Beth and I love visiting our friends in Africa. We are counting the days until starry skies, bold choirs, dusty roads, giggling children, and scorching temperatures fill our days.  But somehow, given that this will be our eighth trip, preparation should be easier.  

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For work, I prepare to zip off to meetings on distant continents by simply dumping two wrinkled shirts, some underwear, a laptop, and bag of tech widgets into a green backpack. I spend more time brewing a good cup of coffee than I do packing.  

But our work in Africa is different.  Planning for this trip started one year ago, as Beth and I sat in the Brussels airport returning home from Ghana. Sifting through hastily scratched reminders and rereading thoughtful journal entries we sketched out ideas, improvements, and intentions for this year.  And while Beth labors purposefully, over the entire year to support Ray and the team in Africa, my participation is more akin to Springtime weather.  Weeks can elapse without rain until fierce midnight winds swirl camera lenses, instant coffee, mosquito netting, antibiotics, and terabytes of disks across every flat surface in the house. In the peaceful calm of morning, Beth comes down the stairs to survey the new stacks and sidestep items that have not yet found a heap. Maybe I’m making a computer scientist excuse, but stacks and heaps are helpful for organizing. 

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This year, a group of friends has been helping prepare our quirky African tech, which includes everything from ruggedized solar-powered audio players to 12 pocket-sized Linux web servers.  But I’m getting ahead of myself… This is the first blog post for this year, and while many parts of the trip will be new, many will be quite familiar.  Beth and I are looking forward to bright smiles, beautiful songs, and quiet reflection, and we hope you will join us virtually, but tuning into the blog each day for a short update, a few pictures, and a chance to experience the joyful sounds and stunning imagery of West Africa.

To help new readers with a brief preview of what we might be saying, here an audio recording we did of the Kpatinga Choir back in 2014. The reverb in the small concrete building with a steel roof is spectacular. The style is typical caller-response.

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A few words about the trip and how this blog works…

Posts to the blog are in reverse chronological order.  That means that what you see first at the top of your screen is the most recent post.  Scroll down for older posts.

However, if you are curious about our previous trips, you can read them like a book, from beginning to end, chronologically. You can find last year’s trip here, but at the top of this blog is a link to Previous Trips, where you can look all the way back to 2011.

We love comments.  What would a blog be without comments and suggestions from people following along?  Beth and I read all of them and enjoy hearing from you.  Often, we are working from before the first rooster to long after the Milky Way stretches from horizon to horizon.  So please be patient, we will try and reply to comments or questions when we have a break.

Finally, please keep in mind that while cell phone towers are going up all over the bush of northern Ghana, there are many times we simply don’t have internet or can only eek out a few words.  Read last year’s blog to get a sense of some of our struggles relaying messages.  Also, Africa stress tests everything — from cars to computers.  Cracked engine blocks, flat tires, and police road blocks can delay us, and there will be times when we just can’t post to the blog.  Please don’t worry.   Like last year, my college roommate Joe (wow, that was 35 years ago) will be the electronic base station for relaying messages and updating the blog if we run into complications.

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Finally… our schedule:  We leave Thursday evening for Ghana.  We will arrive in Accra on Valentine’s day, and then head up north to meet the team.  We look forward to introducing you to them, and explaining more about what we are doing, the tech, and why fufu is best experienced with your hand.

So drop in, smile, comment, and don’t be shy.  We will post again when we get to Brussels.  

Short post. We are here! Our luggage made it. All 5 bags, all greater than 50 lbs. Wow. Our plan was to fly to Tamale in the morning, but the Harmattan is wreaking havoc with Ghanaian flights. What’s a Harmattan? Well… think dust storm, but without high winds, just imagine walking through clouds of fine red dusk. Read more on wikipedia. An email from the local flight provider from Accra to Tamale seemed to indicate tomorrow’s flight was in jeopardy. More tomorrow… we are exhausted and need some sleep.

Exhausted from the long flight, we slept in till 8:00. We are thankful to have gracious friends here in Accra who open their home to us when we pass thru, heading north. And while the juicy  ripe mango, avocado, and homemade quiche breakfast was delightful, it was the strong coffee that helped clear my head and focus on the problem at hand — our flight to Tamale was cancelled.  It was not the Harmattan, but a broken aircraft. 

Travel in Ghana can be exciting.

We drove to the airport to see what we could do. Jeff let us off at the departures level and told us he would loop around every 5 or 10 minutes.

Inside the terminal, we were greeted by this LCD board:

The interaction at the desk went something like this:

Us: hello, we are on the flight to Tamale.

Airline: the flight is cancelled, what do you want to do?

Us: the screen over there (pointing to LCD) said everything is on time.

Airline: that is wrong, the flight is cancelled.

Us: what can we do?

Airline: you can ask for a refund or take a different flight.

Us: ok, let’s take the 4pm flight,

Airline: that flight is cancelled too.

