((continuing the long day… we returned to the Fulani center at about 8:00pm.  The choir had been waiting since 4:00.  They were not pacing, they were not grumbling, they were dancing.  ))

We quickly set up a recording studio in the unfinished cement building.  I had hoped to setup outside, during Golden Hour, to get some great photos of the young ladies singing and the men playing instruments… but improvisation is part of the fun here in Africa.  

Boureima asked some of the men to bring 3 extra lights.  We scrambled up a bench and hung the one meter long fluorescent tubes vertically from the iron rebar at the window.  The choir and instrumentalists were arranged facing the faux window, and the harsh bright white light filled the singing and dancing stage.  Who doesn’t travel with nylon line and clothespins to fashion backdrops :-)  After a few knots and clips, we had a background for the celebration.

Splashing handfuls of water, men with buckets zigzagged across the church wetting the floor.  By 9:00pm, we had many shy Fulani faces and a few large grins ready to begin singing.  Two calabash players beat out rhythms.  Made from half of a large gourd, the calabash is part drum, part finger percussion.  Scraps of wire transform their fingers.  Well worn patches on the hemisphere tell stories of the previous celebrations.  The drummers palms beat out rhythms that echoed off the bare cement walls.  Their fingers tapped and slapped.  Made from a single hollowed out log and covered with a goat hide, the bamboo necked guitar was expertly plucked and strummed by one of the Fulani men. The choir was ready.

As we have seen throughout west Africa, choirs begin with a leader boldly singing out the first verse of a song.  The choir then responds, their beautiful voices rising up and filling the church.

The choir sang, danced, and as the hours passed, a red cloud of dust began to rise from the floor. They had not eaten since lunch, and by midnight, we had recorded more than ten beautiful songs of praise. How wonderful to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. The moon, now up above the trees, provided light as we slowly walked back to our rooms, exhausted. Endurance… I still have not shared with you what Boureima taught about Fulani… Ok, I have some catching up to do….