Wofford’s Presidential International Scholar

Old sounds, new voices

It was by accident that I discovered Manuel Monestel. Earlier this week, I was googling calypso music, a musical tradition brought to Costa Rica by West Indian immigrants, when I ran across the name of Manuel Monestel. He is an ethnomusicologist who has studied the foundation of Calypso music on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and the afro contribution to Costa Rican music. As I read his profile on National Geographic’s world music section, I wondered if there would be anyway for me to meet him. Another google search later, I found Mr. Monestel’s facebook account. I sent him a message and waited for a reply.

 

Not an hour later, I received a message from Mr. Monestel. He is currently a professor at University of Costa Rica and told me that he would be bringing a group of American study abroad students to the coast to hear Calypso music, and I was invited! The next day, I got on a bus and went to Cahuita, a smaller beach city which is touted to be the center of Afro-Costa Rican culture. After a 30 minute bus ride and 15 minute taxi ride, I reached the hotel where the local Calypso group was performing.

 

The group performed for thirty minutes, and their sweet sounds took me to the shores of Jamaica. We, the group of American study abroad students and I, danced the night away. After dancing, I introduced myself to Mr. Monestel, and we talked about his work with Calypso in Costa Rica. He has been a musician since he was a child and became interested in a Calypso and black culture in Costa Rica through a childhood friend. Halfway through the interview, I asked Mr. Monestel if Calypso music was ‘dead.’ Over the past 20 years, reggae has arisen as the new musical staple of the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, while calypso groups have begun to disappear. To my surprise, he responded “No, music never dies.” And I thought about his statement for the rest of the weekend.

 

For the next 10 hours of my life, I hung out with Mr. Monestel and the other students in this program. Though our conversation centered on music, other topics surfaced, like social movements, war, human rights, and identity. Although I have been researching music for the last months, only then did I realize that music is not just a chorus of words stringed together accompanied by a rhythmic beat or guitar, but a story about the past and the story of a people. Calypso music tells the history of people living on the coast, not fully accepted as Costa Rican citizens yet no longer citizens of their respective homelands. Time, somehow, has begun to hide these stories.

 

On the way back to Puerto Viejo, I listened to the CD’s Mr. Monestel had given me of his group, CantoAmerica. New and unknown rhythms of calypso and salsa filled the air; yet, I felt as if I had already heard them before.  His group had taken traditional Limonese Calypso and sung them in their own style. It was the same sounds but with new voices. Yes, calypso’s popularity had waned, but thanks to the efforts of Mr. Monestel and CantoAmerica,  it lives in a new musical rendition.

 

As predicted, Mr. Monestel was right. Music never dies but rebirths itself constantly. You may think you hear new sounds, but in reality, you hear old sounds with new voices.

 

Click here

to enjoy the sounds that have captivated me and shown me the immortality of music.

Regina

 

For more information on Costa Rican Calypso, read  Rhythm, Song, and Identity: A social cultural history of Limonese Calypso by Manuel Monestel

Congo dance of Panama

Greetings from Panama City, home of the Panama Canal and a skyline comparable to that of Miami and New York City. I have spent the last two weeks trying to avoid horrendous traffic jams and torrential rains to find the Congo dance of Panama.

My dance adventures began in the Afro-Caribbean museum in Panama. I went to the museum on my second day here to see the history of the Afro-Caribbean people in this country and on a whim that I would find someone here to help me with my research. Fortunately, my whim was correct. While at the museum, I met a lady, who besides being knowledgeable of black history in Panama was a Congo dancer herself! Later that afternoon, she happened to be giving a lecture to a group of American study abroad students from Wisconsin and invited me along. It was pure luck that I went to the museum on the day she was giving a lecture, and she introduced me to the world of Congo.

