race/culture/identity

Songs for the Road No. 16: Highlife Brings Me Home

by Ekua on March 6, 2012 · 6 comments in Ghana,race/culture/identity,songs for the road

When you’re the daughter of immigrants and when you move around a lot as a kid, the idea of “home” can be an elusive thing. It’s not necessarily a stationary location. Home is where you create it or maybe a state of mind. But still, your deepest roots can remain in one place.

I remember when I was 17, visiting Ghana for the first time in a decade and a half; the first time I was old enough to almost grasp the magnitude of it. I remember how foreign it felt at times, and yet there was this underlying beautiful feeling that I was home.

We’d get caught up in markets and streets that were crowded beyond belief. We’d leave the city for a dense tropical landscape I had yet to see before visiting Ghana. The heftiest rain I’d ever experienced would pelt us for an hour before the clouds made way for brilliant sunshine. Rules seemed to be at the discretion of whoever happened to be enforcing them at the moment. Cars made their own lanes and pedestrians walked everywhere but on the crosswalk. The little old women in the village sung and danced around us and all claimed to be an aunt or grandma though few were actually related to us.

How far it was from the places I’d grown up in and how much the culture toyed with my comfort zone. Yet how much it feels like I am created of that place and in some indiscernible way, it will always be home.

Highlife music is my Ghana away from Ghana. The syncopated and improvised drum beats take me to the hectic streets; chaotic but rhythmic. The steady melody of the guitars and familiar chord progressions surround me with thick tropical air and sea breezes and vivid textiles. The lyrics lead me back to a past of struggle and continued struggle that always intermingles with an ability to look on the bright side and celebrate. Highlife’s musical influences from beyond Ghana like calypso, Cuban son, and jazz speak of leaving the continent, being altered, and eventually returning to create something unique. Highlife music takes me through my history and never fails to bring me home.

I was inspired to write this post because today is an important day in Ghana. 55 years ago, on March 6, 1957, Ghana became the first Sub-Saharan African country to gain independence. This song, “Ghana Freedom” by E.T. Mensah, was created especially for that day.

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Photo Essay: East Berlin’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams

by Ekua on March 3, 2012 · 3 comments in captured on memory card,Germany,race/culture/identity

When I was in Oaxaca, I watched the film, The Lives of Others of others with a fellow hosteler. It’s set in Soviet East Berlin in 1984 and it revolves around the life of a writer who is being spied on by the Stasi (East German secret police) and the transformation of the agent who is spying on him.

It was immediately clear that the film’s cinematographer was aiming to recreate the dark atmosphere of the time. What I also noticed was that unlike other well known European cities that I’ve seen countless images of, I had very few images of Berlin in my mind prior to watching the film. The most prominent scenes that came to mind were outdated ones of 1989 on the night the wall fell.

A couple days into my time in Berlin, the weather eased up and I decided to take a recommended walk along Karl-Marx-Allee. It seemed that if there was iconic scenery in the city beyond places like the Brandenburg Gate and the Space Needle-esque TV tower, this could be it. It’s located in the neighborhoods of Friedrichshain and Mitte and it was built as “Stalinallee” after World War II to be a grand socialist boulevard; a wide street lined with luxurious apartments, shops, and restaurants.

So I took a stroll along the allee, and unfortunately, I failed to see the grandeur in it. Its buildings were way too pragmatic and humorless for my tastes. The streets were uneasily empty. The starkness combined with the oversized boxiness created an aura as somber and smothering as in The Lives of Others, even though it was the first time I was seeing the sun in Berlin. But this is how I found Berlin to be — sometimes gloomy regardless of the weather and always fascinating.

Like Mexico City, Berlin was built on unstable swampy ground. Because of this, you’ll sometimes see pipes running above ground that look like a wacky public art exhibit.

This was once a bookstore. If you have seen The Lives of Others, you may recognize this from the closing scene.

This street has had a few name changes in it’s lifetime. Originally, it was called Grosse Frankfurter Strasse. When the new design rose from the rubble of World War II, it was renamed Stalinallee from 1949-1961. After Stalinism fell out of favor with the Soviets, it was renamed Karl-Marx-Allee. Today, some feel that it should return to its original name.

They were trying to achieve a “wedding cake” architectural style on the boulevard, so many of the buildings are tiered like this.

The Schwebender Ring (Floating Ring) Fountain.

The residences on this boulevard were supposed to be luxury apartments for the people, but except for a few lucky members of the working class, they were mostly for the well-to-do. In June of 1953, the construction workers who were building this street went on strike against increased work quotas without compensation. Their strike sparked an anti-government working class uprising throughout Berlin and other major cities of East Germany. The government used violence to end it and an unknown number of protesters died in clashes with the military on this street.

A small garden brought some life to the eastern end of the boulevard.

This will always be one of the new lingering images I have of Berlin — 90 degree angles and order embellished with graffiti.

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Photo Essay: A Walk Along Berlin’s East Side Gallery

by Ekua on February 26, 2012 · 9 comments in captured on memory card,Germany,street art

When I found out about the East Side Gallery in Berlin, I knew that if or when I traveled to the city, it would be one of the first places I’d visit. I thought it was a unique idea to take part of such a well known former tool of oppression and let it stand as a reminder of the past while changing its meaning by turning it into a huge public art exhibit.

I later learned that the East Side Gallery became the center of a controversy during a mishandled restoration in 2009 and like many popular tourist destinations around the world, some people question its authenticity. But I feel that it’s still a worthwhile site to visit in Berlin and a good starting point for exploring Berlin’s history, street art scene, and culture.

The gallery features 105 murals by artists from around the world. It is thought to be the largest and longest running open air gallery in the world. As expected, many of the murals have themes of peace, freedom, and politics: