Sunday, October 23, 2011

Tanzania Post 1



You would think that after the extreme wierdness of fish-stepping and singing sea-life just about anything I encounter here in Tanzania would seem decidedly mundane. But my trip has been getting all the more curious as I go along, and Christmas was no exception.

I attended midnight mass outdoors in the small hilltop village of Bujora.  There must have been six or seven hundred people there, drawn from a handfull of neighboring hamlets, and packed into a small clearing in front of a stage beside a brightly-lit church.  The opening act was the Christmas pagent, an epic two-hour affair that included all of the Greatest Hits between Creation and the Birth of Jesus.  It was like a distinctly Tanzanian broadway musical, with much celebratory drumming, dancing, singing and carrying on.

The highlight of the pagent was undoubtably Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  Throngs of bright-eyed children crowded so close to the stage that they had to be beaten back with the leafy branches of a nearby mango tree, and, after some singing and a little soft-shoe, Eve reached up into that same tree and brought down... a banana.  In a phallic coup-de-grace she peeled and fed it to Adam right there on stage, and the spectators erupted into hysterics.  Of course, with all of the hijinks the magnamity of the fall of man was lost somewhat on the crowd, something that obviously displeased the frown-faced visiting priest, who looked on sourly from the wings.  But I thought it was brilliant: if I even get to play Adam in a pagent we're definitely using a banana.

The pagent ended as expected, with a conscripted and very confused baby Jesus being presented to a seriously grooving throng of about thirty Wise Men and Women as they got their frankincense and myrrh on in front of an equally rocking crowd.  The onlookers were so filled with The Holy Spirit they promptly rushed the stage, bringing a swift conclusion to the pagent as church officials once again broke out the mango branches and flogged everyone offstage.

It was Time for Mass.

After all of the booty shaking during the pagent, midnight mass was a surprisingly conservative affair. It was administered by the local branch of the Roman Catholic Church, and had all of the trappings of Organized Religion.  White linens, incense, sombre faces, golden chalice etc...  Although one thing I hadn't seen at other R.C. churches was the twelve-girl dance team that led all processions, dressed in fine flowered garments, and who sashayed about in front of stage during each of the carols.

Also notable was the tense moment when one of the "security guards," wielding a sizeable club, rushed shouting on-stage and took off his uniform top, releaving a bright orange t-shirt.  The crowd was spellbound as a quick-thinking junior priest tackled and dragged him offstage.  After the hubub subsided the sermon continued without incindent.  I've been asking around but I still can't figure out if the man was a protesting protestant or had smply indulged in one too many glasses of the holiday nog.

Today is New Years day, and my New Year was less colorful than christmas.  I came to Mwanza City and, seeking a bit of home, went fishing with my Middlebury roommate and friend Kiddo Kiddolezi's dad, Nathaniel.  Kiddo is a native of this place and it is great to be able to come and celebrate here with his good natured father when I need a break from village life.  Kiddo sent Nathaniel a fishing rod from the states so we went down to the shores of Lake Victoria in our ballcaps and sunglasses and cast in the lure as the sun set across the bay.  All that was missing was a couple of folding chairs and cooler full of Pabst and we could've been at Anylake USA.  Except that we were fishing for Tilapia.  And it was New Year's Eve and we were wearing sandals.
Anyway, I have been working on my project here, though from my stories you wouldn't believe it.  I've set up in the small village of Igudija about an hour east of Mwanza.  I'm living in a great little mud hut, thatched roof and all, although I've upgraded from Ghana's one room to two (a kitchen.)  The hut belongs to the above mentioned Paolo, and he is a member of a local fifteen-member musical farming team.  My daily routine involves lots of music: every afternoon until dinner we practice farming songs and after dinner we generally sing some more.  A couple of times a week at dawn we go out and weed the farm plots of the different team members. 
The real attraction is turning over the fields, which they do with huge hoes, simple synchronised movements, and of course, fascinating songs.  The team moves across a field amazingly fast, creating large tie ridges of soil into which they plant corn, beans, cassava, cotton and other crops.   Unfortunately the rains, which always come at the end of November, still haven't come.  So I've only gotten to try this style of musical cultivation a few times, as the activity is tied to the rain (which loosens up the soil for the hoes and waters the young seeds and plants).
But I am doing what I can with what we've got.  We sing while weeding too, and, of course learning and translating the songs takes most of every afternoon.  So despite the drought I'm learning a lot, and saving up to write a full-on description of these amazing local musical labor practices for you as soon as I can.