Us: ok, when is the next flight?

Airline: there is a flight tomorrow at 6:00am

Us: ok, can you put us on that flight.

Airline: No, that flight is full.

Us: hmm, so when is the first flight that we can take to Tamale?

Airline: Wednesday.

Us: hmmm, ok, well, I guess we need a refund

Airline: Monday thru Friday

Us: (puzzled) what do you mean?

Airline: you can ask for a refund on Monday, when the financial office is open

Us: (protests and pleading)

Airline: ok, fill in the paperwork , and within 5 to 7 days we will process a refund

Us: ok.

Beth and I walked back out of the airport and back into the dust hanging in the air, blocking direct sunlight. Several minutes later Jeff pulled up. As we drove out of the airport, a security guard stopped us, After friendly introductions, some banter and some smiles all around, I was still perplexed. Why were we pulled over? More friendly talk between the security guard and Jeff provided no hints. Finally Jeff causally asked “is there a problem? What do you need?” The guard explained that no pickups were allowed at the departure level.

My mind replayed the drop off and pickup. Yup. Jeff had picked us up at the departure level after he looped around the airport. Jeff kindly explained our situation, and everyone was smiling, but he told us to wait for his boss. The commander wore a black sweater under a uniform vest. He was stern, but polite. The fine would be $30. Jeff explained that he was just dropping us off and didn’t have money with him. Smiling, the officer explained they would impound the truck. “I would like a receipt for the fine”. A third man who was now with us pulled out a small receipt book with yellowing pages and a bent spiral binding. More smiles. More discussion. We drove off without paying the fine. 

Back at the house, we started fresh plans.  To help sort out the possible next steps, Jeff and Laurie started calling people they knew. We have learned many times that Africa is relational, and the US is more transactional. Phone calls to the only other Tamale airline did not find us a seat. Jeff phoned a friend who gave us the number of another friend, who works for a bus company. 

Jeff and Laurie replied to the expressions clearly shared by our faces. “Oh, these are nice busses, you get your own seat”.  Indeed, they are very nice. At the bus company, we met Steve, the friend of a friend, who secured our seat on the bus. As I write this post from our comfy airline style seats we are bouncing and zigzagging our way north to meet Ray. The bus is 12 hours. We might arrive some time around 6am in Tamale. Thanks again Jeff and Laurie for the help getting north, and for the picnic basket and hospitality.

So… by morning we should be arriving in the north, ready for church — Ghanaian style,  there are few things as joyful sounding as a Ghanaian church, so we look forward to joining our friends in song.

A long long day.  It is 11pm, and I’ve foolishly made myself some instant Via coffee from Starbucks.  Ah, a familiar hot roasty bitterness to help prep for tomorrow.

Beth and I have complimentary skills and qualities.  I can gulp down some coffee and tweak files, scripts, and handle some email while she sleeps.  Beth can get up early and draft plans and outcomes for our work, sort out which components will be left with whom, and carefully track which speaker is recording what track.  On this sort of trip where she has been making plans for months, I like to tell people I’m her sidekick.  She denies it, and insists that I have it backwards.  But, to the Blog admin goes the narrative… I guess we will see if she remembers the password.

Our overnight bus pulled into a nearly abandoned gas station in Tamale at 5:00am.  The interior lights popped on, and everyone started scrambling out.  Beth and I watched as a scrum of tired riders unloaded the gigantic red Horn of Plenty. With my fuzzy sleep-deprived head still recovering from 12 hours of Nigerian soap operas blasted on screens during our adventure, watching the bus be unloaded felt I was somehow inside a Salvador Dali painting — roosters were crowing in the distance as I watched a baby bathtub stacked on a car bumper, stacked on a freezer, stacked on rolls of chicken wire emerge from the belly of our transport.  I knew at any second there would be a lobster phone.  There had to be a lobster phone and a melted clock to go with that baby bathtub and car bumper.  Finally, the cool air and some peppermint gum woke me up.  Beth and I, the only Oburoni (white people) on the bus or in the area, collected our luggage and patiently waited for Ray Mensah.

Ray arrived in his silver pickup and we spent a few minutes hugging, laughing, sorting out our next steps.

Thankfully, Ray had arranged for a guest house room where Beth and I could take a short 90 minute nap before cleaning up and packing for church.  By 10:00 we were on way to Pastor Monday’s church.

Immediately, in the daylight, all the sights, sounds, and smells of Northern Ghana blasted our senses.  Navy blue shirts, grey hoodies, and the black yoga pants of the western suburbs gave way to tangerine head coverings, fuchsia scarfs, hot pink dresses, neon green shirts, and patterns so intriguing Escher would be scratching his head.  Girls on motos whizzed by.  Yellow Yellows (auto rickshaws) darted in front of us.  Ladies zigzagged through the moving traffic with grocery stores carefully balanced in their heads.  Wow.  Africa.  

