Tomorrow is the Dumba festival; it is one of the Dagombas traditional celebrations. In preparation for tomorrow’s activities the men gather at the palace today and pick rice. They pour out large quantities of rice (hundreds of pounds) and pick the stones and other seeds out of the rice. As far as I know this is the only activity that has to do with food preparation that men do except slaughtering and butchering the animals. The rice will be cooked tomorrow. It will be over cooked so it can be formed into rice balls; one of my least favorite dishes; it is a textural thing. The soup usually has smoked dried fish added to it.
They will also slaughter a cow as part of the celebration but I think that the cow slaughtering will be done tomorrow. In preparation for the festival Nazo asked if he could change his days off and go help pick rice and be there for the full day of celebration tomorrow. When Mr. Iddrisu came to work we asked him if he needed to take off to go to the palace; he is the YaNa’s (King’s) nephew. At first he said that he would take off tomorrow but then he said if we didn’t mind he would take both days. The ladies that work here will take off tomorrow. Tichak, one of the watchmen is a Christian so he will not be participating in the celebration but Papa is a Dagomba and an elder for one of the palaces. Tichak will pick his holiday later.
The last time Steve drove the old van the clutch went out. Gomda had time to work on it today so Steve “limped” it to his workshop. I mean he had no clutch at all; he drove the 2 ½ miles to town in first gear. I was following him in the green truck; seriously think I could have walked faster than we were traveling! Gomda called this afternoon and said the clutch plate was broken (whatever that means) and he was looking around for one to replace it. He might have to send to Kumasi for one. It is amazing what they can make do with and without!
Zorash knows where the little girl lives that has some sort of something wrong with her hips and she uses a baby stroller to lean on when she walks. Zorash took the stroller to her house yesterday; her mother was not around but her grandmother was there. Zorash said the girl has learned to walk a little on her own; she walks a few yards before she falls over. At least she is trying to walk. The grandmother said that they will save the stroller until school resumes; the child has to walk a little way to school and the stroller is a great benefit to her. They were happy with the used stroller.
Steve is outside pumping water from the reservoir / cistern up into one of the poly tanks. We are sad to report that even after all that work earlier this year the cistern is still leaking. It is not leaking as much as it was before but it is still leaking. We did not pour a new cement floor in the cistern; maybe the floor is cracked. When the dry season comes we will re-floor it and hope it stops the leak.
Thank you for your prayers and support.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
