Jah Rastafari
on Anthony Lovat in Bolgatanga (Ghana), 19/Feb/2011 16:36, 34 days ago
Come to Ghana as a young(ish) white person and it won’t be long, particularly if you are female, before you are approached by one of the ubiquitous ‘Rasta’ boys. You will recognise a Rasta boy from his bright multi-coloured baggy trousers, a t-shirt featuring Bob Marley, Haille Selasie or a cannabis leaf, his wearing of a necklace in the shape of Africa, his hat in the colours of red, gold and green and his love of being with white people. You will find Rasta boys, or rather they will find you, in most areas of Ghana but are most likely to see them in coastal areas near to areas where tourists tend to congregate.“Hi,” the Rasta boy will run from the other side of the road, interrupting your conversation. “Where you from?”Not wanting to be rude, you smile politely, tell him you are from England and try to continue your conversation. The Rasta boy, however, will take your response as encouragement. He will move closer to you, possibly invading your personal space,“How long you been in Ghana?” the Rasta boy will ask enthusiastically.I have taken to answering quite randomly. Sometimes I’ll tell the Rasta boy I’ve been in his country for a week, ten years or two minutes. It never seems to matter. The response is not as important as the fact that I am responding.“And how do you like Ghana?” the Rasta boy will ask seriously, as if he paid any attention to my last answer.It would be rude not to say that Ghana is a nice place.“But I would like to visit your place. Your country. I think that your country is a better place. People have more money in your country. Ghana is a developing country. Your country is a nice place.”“It’s alright I suppose.” I mumble, missing London, where I can enjoy the simple pleasure of walking down the street without being accosted for my skin colour, more than ever.“What’s your name?”I tell the Rasta boy my name and he repeats it back to me with boundless enthusiasm.“Hey! Ras Anthony!” For some reason, the Rasta boy will add a ‘Ras’ to the front of any name. Hence ‘Anthony’ becomes ‘Ras Anthony’. ‘Ibrahim’ becomes ‘Ras Ibrahim’ etc.The Rasta boy will then hold out his fist. The correct response is to take your own fist and touch it against the fist offered, before touching it back to your own chest. I felt like an idiot doing it for the first time but it now comes quite naturally.Rasta boys are inevitably artists or musicians. This does not in any way mean that they are good artists or musicians. Nonetheless, the Rasta boy will be very disappointed when the inevitable invitation to“just look” in his shop or listen to his recording is not accepted. He will, however, remember your name and shout it out at you as if he is your best friend whenever you walk down the street in the future, thereby causing even more people to stare.“Hi Ras Anthony! Remember me?”“Erm... Yes... Hi... Erm...”“It’s me! Ras Emmanuel!”“Oh yes... Good morning Emmanuel.”“Remember you said you would look inside my shop today?”“Well... Actually... I’m just going somewhere. Maybe tomorrow.”Despite the attention I receive, I should be glad I do not own a pair of breasts. Rasta boys are far more interested in white girls. Luckily, many white girls are interested in Rasta boys although demand far outstrips supply. Nonetheless, a steady stream of young girls from Holland, Denmark and Germany, often volunteering for a few months, keep the Rasta boys with examples of brothers who have had white girlfriends and the belief that all other white girls are keen on black boyfriends– something that massively irritates the young female VSO volunteers.For some lucky Rasta boys, they will come across a white girl wanting more than just a casual fling. These Shirley Valentines are well past their prime and often quite ugly but can pick up a fine specimen of an exotic African Rasta boy who will flatter them endlessly. For the Rasta boy, it can be a passport, a lottery win and a plane ticket all in the one package. It is a win-win relationship.Bolga is not a tourist hotbed and the economy cannot sustain more than two Rasta boy art shops. One is called“Roots” and the other is “No Food for Lazy Man”. They both sell identical masks, paintings and drums. They both sell exclusively to white people and actively tout for customers around town. The Rasta boys stand out in stark contrast to the average tightly cropped, clean and well presented Ghanaians who, particularly in the north of Ghana, are a little reserved, starched and certainly not people who will interrupt a conversation without a very good reason.Ghanaian culture is a conservative culture, dominated by familial and religious obligations. The Rasta boys are Ghana’s counter-culture – they are Ghana’s hippies. As Ghana experiences urbanisation, growth, democracy and peace, it may be going through a cultural revolution as great as 1960s Europe and America. Young Ghanaians look to black culture in the new world, just as Britain and the rest of Europe looks to America for its pop culture. Hip hop and Reggae, and the cultures that surround these genres of black American music, are as exciting to Ghanaians as Rock and Roll was to 1950s Britain.But, like Britain not quite approving of all things American, so there are strong suspicions of these new trends coming from across the Atlantic to Ghana. Many senior high school boys, many in their twenties, have developed the habit of wearing their trousers very low, displaying their underwear. This enormously irritates Veronica, the science technology and maths coordinator for the region. Visiting a school recently, she stopped a random boy quite suddenly and berated him in front of his peers.“Pull your trousers up!” she barked. “Do you know why you are wearing these trousers low? It is because American prisons used to give out clothes that were too big. The prisoners had to wear clothes that did not fit and that were too baggy. By wearing your trousers like that you are making yourself look like an American prisoner. Do you want to look like an American prisoner? Well?”The boy shook his head sheepishly, pulled up his trousers and shuffled off after his friends. As he rounded the corner, I saw him craftily adjust them downwards again.Normal Ghanaians are therefore quite suspicious of Rasta boys. They are associated with laziness and drugs. When trying to get TangaCulture to play at a senior high school last year, the headmaster was particularly concerned about any Rasta boy influence on his students. He doesn’t want his students becoming lazy, he told me.Peter is firmly from the establishment. As head of Bolgatanga Senior High School’s PTA, he is as far from the counter-culture as it is possible to be. In response to the headmaster’s prejudices of Rasta boys, he recounted a time when he hired a Rasta boy to paint his house. He expected the Rasta boy to be constantly late and lazy. To his surprise, the Rasta boy painted hishouse perfectly and on time. To his even greater surprise, the Rasta boy then brought back the extra money Peter had put in his payment envelope, thinking that there had been an overpayment.“This Rasta boy was hard-working and very honest,” Peter remarked, taking a sip of his beer. “Since that time, I think that maybe these Rasta boys are not so bad after all.”Perhaps there is something the establishment can learn from the counter-culture.