Bennett Konesni, one of last year’s BLAST Cadre members, is travelling around the world right now on a Watson fellowship looking at work songs of farmers and fishermen. You can read the prevoius entry he sent us, and even more on his own blog.

It was- I’ll admit- a breezy, cookout-ideal, beachside concrete cube. But it was still a concrete cube. It was a domus of the sort that would appeal to soviet housing bloc designers, the sort without shelving or a fully-functioning door: a place that featured luxurious daily showers-from-a-cup. And for a short time, it was my home.

I lived in it for six weeks in Ghana as I learned fishing songs, battled tropical maladies, and considered the relative benefits of thatched roofing vs. corrugated tin. In truth, I did very little else. I cooked food in my one pot with my one spoon. I wandered down to the beach and back from the beach. I took bucket showers and stood around air-drying in the buff.

Of course, I also spent hours logging the songs I was learning and making trips to the Forex bureau. But those were not the highlights of my time in Ghana, just like doing taxes and balancing the checkbook are necessary but not the highlight of most people’s lives. For me the best part was the stripped down nature of my existence: Fish. And Sing. Easy.

I’ve already described the physical activity, so now I am going to write a bit about the songs themselves.

Nii Alabi (my host and the owner of my humble cube) grew up in Nungua before it became a sprawling township, back when it was still a small fishing village. He enjoys pointing out how the fishermen’s songs reflect the lives of the fishermen. They sing about the women who buy and sell fish at the shore. They sing to embarrass the men who sleep in and miss the morning’s boat. They sing about life and they sing about death. The plead with God for help.

One song caught my ear:

Call: Kanye non yemono beleo… kanye non yemono beleo, shic-pong jo-noni…
Response: Kanye non yemono beleo…

(Note: this is a phonetic version I created- Ga has a separate alphabet from our English one and it’s tough to find a Microsoft plugin for it. Anyway it’s easier to sing it like this.)

The song is simple but meaningful. Roughly translated it means: “The earth is not yours, go humbly upon it.” Sometimes the leader would sing “the sea is not yours…” or “the land is not yours…” but always with the message: “walk humbly.”

This song articulates the fishermen’s belief that nobody owns the sea. They believe that the ocean and all in it is a gift from God, and it is ours to use wisely. It is not our power to recklessly exploit it, to trash it, or to exclude other people from it.

Thus it is open to all. Each day fishermen from villages all along the coast go out to catch what they can, wherever the fish are schooling. This means they must follow the fish, which don’t stay within boundaries like the cows and cabbages of farmers. As a result, there are no turf wars amongst these fishermen. They mix freely out on the swells, catch what they can, and go home. This open attitude extends to the shore… every community gives reciprocal hospitality to fishermen from each other town on the coast. If one fishing team needs to spend the night in a neighboring town they are allowed some space on the beach.

This free mingling between communities explains another musical trait of these singing fishermen. The songs they choose do not just use the local language of the Ga, they also use the languages of nearby tribes, the Ewe, the Fante, the Ashanti and even the English. Some songs will have words in two or three languages right next to each other, all mixed into the same verse. It seems fishing tunes, like fishing-grounds, are shared freely along the coast.

Another interesting aspect of the musical fishing tradition aboard these lele canoes: in a society where open criticism of the powerful is frowned upon, the songs became a creative way to question authority. One song says “Oh, Jonah, you have hurt me. You too will get your number at the mortuary.” The song can be directed at government officials, town elders, parents, even overbearing girlfriends. In a sense, the song warns current and would-be oppressors: you put me down now, but you too will get your day.

Another use of song is to keep errant souls on the right path. One song tells people “you eat what you’ve worked for” and by extension “if you haven’t worked, you won’t eat.” The fishermen sing this song to keep would-be sleeper-inners coming to fish in the morning. And of course, they also sing it because it’s a great tune and fun to work to.

Which is important to keep in mind when analyzing the lyrics of these songs. Most of the tunes are just plain great for work. They have catchy tunes, or they match the rhythm of the work exceptionally well, or they have exceptionally sweet harmonies. Some are funny and make the men laugh. Others have hand gestures and other small movements associated with them that cause hysterics on deck. Others leave room for creative vocal improvisation, such as one of my favorite tunes, the one about a he-goat, his beautiful girlfriend, and an approving (but probably envious) grandpa-goat. “manh manh manh” (roughly translated: “baa baa baa.”)

In short I find these songs, much like a good novel, can be as simple or complex as you like. And, in keeping an open mind about things, they’re generally both. Part of me enjoys analyzing the text for double meanings, just like I enjoy analyzing the notes for rhythmic patterns and harmonic surprises. But another part of me loves them simply for how they feel and how they urge on the work. And to be honest, at the end of the day I prefer the simplicity of this ultimate recipe: boat, net, fish, muscles, songs, Dinner.

Hence, this note on Voluntary Simplicity, and the connection back to life in my happy concrete cube: when you’re not running around fixing some old broken appliance, picking up some flashy new appliance to replace it, cleaning the carpet, re-gluing the laminate, running to the supermarket, filling up the van, emptying the van, checking the weather channel, and power-spraying the driveway there is an awful lot of time to do stuff that really means something. Like memorizing a fishing tune or learning to play the fiddle.

It’s almost Christmas, a fact I was reminded of recently when I heard a tricked-out techno version of Felix Navidad blasting from a tiny passing hatchback. It put me in a festive mood and I went to check out the Christmas display in a local shopping center. I was greeted by heaps of metal Christmas trees, junky toys, wrapping paper, and a suffocating array of cheap plastic Stuff.

Frankly that’s the part of Christmas I’m happy to be away from. I’ve made my final arrangements here in the city of Mwanza and tomorrow I’m heading out into rural Tanzania, to visit small farming villages where singing farmers have not yet been wiped out by the impressive march of Progress. Hopefully there will be a minimum of junk and a maximum of goodness out there.

But I will miss the best parts of the holidays: long meals with crazy but lovable uncles and aunts, catching up with old friends, poking quietly around old haunts.

So before you get swept up with the wild-eyed throngs try to remember the lesson found in my endearing concrete cube: Simplicity can be a great gift, (and that Simplicity is Simple in name only). And by the same token plastic crap looks flashy but is often insultingly dumb. It might be because I’m not home, but it seems to me that the best gift these days could be giving some time to explore the woods together in wintertime (even if there’s not snow, there’s a hell of a lot of magic out there) and then going in to quaff bottomless mugs of cocoa by a roaring fire.

If you do it for me then I’ll slice up a happy holiday mango for you, and wash it down with coconut juice. Cheers, and Felix Navidad, Bennett