Thursday 30 June 2016

OF AFRICANS AND THEIR GAIT




I was a stubborn child growing up, but that goes without saying. And I remember as kids we would sneak up behind women as they walked and mimic their walking step, choreographing it with the tune “seventeen, eighteen , nineteen, zabadam”. And usually these mommies will chase us with canes and we will run away laughing, till our stomachs hurt. It was all mindless fun to us.

But then the other day, as I was walking past my friends, unbeknownst to me, I heard them burst into laughter. When I inquired about their jest, they told me I was walking like one of those mommies we used to jest as kids. It was funny to me also, because I had assumed I was strutting in such a way that would rival Naomi Campbell on the runway. But it turns out, I was just so much an African and no matter how much I try to do the catwalk, my ‘Africanness’ exudes even through my walking step. 

So I took out time to notice the form, pace and gait of people as they walk past.  I bet some found my staring creepy, but then again I couldn’t walk up to everyone and explain to them that I was only conducting a research. Now this is what I deduced. As girls, we walked with a spring in our steps, like a bouncy, leaping walk, mainly because we were wafer thin. But as we grew older and filled out our curves, our steps were altered a bit. No more jumpy walk like we did as kids, but we still walked with speed as much as our young bodies could carry. However, filling out more as women, the hips, the buttocks and breasts all culminate into holding us back as we walk. We lose the spring and jump to our steps and replace it with a slower, short paced walk that undeniably brings the wiggle to our steps.

Being Africans and bountifully endowed with these, I think it has contributed indubitably to our uniqueness. We lack the briskness of Europeans, Arabians and other ethnicities. And this gait of ours goes as far as inflecting how we behave, act, and our general behavior and attitude towards things and people. An African is unhurried in pace, hence when we walk someone who’s leaving a place to another place, we tarry long while we walk and catch up on some last moment gist before we part. Same applies to when you visit someone at their house, we linger over food, mainly because we want to hold meaningful conversations. We ask about each other’s welfare because we really care to know. And then we also lend our ears for as long as necessary to listen to them in their unhurriedly response, unburden their hearts. 

This distinguishes us as a race. We care enough to happily share our time with others even if only to listen to their babble. We aren’t too time conscious that we snuff out one’s flow just because we need to hurry somewhere. 

An upside of our unhurried gait also shows how we aren’t prone to panic attacks and the likes. We are conscious of our environment and very much in tune with it in that we anticipate occurrences and hence aren’t easily spooked. Though I have found we can only enjoy such solitude in the suburbs now seeing as the city has been taken over by the hurried chaotic speed of the western world.

As usual, a cause and effect relationship ensues, in that the longer we take strutting and wiggling before we get to where we ought to be, the more time we lose. Hence, why it is aptly tagged  ‘African Time’. 

I once read somewhere, that the speed in one’s walking step, determine the mental alertness and resourcefulness of one’s mind. For instance, have you ever taken note of the Chinese and how they walk so briskly? Maybe this contributes to how fit they appear and probably the improved quality of their thoughts which is quickly making them the greatest country in technological advancement.

But you see, we are an unhurried people, so much that our walking style says it all. This therefore is a bane to a large number of us, as we have the tendency of approaching life in much the same way. We easily let go of things that appear stressful, and in similar fashion, we move our focus and attention to other mundane things.



Photocredit: African tribal women alamy.com

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