To back up a little, let me give you the history of Congo in Panama. Of the African descendants in current Panama, there are three different groups. The firs t group, Afro-Colonials, was brought to Panama as slaves during Spanish colonization. The second group Afro-francos, were brought to Panama by the French to build the first failed attempt of the Panama Canal. The last group, Afro-Antillanos or Afro-Caribbeans willfully migrated to Panama to build the Canal during US intervention in Panama. Congo, an ethnicity, language, and dance, belongs to the first group, the Afro-Colonials.

During Spanish colonization, many slaves escaped from slavery and formed their own marronage  (runaway slave) communities outside of Spanish control. Using their collective memory of their homeland Africa, they created Congo culture, a culture built around the female, not the male, and the family. They also spoke their own dialect to avoid being recaptured by the Spanish, and they made their own dance. These communities, or palanques, were scattered all over Panama and each had their own ruler, a queen and a king. After the abolishment of slavery, these groups came out of hiding and mixed with the other many ethnicities that make up of present day Panama. Although many Congo descendants do not practice every part of the culture today, they continue to dance the Congo dance during a festival in January.

The majority of the remaining Congo population continues to live in Colon, the port city on the Caribbean side of the Canal. Because of this city’s importance, I based most of my research here. On my first trip to Colon, I met with Selvia Miller, the president of the Black Ethnicity in Panama, an organization founded to save the cultural heritage of black people in Panama. She took me to a high school where I watched a high school group perform the  Congo dance just for me! I felt kind of guilty that these students were missing class just to perform for me, but I’m sure they appreciated it. After their dance, there professor talked to me about Congo culture and dance here in Panama. What stood out most to me about this group was that not everyone was not a Congo descendant but were a variety of ethnicities. Despite their different ethnicities, they all shared a love to protect a disappearing cultural heritage, which is more important than any skin color difference.

On my second visit to Colon, Selvia introduced me to the King of Congo in Colon, Ernesto Palanco. Ernesto is currently is a professor but during his spare time he is charged to keeping the traditions of Congo alive. He showed me some of the outfits Congo women and men wear and even let me try one on (first picture). While talking with him about my research, I told him that I was from South Carolina. I expected him to have never heard of it, but to my dismay, Ernesto had recently returned from a trip to Charleston for an African Diaspora conference.  We talked about the history of Charleston and the Gullah Gechee people of the coast, and again to my surprise, he told me of the similarities he observed between his culture, Congo, and that of the Gullah Geechee people.

What stands out the most to me about Panama, besides the excruciating heat and humidity similar to that of South Carolina during the summer, are the similarities that I found here.  Thanks to the slave trade, millions of Africans were brutally stripped of their homes and forced to begin new lives and survive in the Americas. In spite of this cruel history, I found communities in Nicaragua and Panama who had turned the evil of slavery into something infinitely beautiful: the pounding beat of drums and the rhythmic sway of hips. What I saw as a cultural experience was not an experience, but a fight for them—a  fight for existence and a fight to have an identity—to people not only in Central America but people  on shores close to me house, in my home state of South Carolina.

In the end, I learned the fight to live and to have an identity is not black or white but a fight for all to be human.

Regina

To learn more about the Congo dance of Panama visit http://www.arturolindsay.com/LosCongos.htm.

Disconnected yet still connected

The last two weeks have been more productive than I ever could have imagined. As I wrote in my last blog, I went to live with my new friend Kelsey in Orinico, a small coastal community on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. The city is the home of Garifuna people, people descended from African slaves who live all over the Atlantic Coast in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala. Before I boarded the panga, or boat, to go to Orinco, I had no idea of what I was getting myself into. After spending a week here, I can say that never ever I have been so physically disconnected from life and goings on in the world, yet connected to the small everyday events that make life so enjoyable and bearable.

