A long day it way.  Successful in every way, but long.  Last night we collapsed on our bed under the chit chit chit of the ceiling fan. We slept well. The deep sleep of a destination accomplished.

In the morning we attended Church.  I apologize for not getting fantastic pictures from church, but I only had my SLR with me, and decided the service was not loud enough to cover my loud camera.  I promise I’ll get some in the villages. But you can use your imagination… brightly colored dresses, little kids with tightly braided hair, some of the men in what looks like batik PJs. I think Beth agrees I need some :-)

The flight just after noon to Tamale was mostly uneventful, but the rookie pilot had trouble with the landing.  Ray wore a fantasticly large grin as he picked us up with his new 4×4. He is excited to have us visiting for a week, and our schedule is packed in Ray-style sun-up to sun-down action.  I’m already looking forward to our day off in Lisbon on the way back home :-)

  This area of northern Ghana is hot and dry. Termite mounds and round mud huts dot the countryside. Ray explained that the weather was ideal right now, and would be hotter in two months. I get lightheaded just thinking about it.

After dropping off most of our gear at the guest house, we headed to a local radio station.  A very friendly man there named Thomas had some praise music in one of the local languages: Dagbani.  We will use it for the audio players, but really want the language Komba or Konkomba, which are the dialects used by the Konkomba people.  However, Ray has arranged for local singers, drummers, and everything once we make it up even further north and east.  Thomas promised to start looking for Konkomba music and will contact Ray if he finds any.

Here is a 1 minute sample of the music we received from Thomas:

dagbani worhip music

With our radio station visit such a quick and short success, we took the opportunity to drive and meet a couple of Ray’s friends, and evaluate some of the local accomodations if a large 20 person team were to some day head up here.  We also dropped in a small market and bought food supplies.  The local diet here consists of a lot of seasoned rice, sometimes with fish or chicken.  However, up here in Tamale, we see a lot of goats too… wandering the neighborhoods and along the streets.  We drove past a local sidewalk butcher was preparing a sale. No photos or descriptions supplied. I’m guessing before this trip is over we will be offered goat meat.  Hmmm, maybe the kababs we had for dinner were goat?

Anyway, a very full day.  Tomorrow we drive to Yendi.  Ray wanted us to be ready by 5:00am, but watching our shocked look, he offered 6:00. We countered with 7:00 :-) Tomorrow we dive into real recordings and video.  It will be a treat to hear their music and prepare the audio for loading up on the solar powered digital players that will eventually have songs, stories, and parts of the bible for the Komba people.  Once up at Ray’s house, I’ll spend some time working on the trial water filter, which we hope can be distributed in the same fashion to the Komba people.

We will (try) to keep you posted….

-Pete