BlackNotBlack.com

Clan of the Drum

I lived in Guatemala for a couple of years, and while I was down there—in a city called Antigua—blackouts became part and parcel of my life. I never had any previous experience with them. I know there was a massive 1965 blackout on the east coast of the United States that plunged 80,000 square

miles into darkness. And supposedly, nine months later, there was a spike in childbirths in east coast hospitals. Apparently there was really nothing else to do when confronted by Armageddon. No lights meant Russian missiles, the end of the world, a last chance to party in the face of the apocalypse. Inhibitions vanished, skirts dropped, and nature took its course.

In Antigua, sometimes the blackouts didn’t happen for a few months. Other times the lights failed twice in a week. These spells typically lasted a few seconds, but occasionally the world went black and stayed that way. We crossed the river Lethe into a new reality; a million new stars appeared in the night sky. The primal self, safely housed in the convolutions of the brain’s limbic system, suddenly broke loose to howl at the moon. Man gave way to beast.

Most people who lived in Antigua already felt as if they’d stepped back in time. When the lights went out we simply got a chance to step a bit further back and become hunter-gatherers sharing folk tales around the ancient fire. Huddled around candles, people probed a little deeper, responded a bit more candidly, and revealed more. And interestingly, the volume of conversation dropped dramatically.

If I wished to consult a psychologist, he or she would probably suggest that these things happened because of subconscious fear. Darkness is cold, darkness is loneliness, darkness is death and dreamless sleep and other untold evilness. Surrounded by it we huddled for protection like a tribe. I don’t have the spare cash to actually consult an expert, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say this theory is correct—deep down we were driven to seek each others’ companionship for safety when darkness closed in.

The most interesting blackout I experienced occurred in the town of Monterrico. Three hours south of Antigua by car, Monterrico is a tattered, tropical community of high surf, black sand, and mañana beach culture that moves as slowly as coastal erosion. Usually a night in Monterrico means a meal at dusk in one of the shacks that serve as restaurants, and then late drinks and music in a shabby beachfront bar. But this time the electricity died and the rules changed just a bit.

Our group of twelve noticed the blackout had occurred as we walked along the beach after sunset to the restaurant Caracol. All along the shore candles wavered like tiny signal fires from the windows of houses and hotels. Caracol looked shut, but when someone in our little clan called hello the owner appeared with a lantern and began pushing tables together and lighting tapers. You don’t expect a party of twelve during a blackout, but she gave us four-star service by candlelight and capped off the meal by comping us a dozen free shots. Generosity, too, emerges in the dark.

After dinner we walked to a wood and thatch palapa-style bar called El Animal Desconocido. Like all the other places along the beach, El Animal had been reduced to stoneage technology. Henri, the owner, stood shirtless behind the bar, sweating heavily in the heat generated by the many candles he had lit. A steady buzz of conversation issued from the customers, perhaps twenty people divided into a half dozen separate cliques. Someone had brought a drum and he began playing it. Nothing strenuous, just a little background noise. But it was a welcome sound. You don’t realize how dependent the atmosphere of a bar is on music until you walk into one that lacks it. And as often as you hear drums in Guatemala, you can never appreciate them until they’re the only form of music available. It is not overextending the tribal analogy to suggest that the sound of the drum began to unify the occupants of the room.

Before long someone else took up the beat. He played loud and fast, sending riffs exploding up to the rafters, intensifying the energy level in the bar until people were driven to dance. This second drummer was really good. He really lit a fuse in the room. Actually, the second drummer was me, but I’m simply suggesting that people will usually ignore even a well-played drum except under the circumstances forced upon them by the blackout. With new rules in effect, the drum helped transform rabble into a community.

It went on like that for a couple of hours—my drumming, everyone else dancing, drinking, and sweating. All of our howling primal selves were loose. As in the great blackout of 1965 inhibitions vanished, skirts dropped, nature took its course. It was phenomenally exotic, entirely unforgettable, and though I was the only black person in the town, I was the same as everyone else inside the fragile bubble of that moment. Why did it happen? Perhaps it was the drumming, or the liquor, or the spell of Monterrico. But I think it was the blackout, the rules changing, and inhibitions evaporating as everyone formed a tribe to resist that oldest of enemies—darkness.


Many of the people at El Animal that night had never spoken to a black person before. They marveled that more didn't visit Guatemala. Because of my little act as an ambassador with a drum, they were convinced that their country needed more blacks. Shit, we were fun—we knew how to party. The few Guatemalan blacks—called Garifuna—lived in isolation on the Caribbean coast and were rarely seen. Now these rank and file Guatemalans were wondering about the Garifuna. They were primed to abandon everything they'd absorbed about blacks from years of watching old American sitcoms. They asked if any of what they'd seen was correct. I asked them: "Whenever Guatemala makes the international news, like CNN, do they get it right?" Everyone laughed at that. Of course they didn't get it right. They got parts right, but never the important parts. I told them it was the same for me. American television gets parts right, but not the important parts. My Guatemalan friends got it. The analogy stuck.

All this potential for change came from a blackout and a sweltering bar that had no music. You have to keep alert for these moments. It might be a blackout, or it might be something else, but when that doorway opens, stepping through it can change people's minds. Easiest thing in the world to do, and a hell of a lot of fun.
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Labels: drums, guatemala, monterrico, travel

posted by Egan Ehlers @ 10:15 AM