I suppose this update amounts to my Happy Holiday Message- and what can I say?  Keep the holiday spirit rocking into the new year even if they tell you to settle down and start acting normal.  After all: glad tidings and general merriment throught the year?  Why not!  And hey- speaking of "why not"- now that you've heard all about my holiday exploits why not send me yours?

At the moment it's best to send mail to 596 Union Rd. Appleton, Maine 04862 because at the end of this month a carrier-stork will fly by and drop it off for me.

Or even better, haven't you always wanted an excuse to call Tanzania? There's no better reason than to tell me about the holiday rager your grandmother threw that ended up with everyone naked and covered in the christmas gravy.  Just dial:  255-74-500-1488 and I'll pick up all cheery and full of stories.  We even have reception at the hut.  And word is phone cards to Tanzania can be found online for relatively cheap.  Go on, surprise me.

Labels: , ,

Mongolia Post 2


Imagine this: you’re a Mongol herdsman out on your camel, getting ready to move your flock to a new pasture. It’s April- lambing season on the steppe- and you notice one of your ewes lying down a hundred yards from the group, next to a hummock of dried grass. Beside her rests a newborn lamb.

The ewe jumps and runs away when you approach, leaving the lamb bleating helplessly in the dust and covered in birthing goo. In most cases ewes accept newborn lambs as their own, but occasionally, as in this case, they find reason to reject the lamb, refusing to give it the care it needs to survive. This is the time to break out the khoomei (Pronounced hoo-mee), or Mongolian overtone singing, also known as throat singing.

I’m here in Chendman district of Khovd, western Mongolia, to learn the local tradition of singing orphaned livestock into a happy home. This is the wing of the modern overtone singing that does not involve flashy costumes, dance routines and techno over-dubs (as I witnessed at the khoomei festival here in late march) but what it lacks in glamour it makes up for in an improbable, practical beauty.

If you’ve never heard khoomei you might have a hard time imagining exactly how it sounds. When properly done, a throaty drone creates the bass over which the melody of a Mongol tune is, flute-like, warbled over the top. When poorly done it sounds like someone gargling the theme to Star Wars.

“Star Wars Gargle” is about the level of my own proficiency, and it has occurred to me that when I return home my newfound skill may amount to nothing more than a mediocre late-night party trick. But in fact good khoomei is much more than a nifty gag: here in Mogolia it’s a studied and respected musical form performed at festivals and in universities across the country. And it’s an important part of the work of a Mongol herdsman.

My teacher, a herder-musican named Tserendavaa (traditionally, Mongols do not keep surnames), uses khoomei whenever a newborn sheep, goat, horse, cow or camel is orphaned or rejected. This is a quiet affair, different from the pageantry of festival khoomei, aimed at calming the mother-to-be and getting her familiar with the newborn.

There are a number of steps in the whole process. The first I call “abandon and pray.” You try dropping the lamb out in the open, in rough proximity to the ewe, and walk off whistling as if you don’t care about the lamb and will not take care of it. The ewe always perks up and looks around as if to say- “could that thing really be mine?” and she goes up to sniff it. But this first approach seldom works. Generally she turns heel and runs off, leaving the lamb in the open. This calls for the next step, which I call the “forced proximity” approach.

You tie the ewe to a stone or bush, and put the lamb beside her. The hope is that over time she’ll just give in and start nursing the thing herself. Sometimes this works, other times you have to try the third approach: “khoomei and hum.”

Typically Tserendavaa kneels down beside the ewe and grabs her hind legs to keep her from running off. He begins with a series of quiet purrs, hums, coos and clicks, and he guides the lamb under the ewe in an effort to get it to take a drink of milk.

