sharing the burden

Up again. Listening to the Lauryn Hill channel on You Tube, which reminded me of a conversation we had in Accra on Sunday night. After the closing plenary we got into two buses and headed over to a reception held at the Pan-African Writers Association; plastic chairs were set up on the lawn and under the gazebo and so we gathered there to eat, drink, discuss the conference and the next day’s trip to Elmina. Then the dj showed up and ALL the elders started to groove…even Ama Ata Aidoo was dancing! I hope my friends and I will be dancing like that when we’re seventy. It’s strange how invested we are in seeing one another succeed. When a group of us was ready to go, we headed over to the bus but couldn’t find our driver and so we stood there in the dark and somehow started talking about Lauryn. She was recently sentenced to three months in federal prison for tax evasion and we speculated on the reason why—was she too defiant in court? Was it somehow Rohan Marley’s fault? How many kids has she got—five or six? It wasn’t catty gossip; it was a genuine discussion about her well-being, a desire to see her “make it.” Of all the black women artists out there, Lauryn feels like she belongs to us. We worry about her in a way we don’t worry about the others…

I skipped a couple of panels on Saturday in order to have time to work on my talk, but in the end I ran out of time and never even got to The Hummingbird’s Tongue. I did talk about mental illness and family legacy, though, and since I was the first presenter I didn’t have to worry about the two blackouts that came toward the end of our panel (kudos to Cheryl Sterling who kept right on talking in the dark!). On Saturday the day ended with three amazing performances by Wura Ogunji (top), Rosamond S. King (right), and Gabrielle Civil (below). As Rosamond led us from the conference venue to the sea, I talked with Gina Athena Ulysse about activism and the future of OWWA. Later that night I tried to write about my ambivalence around activism—how can you change the world when you’re hoarding time to write? I wrote, “I don’t want to be a martyr.” My friends give far more than I do to the various causes concerned with the welfare of black women, and I have witnessed their triumphs along with the toll such projects can take on their own health and well-being. Gina assured me that there are lots of different ways to contribute to “the cause,” and each woman has to find the way that’s right for her. Writing a check doesn’t feel like activism but sometimes that kind of contribution keeps the wheels turning. This weekend I have to grade final exams and finish the revisions for this latest article. I’m not “in the trenches”—I stir the pot in my own way, but mostly I protect myself and my writing time. Is Toni Morrison an activist? The women I most admire died young—June Jordan, Audre Lorde—and I don’t want to share their fate. But can you achieve that level of greatness without taking risks? I’m risk-averse but maybe that’s something I need to work on. I’ve got the example of my daring friends before me so I guess it’s time to step out of the shadows…

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lag

I woke at 3:30 this morning—7:30 in Ghana, which was the time I woke each morning for the conference. We touched down at JFK just before dawn yesterday; ten hours to cross the Atlantic Ocean, half a day to fly over 5000 miles. So much about this trip has to do with contrast—between here and there, then and now. I didn’t think of our visit to Elmina Castle as a homecoming; I didn’t stand in the narrow Door of No Return and think I had somehow performed a gesture of reconciliation. I said a brief, silent prayer and tried to keep moving—there were so many rooms, so many levels to explore, so many facts to absorb. The governor’s chambers were at the very top of the castle—and it is a castle, even though that seems like a misnomer to me. There’s a moat and a drawbridge, there are cannon pointed out at sea and inland at “the natives.” And rightly so, since the local Africans helped the Dutch to overthrow the Portuguese, not that that was much of an improvement. The British took over after 250 years but regardless of the colonial ruler, enslaved Africans continued to be marched from the interior to the coast and at any given time at least a thousand people (400 women, 600 men) were held in dark, filthy, airless cells on the ground floor of the castle.  When soldiers drank too much or abused their “privileges” with the enslaved women, they were locked in a cell that had three windows and plenty of light. But when a slave rebelled, he was locked in the condemned room and left to die—no window, no air, no light. From atop the walls of the castle you could walk in the sun, enjoy the refreshing breeze, look out over the sea and almost forget about the dungeons below—forget about the interior courtyard and the governor’s balcony where he stood to survey the enslaved women in order to select his next rape victim. She was then bathed by soldiers with water from a cistern beneath the courtyard before being led up a private staircase the conveniently ended at a trap door right in front of the governor’s chambers. It was hard to stay angry—you felt disgust and rage but then your sorrow outweighed everything else. I was ready to leave Elmina before the tour even ended. Our guide Ato was excellent; I asked him how he managed his emotions and he said he used to come to work early and stand in the dungeons to cry. What did we do? We piled back onto our little bus—after buying books or crafts or fabric from the shops located throughout the castle—and went to a stunning beach resort to have lunch. As soon as we stepped off the bus at Elmina we were surrounded by young men trying to learn our names so they could make personalized bracelets or sea shells for us to purchase after the tour. Elmina’s main industry is fishing but it remains a place of commerce and trade. Tourists pay admission to enter the castle (double if you want to take photos); Ato felt tourism had dropped off since 9/11 but noted that the flight is also expensive. It’s a strange irony that the descendants of those whose ancestors were once enslaved here in West Africa now have the means (some of us) to return and “pay tribute”…

