Another productive day. Whoohoo!

But…. before we talk about today, Kevin gave me some tracks from the choirs we recorded in Gbintiri that you have to hear :-)

The first part is the “caller”, so don’t turn up your speakers too loud or you will get quite a surprise when the choir joins in. This track is a bit over 4 minutes, but well worth it. The choir leader is the beautiful young lady below. We thought she might be 12 years old.

The girls wore cute little white socks with flip-flops, and the boys had black shoes. The shuffling you hear in the background is their stomp-step.

The “caller” style is the most common choir type here, and the melodies and rhythms come from their homes and villages. Many of the pieces were composed by the groups themselves. The cement walls and tin roof of the church gave wonderful reverb.

Each of the choirs had prepared about 6 numbers. I really can’t describe how much fun it was to hear them sing. On Sunday we will try and record a small choir in a village near Zamashegu.

The other choir you can hear today is an older group, with an accomplished choir leader calling out the songs he has composed himself.

Here is a sample of his music:

The second-to-last song on the choir leader’s sing-list was about Zacchaeus, but other than picking out that word, we didn’t do too well understanding Komba

So… back to today…. my eyes are drooping and I’m falling asleep, so I better wrap this up.

We spent some time checking in on the water filters that we had test deployed a year ago. Pastor Paul’s water filter seemed to be working fine:

The ceramic filter is simple to use, cheap, lasts several years, and can be cleaned with a brush. The current plan is for MVH to set up the delivery of several hundred of the units to some of the very very remote areas without wells (bore holes). His trip is scheduled for March. They are looking forward to his visit.

The other work today was recording Pastors Peter and Paul tell Bible stories in Komba. They were quite practiced and quickly made it through about 12 records.

Oh, and Roger did end up enjoying Dinner with us. Here is a before and after picture.

Ok, I’m falling asleep on my laptop… Good night.