It has only been about four months since we were in Africa. I almost feel a little short of breath as I imagine all the work to come, and all the work back home that still must be attended to. Once we are on the ground in Africa, seeing the smiling faces of friends, I’m sure I will feel more settled.

Even though my amazing wife begins preparing for our trip months in advance and maintains meticulous instruction guides, lists, checklists, and an inch thick 3-ring binder with procedures and policies for travel to Africa, the last few days before a trip feels frantic. If we were traveling as tourists, we would pack our three changes of clothes, camera, sunscreen, and stroll out the door without a checked bag or much concern. But packing up a portable recording and producing studio for the African bush brings out a strange level of gadget and map fidgeting normally reserved for wilderness trips. Spare USB-C cable? Hmmmm… Carbon fiber Manfrotto and a lightweight 3/4 height Manfrotto carried in our backpack? How many different languages can I transcode the Jesus Film into and still fit on a 8GB uSD card for a mobile phones?

Thanks for all the help and support everyone has provided as we go to help Pastor Ray in his work in Africa. As always, we will be posting to this blog when we have the time. We try to share something each day. However, some days we finish up late at night, exhausted and covered in red dirt. Our eyes start to close even before we have plugged in our gear to recharge. Flopping onto the bed is all we can manage. Other times, there is simply no Internet. So, please don’t worry if we are quiet for a few days– you can pray instead :-)

PS… Some folks may be wondering why we are returning to Africa so quickly after our last trip. A little more than two years ago I had heart surgery to replace an aortic valve. That January 4th surgery required us to shift our January/February trips to Ghana to September/October for a couple years. To get back to the peak of the dry season (the best time to do our audio recordings), we decided to do a quick turnaround and head back in January.

Note: Pete sent me texts via the Iridium satellite for this post. Internet access is not available. — Joe

The full moon just began to  peek above the dry bush country of West Africa. The bright starlight yields to the moon’s orange glow and lights our path. The cool evenings here give time to reflect, time to take in the smallness of our lives compared to the grandness of the heavens.

With no internet, I peer up, trying to catch a glimpse of the Iridium satellite carrying my 160 character text messages that Joe will glue into a blog post. It is so peaceful here. We are staying in a training facility far from civilization, where young adults learn trades (carpentry, tailoring, etc.) and to lead bible studies.

The Fulani are more reserved, quieter, and shy than other tribes. They are often nomadic, leading their herds, across fields that are not theirs. We are enjoying slowly becoming friends with this group of Christians in an area that is almost exclusively Muslim. They reluctantly smile at my dancing giving me a chance to snap a few pictures. I won’t be able to upload them until I get internet, maybe in a day or two.

Tomorrow we will continue to record Christians praying, telling Bible stories, and singing. We are in good hands here, and slowly picking up a few Fulani and French words. The leader has asked if we would like to go home before our year of service to the Fulani is complete :-). The locals work hard. The young men wake up at 4:45 am to run laps around the facility and then pray. We slept in a bit :-). But we look forward to the hard work here, even as my eyes droop.

Time for bed. Thanks for your support and prayers. Goodnight.

Note: Pete sent texts and pictures and I created the post. — Joe

“My English is Small Small” one of the Fulani pastors explains as we tried to plan the day’s work. They have warmed to us, and while still shy, and prone to look away rather than approach us with a broad smile, they enjoy meeting us and hearing about where we live, what we do, and what kind of food we eat.

Like other places in Ghana that we have visited, the food is 80% a starch (rice, noodles, or other grain), 15% an oil-based sauce, and 5% a chunk of meat, such as a small fish or walnut-sized piece of chicken. However, for lunch today, we had a Fulani staple that the hurders take with them to the fields. Millet is ground into a flour-like consistency. It is then boiled and steamed. A stick is used to flatten and work out the chunks until it becomes like small couscous. The small pellets are then mixed with fresh milk (something the Fulani have plenty of in their fields). Sometimes a small bit of sugar is added. While I think it might taste even better with absolutely fresh milk, the young lady responsible for cooking our meal boiled the milk and then let it cool, so we could enjoy some, even with our weak American stomachs. We enjoyed it so much we asked if we could have it for breakfast. The Fulani were thrilled.

