slip out the bottom of a woman’s shirt and by the way people stopped and stared at the mirror in my room I can only assume that there are no other mirrors in the village – what a breath of fresh air that must be! At the end of the day you can smell them, raw and human, I love that smell. Back home I have always hated the chemical perfumes that burn my nose, women passing me on the street or beside me on a bus, their perfume always either too fruity, or too soapy or too flowery, I love the tangy smell of natural odours.

I realise I feel so awkward not because they make me feel awkward but because self-consciousness is something engrained in me even though it is out of place here.

Life is simpler. The daily routine is the same, the meals are the same , the people around them are the same with strange faces like mine a rarity. People know what is expected of them, what their daily chores are. Before leaving home this is what I dreamt of – simplicity. But now that I had it I wondered if it were possible for me to fit into its pace. For 28 years I had been submerged in noise, chaos, flashing lights, tight schedules… was it possible for me to give that all up, let all that go and just be? Would I be here long enough to find out?

in my room for the nightly photo shoot

posing for even more photos