The Trouble With Our Big Brains

Human beings sure are an odd bunch.  I was lying in bed last night thinking about all the strange things we do and all the crazy ideas we stir up.  I don’t think there is anyone who can express the bizarre and ridiculous nature of humanity with more insight and sarcasm than Kurt Vonnegut.  In his brilliant novel, Galapagos, he attributes all of the unnecessary problems in the world and the eventual fall of mankind to our over-sized brains. 

 

According to Vonnegut it is our big brains and all of the humming and drumming that they do that gets us into trouble.  If we were fortunate enough to have a less developed mind that narrowed the playing field of the human drama, life could be a wonderful place.  The ability to think, to rationalize, to ponder, to weigh options, to manipulate, and to tell our bodies to one thing when they want to do the other (with all there instinctive might) is nothing but a damn shame.  If only we were more basic, less imaginative, less ‘in our heads’, order could be restored and natured would be balanced.  To all of these thoughts, sometimes, I agree.  Why should one person believe one thing while the other is stuck on something else?  Why are we constantly searching to define truth in the world when all we have to do is live in it?  I mean c’mon, really, what good does it all do?  Doesn’t it just divide us; pit us against one another and for what use; to satisfy the weird curiosities of our oversized brains? 

 

I found myself engaged in a familiar conversation last night, but I have to say it is one that never gets old.  Lets just go ahead and jump right into it.  My friend Gabby said to me, “the bible is the truth, it is fact…how could all of the millions and billions of people who have and do believe in it be wrong?”  I don’t know Gabby, I just don’t know.  Matt commented, “you’ve heard of the holocaust right?  You agree that it was wrong, but all of those Nazis, the thousands or millions of them believed that killing Jews was their duty in life.  We all agree that was wrong, Nazism was not the truth.”  So then how could all of those Nazis be wrong?  Gabby says, “ I don’t like to even think about Hitler…they were all indoctrinated that is why they believed what they were doing was right and justified.”  Thank you Gabby.  I wonder, “Is Christianity or the bible or religion not a doctrine?”  Is truth simply the aggregation of the same belief over a large enough population?  If so, how many does it take before an idea becomes a fact of life?  Now we come back to the main culprit, that grey matter in our skulls always cooking up the craziest of schemes…if only we could be satisfied with food, sex, and shelter.  

Cape Coast Festival (Oguaa Fetu Afahye)

Once again they rounded all 50 or so of us EAP students up, put us on a bus, drove us to Cape Coast for the weekend. Cape Coast is a moderately sized fishing village in the Central Region once infamous for its critical role in the transatlantic slave trade, and now famous for playing host to United States President Barack Obama. We were there for the Oguaa Fetu Afahye or Cape Coast Festival; one of the most outrageous festivals in Ghana (in my opinion at least). Here's a brief background on the significance of the festival:

Harvest festival to pay homage and respect to local dieties responsible for the continued abundance of important resources (i.e. fish).

Time to give thanks for everything that happen during the last year and celebrate the beginning of the new year (September-September).

Common to witness men dressed as women, people wearing animal costumes, masks, and young people dressed as chiefs and kings- in order to show that during the festival time all normal traditions and social norms/rules are forgotten for a while and people are free to act as they please

Generally, like most public celebrations it is a time for the community to come together celebrate life and forget about the troubles of everyday existence

My personal note and a universal one at that: A time for young males to get ridiculously drunk (sauced if you will) and act like complete idiots with zero inhibitions... sound familiar to anyone?

Anyways, we arrived at the Savoy Hotel on Thursday night and walked around town for a bit eating dinner and checking out the beginning of the festivities. Celebrations wouldn't get into full swing until saturday morning. About six of us stayed in a lodge/house with three rooms and one key to the main door. Unfortunately, we had an unwanted visitor in the middle of the night who decided to take Travis's digital slr camera and about 50 Ghana cidi from Joe. It was partially our fault because the last person home failed to lock the main door. It was a pretty terrible way to start the weekend. It's too bad that a festival that is supposed to be a time to celebrate the common good of people is also a time when dishonest people take advantage of the influx of people, especially foreigners.

The religious ceremony takes place miday on Friday and culminates in the slaughtering of a bull. Once the bull is sacrificed it is dragged through the streets for everyone to witness. Once ther ritualistic part is taken care of its time to party. Saturday marks the social aspect of the festival. It starts with a overflowing procession of the various companies (neighborhoods) that make up Cape Coast and their respected Chiefs and Queen Mothers. The procession is absolutely insane, people dancing, waving flags, banging drums, and men carrying the Chiefs on top of their heads in sled-like contraptions. We watched for a few hours and then made our way past the parade to get lunch and meet up with it once again at the fair grounds, where the procession culminates in a massive Durbar. I didn't know it, but the President of Ghana John Atta Mills was present as well. I didn't stay to watch each of the Chiefs and the President give his address, but I later found out it was entirely in local language so I guess I didn't miss much.

All in all, the experience was incredibly fun, exhausting, overstimulating, and helped to bring me one step closer to understanding Ghanaian culture. It was impossible to observe and take every aspect of the festival in...it was really just too much. There is a proverb that says something along the lines of, ' foreigners are like children who have very big eyes, but cannot see.' I think that really sums up my experience at the festival and my experience in Ghana as a whole.