Most of the day was spent in what Ghanaians would call a “summer hut”, a small round hut with straw or bamboo walls and a thatched roof. Throughout the day, the pastors lined up for their turn behind the microphone. I sat behind the laptop, and Beth managed the whole process, carefully tracking each speaker and their topic. We work together well.

Tomorrow, we will be recording the medical / health information. Each time we record a language, the unique culture of the tribe or nation is represented. BTW, Westerners have become uncomfortable with referring to tribes or nations, and now opt to say “people group”. Of course when we say “people group” here, the Fulani scratch their heads. Anyway, another example of Western sensitivities perplexing the rest of the world. Anyway, because the Fulani are herders, they decided that in addition to medical / health information, they would like us to record veterinary information for flocks and herds :-) Indeed! So tomorrow we will be recording a nurse as well as a vet.

The Fulani have a strong identity, spanning all the countries south of the Sahara. They are herders. They brought Islam to this part of Africa. We recognize a faint echo of facial features from North Africa — Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia — in the tall and slender herders. his evening, Beth and I took a walk into the village at Golden Hour in order to get some photos. In the rest of Ghana, people are eager to have their picture taken. We were warned several times, however, to approach with politeness, and ask if we can take a photo. We have yet to be refused a photo, but there is some initial hesitation. Usually, immediately showing the photo I took to them evokes a quick flash of a smile, followed by shyness. While walking through the village a man named Suliman, who wore a heavy winter coat approached us and spoke a little English with us. “Small small English”. We showed him pictures of the snow back home, and he pointed out the cattle returning from their fields. We explained we were from Chicago, and he shared “Chicago Bulls”!. Which, I suppose for a Fulani, is particularly funny.

At the bridge, past the small village, a once large lake continues to shrink each day as the rainless dry season continues. The water is used for irrigating tomatoes and other vegetables. As the sun dipped down and golden hour was coming to a close, two fishermen with nets waded through the shallow waters of the lake turned puddle.

Back at the training center, we enjoyed dinner by cell phone LED. The power to the village was out. A spectacular dinner and story telling under the stars was enjoyed by all. Wow. I thought the evening was not going to get any better… but with the power out, the young adults had all left their rooms and carried the benches from the church out under the stars, forming a large circle. About 25 singing and dancing Fulani grooved to a homemade drum… clapping, howling, and stomping around in a tight circle. Beth joined in under the stars and the moon began to peak up over the trees. Then everyone sat and shared concerns and heartaches, joys and sorrows and took turns praying for each other. So beautiful!

Internet continues to be a challenge. I’ve got a 2G connection, which means that I can just barely make WhatsApp eek out some text and a few very small pictures. My webmaster volunteer then converts the WhatsApp messages into a blog post. As a computer scientist, the idea of a human-in-the-loop to convert text from one form to another makes me cringe, but the tweaky network needs hand holding.

We spent almost the entire day doing recordings and learning more about the Fulani. Despite being spread across so many countries in Africa, they see themselves as foreigners everywhere. They mistrust everyone who is not a Fulani. Many stories exist of Fulani being beaten and attacked by other tribes accusing them first, for any problems in the community. Nomads chasing green pastures will always run afoul of farmers raising grains and veggies. The government has tried to convince the Fulani to just tend to their livestock in one area — on the family land. However, the Fulani can’t afford to buy grain to feed their livestock — they need to walk to greener pastures, even if that pasture might bring them across another tribe’s land. Complex. I suppose there are similar issues with “open range cattle” in the US.

Because of this distrust of other tribes, not just the white tribe from the US, but everyone who is not Fulani, we must be respectful in our interactions. The standard loud and aggressive American posture would not be welcome. So… even though there are SO many beautiful kids here at the local school run by the group we are visiting, we have decided not to share their photos. Trust me, they are very cute :-) The potential for a misunderstanding while taking photos of the villager’s children while the parents are back home in the village, is just too great.

Even so, one of my favorite photos is of the children’s sandals and lunch pails parked outside the school. Every child goes to school with a plastic lunch bucket prepared by their mom. So cute.