We joined the church as they were already singing, clapping, and dancing to the amplified sounds of singers, guitar players, bongos, and drum set.  We did our Oburoni best to groove to the music and clap on the right beats.  I noticed everyone smiling at me, but I’m confident it was because of the joyful rhythms and praise music.

Ray was the guest preacher and spoke enthusiastically to the small congregation.  The translator did his best to keep up in Dagbani with Ray’s energetic message – but there were times he just looked at Ray and grinned.  After church, we did some experimenting with the new Linux-based WiFi media distribution units we brought with us.  I’ll explain the tech later, but the first test went very well!  Thanks again for everyone’s help.  In the picture above, Beth is showing two men how to connect to the WiFi with their smartphones and download some of the sample media files we brought with us. One thing we did not expect was how many languages were represented, even in this small church.  While English was a common language for this urbanized area of Tamale, it seemed everyone’s native tongue was different.  Dagbani is the most common native language in this city, but we were asked if we had media in Buli, Twi, Komba, Konkomba, Mampruli, and six others by people who came up to talk to us.  In this area of Ghana, the last large city before the even more remote areas of the north feels like it could be NYC at the turn of the century, with people from dozens of different cultures and languages crammed together into one city.

After a delightful dinner of Jollof rice and chicken at Pastor Lewis’ house, we collapsed at the guest house.  Our bellies are full, our skin salty, our eyes a bit dry from the Harmattan, and our hearts full of the beautiful music.  A wonderful day indeed.

First. Let me apologize for missing the blog post yesterday.  As you know, sometimes schedules just get complex , and when it comes to Internet, food, and sleep, sometimes we only get to pick two.  Also, I apologize for the paucity of good photos.  We just have not had much time to wander the villages and see joyful faces.  But… I do have a few…

So, a quick catchup.

We left Tamale after picking up two friends who had travelled down from Burkina Faso.  They live in an area that is predominately Fulani, a nomadic tribe of millions that spans the Sahel region.  They were joining us to participate in the training and bring some of the equipment back up to near Ouagadougou, where they live.

Ray was happy to have me take the wheel and drove to Yendi and then turn North up through Zamashegu and on to Gushigu.  Like the previous evening, the traffic in Tamale was impossible.  Fortunately, we had downloaded an off-line map and rather than drive straight into the yellow yellow crash derby in the center of town, Beth called out directions from the back and I zigzagged through side streets dodging donkey carts, bicycles, motos, and kids playing.  At noon, near the equator, the overhead sun provided no assistance for dead reckoning though the labyrinth.  While I didn’t really expect a Minotaur, it is Africa, and I continue to be surprised.  

“Are we heading East?  We should pass a mosque and then a clinic, right?”  

The main road out of Tamale seemed so smooth and easy after emerging from the congestion.  I sped up and started weaving around the bicycles and 3-wheeled “motokings”.  The relatively new road felt like the Autobahn in comparison.  Within about 30 minutes, everyone was nodding in and out of sleep except the Fulani, who only spoke Fulfulde and French. Ray’s CD player in the truck was broken.  So, I pondered life, Africa, my family, quantum computing (seriously, why is everyone so enamored with it?), potholes, the size of the planet, the cost of a 12 hour bus fare from Accra to Tamale, the wonders of Gatorade when it is 106, and spent some time in prayer.  

By about 3:00 it was time for lunch. Rice is a common staple, but of course not grown around here. Yams. plantains. and cassava are the local starches. Banku, or fermented maize is a popular, gooey, slightly sour dough that is dipped in hot soup. It is an acquired taste :-)

In the evening after dark, we headed out into a small village about an hour north and into the bush. The town was quiet. In the far distance a few animals made themselves know, but the air was cool and peaceful. We were visiting a small church in the village, and several of Ray’s staff started setting up the screen for the evening movie — an African written and produced set of short movies called “Walking with Jesus”. The village was primarily Dagomba, and we were greeted by from the church and the curious from around town, who followed the music of a local choir that Beth and I had recorded a few years prior.

The town had one or two overhead lights that cast a yellow glow across the dirt plaza outside the church.

After the movie ended, and most of the tired babies and young children were carried, asleep in their mothers arms back to their homes, we stood under the stars and sang. The dust had finally settled, and in the cool air the majesty of the stars spread from horizon to horizon. Wow.

Most of the next day we spent working on the tech that the five motorcycle pastors use as they meet and teach people across northern Ghana. However we also had a chance to drop in on the local watering hole. In the dry season, the rivers stop and the lakes grow smaller each day. The water from the main mud pit is used primarily for washing clothes and construction. To gather drinking water, deep vertical shafts are dug so water can seep up. It is still dirty, but there is a treatment folks buy in town to clean the water, settle out the dirt and make it drinkable. OneWay distributes water filters to the most remote communities where chemical treatments are not practical.