After a two hour boat ride, we arrived in Orinco. We were greeted on the dock by Kelsey’s expectant family and the families of other people waiting to see their loved ones. I looked around expecting a city center or big buildings; instead, wood houses and concrete answered my gaze. In the place of cars, there were long sidewalks and in place of the noise  of the city, there was the lull of the lagoon. We walked to Kelsey’s house and on the way, Kelsey talked with every person who sat on their porch. After catching up with her neighbors, she introduced me. To my surprise, everyone thought that I was from this community, until I opened my mouth and spoke in my American English. (English is spoken here). Little did I know that Kelsey’s family lived on the edge of the community and that I would meet the entire Orinico on this walk. Finally, we arrived to the family house, and my life here began.

 was to live with Kelsey in her childhood home with her mother, one of the two nurses in the community,  her 19 year old sister, Arianna, and Arianna’s two children, Shandon 5, and Derrick 2 months. The house was big with four bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, and a garden in the back. There is no running water in Orinico, so Kelsey’s family owned two wells—one for drinking the other for washing—which were used by the six families surrounding our house. There was neither cell phone service nor internet in the community, and I wondered how I would spend the next seven days here. However, I would soon learn that life would provide all the entertainment I needed.

 

Each day started with the chickens that would crow literally right outside my window begging me to get up at five AM instead of the normal eight AM. An hour later, everyone else in the house would rise, preparing for the day ahead. I tried to stay in the bed until 8 but the roosters plus the activities up of the household would not allow it. After Shandon, the five year old went off to school, I sat in the house talking with my host sisters and walking around the community. Every day after Shandon came home from school, she insisted that I be her and the entire neighborhood’s play partner. A group of girls ranging in age from 4 to 6 daily filled our living room waiting to see what new games the funny talking girl would teach them. I taught them some pit pat games, while they taught me how to dance Garifuna. When my turn came to dance, I tried to sit out, citing that I was a foreigner, but they would not have it. Little hands pulled me to my feet and I began to find a new rhythm.

 

Unlike my experiences in the US where I am constantly bombarded with some form of technology, my experiences in Orinico were completely opposite. Instead of engaging with a computer, I was forced to engage in conversation and games with other humans. Daily on my walks around the community and games with the little girls, I relearned what it is means to be a member of a community, to be a listener, to be a friend, and to be a playmate. I may have not known the political happenings of the US, but this week I knew what it meant to be an stay at home mother of two, a fisher in the rainy season, and a nurse 24/7 . I may have been disconnected with the “real” world, but I was so connected with the basic, fundamental rhythms of life.

After spending a week in Orinco, I returned to Bluefields where I observed a local Garifuna dance group, called the Spirit Dancers. Most of the members were originally from Orinico but had moved to the city to go to university, yet they still wanted to preserve their cultural heritage. The dance group is made of 16 members, 8 young men and 8 young women. Usually, the men play the drums while the women dance out in front. The dance group performed vividly, and at times, I felt myself getting caught up in their performance.  I was invited to practice along with them, but I didn’t want to embarrass myself so I stayed seated. Here is a video of one of their practices.

By last Friday when I had to leave Nicaragua, I knew that a part of me would always be with this city that had touched me in such a profound way. Here, I learned how to relive again, and I gained the confidence I needed for the rest of this journey.  As I begin my research here in Panama, I only to hope to have the same rich experiences.

A taxi ride away

Everything I have learned so far, I learned in the front seat of a taxi. As a matter of fact, every person who has befriended me I met in this same taxi. No it´s not a magic taxi but a compact Hyndai that whizzes along the cramped streets of Bluefields at speeds unimaginable. This taxi is driven by Jairo, un moreno (dark skin) man from Puerto Cabeza, a city further up the coast. However, before I can tell you about my adventures with Jairo, I must first start at the beginning.

I met Jairo at the airport when I first arrived in Bluefields from Managua. He took me to my hotel and I told him to return the next morning at 10 to give me a tour of the city. The next day, I waited for Jairo but he never came. With a full day ahead of me, I decided to walk the city. As I rounded a corner, I heard a car honking and someone yelling  “amiga.” It was Jairo in his taxi, and he explained to me that he was on the way to get me. It was already 10:30 but I was soon to learn that timeliness was not one of Jairo´s crowning traits. I got in the taxi and my adventures in the taxi began.

