We have been inundated with gun fire again today! It is threatening to rain; I hope that it does because if it rains the people will have to go back home. This festival is mostly an outdoor event. The people are supposed to dance all night! Last year Donkey said that he did not stay up all night because he had to come to work the next day and he would have been too tired to work. I think that was a hint that we should let him have the day after the Dumba festival off but we did not take the bait!
Zorash had to leave work early today because one of the NGO (non-government organizations) is trying to figure out the best way to give certain communities motor kings for the community to use as small ambulances to transport the sick and women that are in labor to the hospital. We are not involved in the project but we can tell you what is going to happen; in 2 years the motor kings will no longer run because no one did any maintenance on them and someone used them as a truck to haul goods back and forth from the farm to the market. She said they have to sit and meet to decide who is going to be the driver, where it will be parked, how much they will charge to use it and how much the community is going to have to contribute monthly to pay for the fuel and the driver. Sounds like a mess!
Mr. Iddrisu and Donkey arrived at the mission house wearing their long fugu smocks. A fugu is the traditional dress of the Dagomba people. They are made from 3 ½ inch strips of handwoven fabric. Each fugu contains yards and yards of fabric. The bottom half of the fugu is like a full round skirt. The men twirl when they dance and the fugu flows out into a big circle around them. Donkey had on several fugu smocks today. The more fugu that a man wears the prettier his dancing will be. The fugu are different colors so when he twirls you can see all the fugu smocks underneath. Donkey said that the fugu are very heavy and that just walking with all that weight makes you tired. I can’t imagine how hot they are! I imagine they are particularly stinky too because no one really washes a fugu because they are so heavy and would take a long time to dry. They say that they wash them by turning them inside out and sun drying them. I guess that would help some but really no one is wearing deodorant! Need I say more?
We got the Social Welfare report edited this afternoon; Steve is in the process of making copies and correlating it. He has to make 4 copies; he used to only make 3 copies but the new lawyer has asked for a copy.
Have a good day!
In HIS Service,
Steve, Kandie and Skeeter
The Monkeyshines
Mom and Dad took their morning walk inside the compound this morning so I could walk with them. Half way through the walk Mom and I got tired and stopped walking; we were still moving but Dad left us in his dust. He was actually walking; we were just messing around. When I get tired of walking, I just hop a ride on someone’s shoulder; poor Mom, she is too big to be carried! We started hunting for grasshoppers! Now that is 100 times more fun than walking around in circles. I actually caught 2 grasshoppers all by myself this morning. Mom caught a couple for me; I don’t particularly like her way of catching them; she slaps her hand down on them which kills them; then she hands me a squished grasshopper; does she not know the juice in the stomach is the best part? She did show me a spider in his web; I grabbed that so quickly! Yum!
I learned how to climb up on the roof of the Child Center by using the sewer exhaust pipe. The best part is coming down; I hold on to the 4-inch plastic pipe and slide to the bottom! It is great fun! Mom moved me away from the pipe this morning because I broke one of the brackets loose. She said I could not go back up there until Dad anchored it back to the wall; she is afraid it will crack and break off.
I’m a fireman; I have a pole to slide down!
Love, Fireman Skeeter
