Sankofa: A Singer's Report from Ghana

From January 13 to 23, a group of 40 Haverford and Bryn Mawr students and faculty members traveled to the West African country of Ghana for a cultural exchange tour that centered on a series of performances in which the stage was shared by the Chamber Singers of Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges and Ghanaian choirs. Twenty-seven members of the Chamber Singers of Bryn Mawr and Haverford and their director, Associate Professor of Music Thomas Lloyd, were accompanied by several students and professors of the Bi-College Africana Studies Program, recipients of Mellon-Mays Fellowships, and "cultural ambassadors" Joel Kwabi, a citizen of Ghana, and Tiffany Shumate '08, whose father is Ghanaian. Here, Bryn Mawr senior Hannah Upp, a comparative-literature major, reports on her experience on the tour.

My trip to Ghana with the Bryn Mawr and Haverford Chamber Singers was replete with symbols. Everywhere we looked there was a stone etching, cloth weaving or ebony carving that compelled an explanation, but one symbol in particular had a special meaning to me. It caught my eye during our trip, but it wasn't until I came back to Bryn Mawr that I realized how this one symbol has come to represent my journey. It is called a sankofa, and it holds the meaning "return and get it." While the sankofa permits many interpretations, the main understanding of it is that mistakes can be rectified if we look to the past for solutions. Unexpectedly, this principle emerged as the salient insight I gained on the trip.

The second the plane landed in Accra, I knew that this was not going to be an ordinary choir tour. I had traveled with chamber singers in years past, venturing to Poland and Puerto Rico on very satisfying and meaningful trips, but our 10 days in Ghana astonished me, constantly challenging my expectations. Where I had fantasized a rugged terrain inhabited by wild animals, I found an industrialized city. The Africa I had imagined to be irreparably wounded by the defeats of colonialism showed me the deep-seated strength of precolonial traditions. My naïve expectations were confronted with a reality that created an edifying cognitive dissonance, and I was thankful for the opportunity to process this realization at my own pace.

One of the most meaningful elements of the trip was the dialogue we conducted throughout the voyage. We met in small groups and as a large gathering to discuss the history and the deeper implications of some of the stops of our tour. For the first time, the chorale was joined by a group of students and professors from the Bi-College community. The students included several Mellon Mays undergraduate fellows, who are chosen for their "demonstrated commitment to eradicating racial disparities in education," and majors in Africana Studies. They and the professors of history, religion and gender studies who accompanied us were invaluable resources, not only for their support and encouragement at all of our concerts, but for their help in transforming the tour into a profoundly enlightening experience.

Our travel companions enriched our understanding of what we saw with critical cultural and historical background information, and I felt privileged to be able to engage in dialogue with this intensely aware and intentional community. I feel a powerful bond to my "tour family," with whom I crossed many divides. These are the friends who comforted me at the slave dungeons, where I was overcome by horror at the cruelty and scale of the atrocities committed there; these are the friends who shared the stings of the fire ants on our feet as we walked the path trudged by the slaves to the bath houses. These friends were also at my side as we ended our marathon trip home.

After a final day spent on a Ghanaian beach, the return to winter was a violent surprise. The weather was not the only aspect of my home that had somehow become strange and inhospitable. I missed the attitudes of Ghana, where I felt that human interaction was valued as the fundamental base of life. In Ghana, I saw a strong emphasis on families and friendships, and honestly, coming back to America made me feel a little bit lonely. Americans value their "alone time," and I found myself craving the togetherness that I had felt during our tour. I thought I was coming "home," but was surprised at the longing for a new place that had grown so comfortable.

Returning to Bryn Mawr also meant that I was faced with the challenge of explaining how I spent my winter break, and I have surprised myself with my descriptions of the trip. Instead of the details that would excite a thrill-seeking traveler — the sky walks in the jungle, the dinner hosted by the area chief, the exotic foods or the bats filling the sky — I find myself describing the emotion I felt while we sang a spiritual at the banks of the river where slaves were bathed for the last time before being sent off on the Middle Passage. I recall the power of the hospitality of the family that welcomed me into their home, where I would share a small bed with three others in what turned into a very cozy night. I refer to the instant connection developed with the members of other choirs when we were able to engage through a song that we had specifically learned to sing together. As corny as it sounds, music did become the instant bridge. Even though I had never met this person singing next to me and any objective comparison of our lives would indicate a complete lack of common ground, we were able to interact and share something that needs no explanation. The smile came effortlessly when I realized how in sync we could be with our Ghanaian friends and the same smile remained as we delighted in the simple exchange of addresses. My choir folder is stuffed with small scraps of paper bearing the contact information for dozens of new friends, who were refreshingly genuine in their desire to stay in contact.

Now when I look at the sankofa symbol, its significance, its directive to "return and get it," resonates through my life. I returned from my trip with a rekindled commitment to social change as the only way to overcome the atrocities our history holds. I cannot deny that my economic standing is ultimately the result of a manipulation of humans as property, because of the historical importance of the slave trade in building the U.S. economy. We must not ignore where our past has led us. We must return and get it, and move on from there, armed with the tools to make real changes.

— Hannah Upp

<Back to Bryn Mawr Now 3/8/2007

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