And he starts up his khoomei quietly, gently, almost like a lullaby. He will warble the melodies of his favorite tunes, or he will improvise melodies and sounds on the spot, using six different kinds of khoomei (from low chest vibrations to high, soft, nasal whistling) and intermittently inserting more hums, coos, clicks and purrs.

This is a different type of musical labor from what I experienced in Ghana and Tanzania. It feels more open, more reflective, almost like an incantation or a prayer. Part of this feeling comes from the lack of a heavy beat in the music- Tserendavaa orients his tunes more around phrases than the idea of a strict rhythmic pulse.

Another part comes from the fact that the music does not settle easily into the familiar chord progressions common to the music in Africa and the West. This khoomei seems to focus more on the tension between the drone and the whistle rather than quick chord changes and complicated melodies, emphasizing mostly the V-I cadences than come in the middle and at the end of the tunes.

Finally khoomei is connected to the landscape in a different way from other musical labor I’ve experienced. Tserendavaa hears it all the time out on the steppe, in the wind whistling through the grass, in the frozen lake which grumbles low on windy nights, and in our stomachs after too much mutton stew: “oops,” he’ll say, “tummy khoomei.”

And in the same way Tserendava hears khoomei in the landscape, I hear the landscape in the khoomei.  The treeless expanses, the dynamic lakes, and the wind through the cracks of the door to our round house are all reflected in the sound of this music. And all of these things, the phrases, the drone/whistle dynamic, and the connection with the landscape, give khoomei the feeling of a whispered recitation, as if the singer is speaking with the ewe herself.

* * *
When Tserendavaa senses that the ewe has finally calmed, he lets her go and backs up slowly, turning to walk with his hands behind his back, watching cautiously to see if the ewe accepts the lamb or just kicks it away. Sometimes it takes a few days to complete the process, repeating various tactics until something works. And sometimes nothing works and they resort to hand milking the ewes and feeding the milk to the lambs from a baby bottle.

But out of hundreds of lambs, this only happened twice so far this year. Tserendavaa is a large, gregarious, but gentle fellow, and though I have no way to prove it, I get the feeling this helps his rate of acceptance for orphaned youngsters. Sometimes when we’re out herding the animals from one corner of the steppe to another he will burst into song, tunes about the mountains and horses and beautiful women. He’ll weave khoomei into the songs as we walk along, and he insists that this is the best way to practice, out in the fresh air, walking behind the animals.

And I believe that this connection he has with his livestock, the companionable singing while herding, makes it is easier for him to khoomei those mothers into taking on new children. Watching him at work with the flock and alone with the orphans and mothers I can’t help but feel that somehow, like me, the sheep really like it.

Labels: , , ,

Mongolia


Tserendavaa's ger with a corrall for helping with livestock duties. This is were I spent most of my two months. Behind the dark clouds loom the massive (12,000 feet!) Altai mountains.
Grabbing an orphaned youngster for feeding time. This is louder than it looks- the baby is protesting loudly and the man wrestling her is laughing. In the foreground Tserendavaa prepares to sing and in the background Haar Nuur (Black Lake) looks more azur than ebony.
Tserendavaa sings Tulav Khulach (the name of this musical style) to a mother camel. The owner holds the lead and watches as an orphaned youngster drinks deep.
His work finished, Tserendavaa backs away cautiously.
Windstorm dimples (?) on a notable rock near Khovd.
Tserendavaa also made a big appearance at the big Khoomei festival in Khovd.
Also at the festival: the Khoomei Mafia out in force.Khovd Street Scene. This was minimum 8 hours or max. two days from where I was staying (depending on the driver and breakdowns.) On the world's most basic road network. Best to stay out herding the sheep.
Or collecting dung for the stove. Here we are standing at the pulsating nexus of sustainable energy research and development. Triumph!
Still life with poop.
Moving day- loading the house onto a truck. Altai mountains behind.
Tserendavaa sings khoomei tulav khulach for a horse and an orphaned filly.

Labels: , , ,