Here comes the rain. I have a library presentation this morning and final exams this afternoon so I’m glad I had yesterday to rest and reflect on my trip. The Yari Yari Ntoaso conference was great—so much talent and wisdom and possibility packed into four days! I know I won’t be able to recall everything that happened since I last blogged on Friday. One of the things about being abroad is that you have to surrender AND adapt to a different way of life. Now that I’m back in Brooklyn I’ve got uninterrupted internet service and no blackouts to contend with, so when I feel like blogging I just sit down and start typing. But in Accra I often couldn’t get online at the hotel, and instead of writing in a journal I just didn’t write at all. It may take me a while to catch up but this is a start…

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day of the dead

There’s a reading tonight hosted by the Pan-African Writers Association (PAWA) but I was simply too tired to attend; I think jet lag is finally setting in so I opted to stay at the hotel, order room service, and work on my presentation on “configuring the past and present.” I can hear a preacher screaming “Hallelujah!” outside—there must be a church nearby. I’m watching Ghana TV and a women’s show, The Standpoint, just ended—the Oprah equivalent Dr. Gifty had guests and experts on to discuss life after your husband’s death. This has been a day of death, in a way—today’s program ended with an emotional tribute to Jayne Cortez, OWWA co-founder who passed suddenly last December. I only met Jayne twice but it was clear to me that she was a formidable woman. I was surprised to find myself shedding a few tears during the tribute; I watched Ama Ata Aidoo being helped to her feet—someone holding her cane, someone else holding the mic so her hands were free to hold the bowl—and then she spoke in Fante because she knew Jayne wouldn’t want a libation prayer to be said in English. She had to pause midway to pull a kerchief from her blouse and it was very moving to see this elder weeping for her lost friend. They met in the 1970s so that’s a friendship that lasted nearly fifty years, and I couldn’t help but think to myself, “That will be us someday.” I feel so blessed to be here with my close friends—my life has been enriched and enlarged because of these incredible black women who don’t have the anxiety issues that make me too risk-averse and too content to stay at home. Would I have come to Ghana without them? Maybe, but I’m grateful that they continue to “lift me as they climb.”

I don’t think I can do justice to the four panels I attended today. The first was on getting your work out into the world, and moderator Tara Betts (right, with Camille Dungy) drew rich insights from the three panelists. Latasha Diggs (below right, with Gabrielle Civil)reminded us that it’s not *always* about the book—having one doesn’t make you legitimate, doing the WORK and getting it out there (by yourself, if necessary) is what matters most along with building community. How can you ward off competition between you and your fellow writers? Hang with musicians and other artists working in different media. Kadija George Sesay, publisher of Sable magazine, urged self-publishers to register their publications and get an ISBN/ISSN; that means your work can be catalogued, archived, and then you can be certain that you’re leaving a record behind.

During the brief break Michelle Martin and I went down to the book vendors and did a bit of shopping. No more books! I think I’ve bought ten so far, mostly for my nieces and nephew, though I got a couple of novels for myself today. It’s so wonderful to have the authors sign their books, too. I had lunch with Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro and was thrilled to get an English translation of her novel, Carapace. She and her partner Zulma also wrote out a list of Afro-Latino women writers whose work is available in English. I want to add more Latina content to my Black Women in the Americas class. I was disturbed to learn that Yolanda and Zulma were harassed and threatened in the Osu market earlier this week, but it was wonderful to learn that their homeland of Puerto Rico recently passed legislation protecting the rights of LGBT people. Maybe the jetlag is making me emotional or maybe it’s just being in the presence of so many amazing women—I feel protective of everyone! Protective and powerless at the same time. I should switch gears and go work on my talk because these are the issues I want to address: is it enough to rewrite history, to write black women back into the historical record through art and/or scholarship, or must we MAKE history ourselves? I feel like history is made by women who are bolder than me, but maybe that’s just what I want to believe…

The afternoon panel on Africa, the diaspora, and children’s literature was great. One Ghanaian panelist talked about the need to ensure that girls on the continent have access to education—whether it’s in a traditional school, via cell phone, or on the radio. Another Nigerian panelist, Akachi Ezeigbo, talked about her decision to write girls as heroines in her books for young readers, and Michelle Martin captivated the audience with her slideshow and talk on hair politics in children’s picture books. Deborah Ahenkorah doubled as panelist and moderator and had a chance to share her innovative strategies for getting books into the hands of Ghanaian kids. “If we can send a man to Mars, we can ensure that Ghanaian children have culturally relevant, quality books!” Stay tuned for an interview with Deborah in the next day or two…

The fourth panel was intense; four writers talked about their activism and the ways they channel the ancestors in order to better serve their community around issues like environmental justice and domestic violence. You can learn more about the important, community-based projects coordinated by Angelique Nixon’s nonprofit Ayiti Resurrect. Moderator (and friend!) Ira Dworkin moderated and gave us all an update on the challenges facing women writers in Egypt. You can learn more about the threats facing Mona Prince here.

Ok, time to turn in. I haven’t actually left the hotel compound yet so I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s lineup, which includes a performance by Wura-Natasha Ogunji, Rosamond S. King, and Gabrielle Civil. We start here and then finish at the seashore…

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