The other image that hints at the children :-) is of the shop keeper fishing out penny candy from a jar, like an old-time candy store. After school, the kids with a few pennies ran at full tilt to the small shop, pushing and shoving their way to the front. They called out their sweet of choice like a scene from Willy Wonka and waved their coin. Right below the photo is a sea of dirty hands hoping to get their candy first.

The men in the summer hut labeled “GAMBIE” are pastors that we recorded.

The chef holding the egg is Collette, and with her warm sweater she makes us a breakfast every morning.

The young lady with the orange head scarf is Collette’s helper.

Tomorrow we head in to the big city and record some doctors, and tomorrow evening we record the choir (my favorite part of any trip).

*I thought it would grab your attention if I quoted part of a text Pete sent me as the title of this post. Without internet access, he does not have veto power. — Joe

The day started well, the preschool children scrambled up and down a dusty pile of old tyres adjacent to the playground as other children enjoyed the more traditional equipment here at the church, school, and training facility.

I snapped some pics (with permission from nearby parents)

An important dining ritual is to wash your hands directly at the table. One of the young girls will bring the special basin, soap, and kettle to your seat, put it on the floor and then slowly pour the water. Your job is to feverishly scrub your hands and then shake dry your hands. Quite nice! So we enjoyed our Nescafé instant, millet grain and milk, and prepared for the day.

In Africa, waiting is just part of the fabric of life. We westerners work to be more productive, and we have all bought into the notion that the easiest way to be more productive is to eliminate waiting. Most efficiency formulas for computation and networking include careful accounting for delay times, how long a network data packet will wait, queue priorities, “QoS” (quality of service) measures, and even “TTL” or “time to live” before abandoning the work. Here, it feels like waiting is simply part of the work to accomplish. So after breakfast, we waited. No need to drum your fingers on the table, no reason to pace back and forth and check your watch. Looking down the road won’t impact the wait. So why not just wait? Make friends, ask questions, learn about the culture, laugh, poke your head into new places (and startle people :-), get introduced, tell your story, play a game, write in your journal, pray together. Just Wait!

The plan was to speed back to a major city, about an hour away, where Boureima had arranged for several people to provide health information that we could record. By 10:00 am, we were bouncing down the dusty red dirt road. While passing the baobab trees filled with nests, I imagine fuchsia colored Dr. Seuss birds popping up and cocking their heads as we bob up and down over the rutted path. Africa is full of surprises. Who knows what we might experience today.

Boureima’s SUV needs some serious work… the transmission reluctantly shifts into a lower gear after winding up so ferociously that I’m worried gears will pop thru the floor. The car was in an accident some time ago and the radiator needs periodic checks, since the temperature gauge does not work.

Despite the screeching belts and whirring gears, Boureima heard the tick, tick, tick, of something wrong with the tyre.

And so, began, the start of a very long day. The first roadside shop pulled the screws out, pushed in some rubber repair strips, and found that the tyre was also cut, so we needed a new one. Filled but still leaking, we drove into town to find a tyre shop. Boureima purchased two tyres, but the shop’s mounting machine was busted. At the third shop, they found a lug nut jammed. They could try and turn it, but it would likely break. The nut popped off, but the screw was stripped. Boureima explains that we would not be buying fish in the river. He explained… man will point out the fish that just jumped out of the water and ask you to pay him for it, then he will go catch it :-). So we would wait until the car worked, before paying, not for fish in the river.

So we ventured to one of the nurses we were planning to record, hoping to find a mechanic along the way.

Oof. By western standards, we were at least three hours behind schedule. We zigzagged across town to three different places recording medical information for the Fulani in their language, Fulfulde. It was hard for me to concentrate, because the original plan was to be back at Boureima’s by 3:00 pm to set up for the choirs. We did have a great conversation in the car, learning more about the 40 million Fulani. I’ll have to tell you about it later…

We did the recordings while Boureima found a mechanic and had the lug nut fixed.

We managed to returned after 8:00 pm. The choir, which was waiting since 4:00 pm was in the church dancing and singing. They had not eaten. I’ll upload photos and tell more tomorrow, but we recorded the choir until after midnight. They then went to get food and we crashed into bed. Tomorrow I’ll explain some of the culture we learned, including endurance / patience.