First, we went to one side of Bluefields and Jairo showed me where the wharf and nice hotels were. Along the way, Jairo continued to pick up customers and I began to meet the Creole community in Bluefields. Soon, however, Jairo´s car started smoking and the engine lost its pur. His taxi had blown a fuse, stranding both me and him in what I thought was the middle of nowhere. Lucky for us, there was a mechanic down the street and he started to fix the car. After an hour, the car was fixed and the tour began again. On this half of the tour, Jairo took me to the university to meet the organizer of the Garifuna dancers. The Garifuna people are descendants of African slaves brought to this coast, and they are the main focus of my research here.

Although we didn´t find the organizer of the dance group, we met his wife and she gave us the location of their practice. This made my day and I was ready to go back to the hotel but Jairo insisted that we keep on going. Next we went to Jairo´s aunt´s house who cooked dinner for me. Here I met, Jairo´s cousin, Kelsey, who happens to be best friends with the Garifuna dance group organizer! After dinner, we went to see the Garifuna dancers practice. Their dances were so lively and rhythmic that I wanted to join in with them at points. Not to be the gringa (foreigner) in the room, I unhappily kept my seat. After practice, Kelsey introduced me to their instructor who invited me to their practices in the future. It was such a productive day! I couldn´t have asked for a better local connection to my research than the one Jairo gave me.

If you would have asked me before I began this journey if I thought taxi drivers could be helpful besides driving, I would have said no. However, Jairo has taught me that if you give anyone the chance to help you, they may do just that, help you.

Thanks to Jairo, this weekend I am going off to Orinoco, one of the few Garifuna  communities left in Nicaragua. with his cousin Kelsey. To get there, we must take at panga, a boat, so please keep me and my stomach in your thoughts.

 

Regina

Pictures coming soon..

When are you leaving?

If you were to ask me what people have asked me the most about my journey in the past two weeks, my answer would be “When do you leave?” When answering this question, I talked about my departure day as if it were a day far far off in the future that would come eventually but no time soon. Well, departure day has come and gone, and I am currently in Nicaragua. To tell the truth, the entire experience has been a bit surreal. Yes, I chose countries to study in and bought plane tickets to countries I have never been to before, but I never thought this day would come. Yet, here I am.

As I sit on my bed in a hostel trying to escape the ever present Nicaraguan heat, thoughts and doubts of my future journey console me. Will I enjoy traveling for 9 months? Will my research be productive? How will the journey change me? Will I look at the world in a different way when I return to Wofford? Will I be safe? While I cannot answer any of these questions right now, I know that I will find the answer to all of these questions in the journey. So, I must journey on.

Besides escaping the heat, my first days in Managua, Nicaragua have been uneventful. I arrived Sunday night and went immediately to bed. I planned to orient myself with the capital city yesterday, but unbeknownst to me, yesterday and today are a Nicaraguan National Holiday celebrating Nicaraguan independence.  Consequently, the city was mostly shut down, and I spent my day going from closed store to closed restaurant. However, the day was not entirely unproductive. I paid a taxi driver to take me on a tour of the city, and I saw the entire Managua, lo pobre, the poor, and lo rico, the rich.

Today, I am leaving for Bluefields, a city on the Atlantic Coast (Managua is on the Pacific coast). I will be doing the majority of my research here in Nicaragua on this side of the country because it has the country’s biggest West Indian and African descended population. Remember, I am studying the music and dance of African descended populations throughout my journey. From my two days in the country, people who have been to Bluefields have told me how beautiful the city and the people are. Hopefully, it will live it to the hype.

My plane leaves for Bluefields soon, so I must go. Thanks for reading and the next time you hear from me, I will be in costena state of mind.

 

Regina