The Sunday News
“TURN to your neighbour,” the pastor urged us last Sunday, “and cheer him or her up with a dazzling smile.” Sitting by my side was a lady in her twenties. We both turned to gaze into each others’ eyes and smiled from ear to ear.
“Give your neighbour,” the pastor continued “a big hug and say ‘I’m glad you are here this morning.’” The lady’s smile vanished within the blink of an eye and was replaced by an embarrassing look.
I was brought up never to disobey a pastor. I raised my hands in a horse shoe formation preparing to wrap them around my neighbour’s neck. The lady froze like a hare dazed by a car’s headlights. She quickly recovered and slid down the pew as if I had suddenly turned into a puff adder. Her other neighbour was already hugging someone. I could not hug anyone because I sat at the end of the pew. Rather than hug me, my neighbour chose to disobey the pastor and sat still, staring straight ahead.
I partly understood her problem. I was old enough to be her father and therefore should have been obeyed. On the other hand, in our culture, a hug is a precious commodity reserved for close friends and relatives of the same age group. Even then, it is done as a romantic gesture or on special occasions like funerals, greeting each other after years of separation and celebrating excelling in important exams. To my neighbour I was just a fellow congregant she had last seen the previous week and thus did not deserve a hug.
Further, in Africa cross gender physical contact in public is frowned upon. As for hugging of non-relatives of a different gender, nkosi yami, it is taboo. Rather than go against our culture during Africa week, my neighbour chose to disobey the pastor.
Yet huggers will tell you that the practice is an important part of their lives. It makes one feel loved, wanted, comforted and an integral part of the human race. This good feeling lasts long after the hug. No wonder pastors want to tap on the practice and use it to foster a spirit of fellowship.
What then can be done to create the spirit of fellowship without borrowing from the West — this double edged sword of a free-for-all hugging?
I suggest we revisit some of our cultural practices when interacting with one another and see which ones can be dusted up and be used in a modern setting.
Take the African three-point hand shake. For the unfamiliar, this greeting starts with the conventional handshake movement. The hand is then slightly slanted upwards to gently press the thumb against the other greeter’s thumb. Finally, the hand is returned to the starting position. While all this is happening, the greeters smile at each other, nod heads and say pleasantries. This handshake promotes the kind of togetherness Bob Marley yearns for in the song One Love.
I long for the day the pastor will say: “Turn to your neighbour and give him or her a three-point handshake.”
“This handshake of yours,” I hear someone sneer, “will never generate the warmth and feeling of togetherness a hug does.”
Maybe. But as already noted, hugs are problematic when you belong to different age groups or genders.
Another neglected traditional behaviour worth giving a new lease of life is that centuries old underbelly laughter. Who can forget how laughter used to make one reel back holding the chest pleading, “please, don’t kill me with ribs?”
Girls who grew up in the rural areas would be familiar with this. The laughter was usually heard at the well or river bank when girls fetched water. Out in the open skies, with no elders to control them, girls would regale each other with naughty stories and experiences. They would dance and laugh without an iota of self control. Yes, they laughed out loud until their ribs ached.
As a finale to the laughter, each girl would emit a loud and high pitched sound that went: “he he he, wu wi.” Pairs would face each other with hands raised up high to hit each other in time with the sound “wi.” This routine was performed with an accuracy that would make an accomplished musician at the orchestra green with envy. A watered down version of this laughter emerged in the United States back in the seventies and was called a high five.
I look forward to the day when after a rousing singing session in church, the lead singer would say, “turn to your neighbour and together perform the river bank laughter”. Just as in the three-point handshake request, no one will be embarrassed.
Dear reader, let me not be selfish and suggest all the cultural practices worth bringing forward into our modern world. I am sure you too have your own. Don’t be shy. Let us hear them.
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