A set of triplets came to visit us today. They were 4 ½ months old and all girls. The mother had her hands full! They were doing well but the mother was worried that she would not have enough milk to feed all the babies. The Ghana government does not want the mothers to feed the babies anything except breast milk or formula unless absolutely necessary. We encouraged her to hang in there for a little longer and when they pass 6 months she can feed them anything she wants.
Nazo did not come to work to weave thatch today because he wanted to attend the festivities at the palace. Today is the day that they are going to enskin the regent. This is the regent (oldest son) of the late Ya-Naa. They are giving him the chieftaincy of a village on the other side of Tamale. It is a very good village to be the chief/king of because if tradition is followed he is the second in line to become the Ya-Naa. When the new Ya-Naa dies the palace will go to the Mion-lana and after he dies the regent would take his place. He is no longer called the regent; he is now called Savalugu-Naa. Yesterday he was presented with kola nuts which he accepted as a sign that he was willing to become the Savalugu-Naa and today he is going to be presented with an animal skin. In this area the kings/chiefs do not sit on thrones or stools like they do in the south; they sit on animal skins. Today he will be en-skinned. Nazo will be full of information when he comes to work tomorrow. We will have to go and greet him and give him a gift. We hope to visit him before he goes to Tamale. He just lives around the corner from us and we walk past his house every morning when we take our walk. When he built his house we allowed him to tap our water line. We have known him for years but we can’t just walk up and knock on his door; we will have to follow the traditions.
The mango trees are looking good. If you remember last year we were afraid that we were going to lose them to fire blight and insect damage but they are full, green and bearing lots of fruit. Now if we could do something about the bats. There are so many bats that they are eating about half the fruit. Steve attacks them every day with his sling shot but the tree is so big they just fly from one side to the other.
We spent the afternoon working on the books. BORING!
Take care and have a great day!
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
