The Day of Dancing

This morning, I woke up at 4AM to the drone of the fan circulating the air in my room. Once I turned off the fan around 4:30AM, I could actually hear all the noises: the Muslim call prayer, the frogs, the roosters and guinea fowls, and then… a downpour. It was pouring rain so hard, the noise of it hitting the tin roof was deafeningly peaceful (can that happen??). It eventually lightened up and Barbara, Martha, Thomas and I went to Sacred Heart Cathedral for morning mass. It was a beautiful mass with the gospel and homily both repeated in the local language. The sound of the congregation singing was one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard - I have no doubt that they were singing from the soul because there were so much passion in their voices.
Afterwards, we participated in morning prayer with the seminarians, and then shared breakfast with them. I had a simple breakfast consisting of a huge cup of my Nescafe coffee and some bread. There was also oats and one of the fathers was eating rice balls (breakfast of champions!). This particular father was in the seminary at the same time Thomas was back in the day, but was further along in his studies. The two of them constantly and heartily joked around - as if they never spent a day apart. We also ate with Father David who was the head of youth at that Cathedral, and he has been ordained for nearly 2 years now. I believe that Father Moses is the pastor of this community; however, since he was on retreat, he was not there to share breakfast with us. Nonetheless, It was a rather delightful morning.
From here we went back to the hotel to pick up the others, with the addition of Mohammed, Paul and Alexis - CRS staff members. I went in the car with Mohammed, Paul and Alexis - a great good of fun guys that taught me a lot about the area, the crops, the trees, the plants that we were passing on the way to the village of Bongo-Kuyellingo. At the particular village, where, let me remind you, there was absolutely no electricity, there is the comprehensive program supported by CRS: there is the school feeding program, a bore hole, and a clinic. The school was much like the school we visited earlier in the trip where the children get both a lunch and a snack, after bringing a stick for the fire, of course. The bore hole is a water pump that provides clean water, and with it comes the sanitation committee made up of locals who are in charge of maintaining the cleanliness of the pump. The clinic provided health care to the children - immunizations, check ups, etc. While we were walking amoungst these three parts of the village, there was a constant drum beat in the background. Well, at one point, after Sarah had started a small parade with by dancing with all the children, the friendly and joyous woman who was carrying a bench on her head disappeared into the fields with much excitement. When she reappeared, she was followed by a handful of young men beating the drums. With this, the dancing commenced. The local women slowly gravitated into a circle and began singing songs. They were singing in their local language (not many spoke English around here - only the CRS staff members and the teachers) songs that translated into messages of “friendly stranger, you are welcome” “thank you white person” etc. It rings true what Sarah said about this moment during reflection tonight - you just forget about everything and live in the moment. This was definitely one of those moments. As the ladies were gathering into a circle… they would then proceed to pull you into the circle, all the while trying to make you to dance. Unfortunately, I was not caught up to speed to the rhythm of the drum (much less any rhythm at all?!?) and looked absolutely ridiculous. Nonetheless… I think we made a good impression. The words of Elizabeth describing the situation are absolutely my favorite picture of this day: All the elders of the tribe, as we were communicating to them through a translator, remained stoic, proper, and regal… but then… Sarah and I started dancing… and they could NOT stop laughing. They nearly fell out of their chairs. Everyone around us sides were pretty much splitting - reference the pictures (there is nothing but big smiles and hearty laughter caught in the frames).
From here, we went to TierTaar for lunch where I had some chicken and chips (aka french fries) along with a Schweppes. It was good and plain. We returned to the Comme Ci Comme Ca hotel where we had a nap time - but I decided to seize the moment and sit under the trees with Rashid and Thomas and we enjoyed a beer. When Thomas left to settle the bills, Rashid and I had a conversation comparing some differences between the USA and Ghana - ranging from ipods to airfare, schools to money in general. From here Thomas wanted to go back to the Cathedral to prepare and secure everything for that night so I accompanied him and Rashid there to get a coffee. We shared a few jokes, had some good coffee and soon returned to the hotel. We picked up the rest and went back to the Cathedral for drumming and dancing with the youth group. Here, I continued to make a fool of myself. The dancing, however, was absolutely mind-blowing. These teens were stomping their bare feet into the dirt, and into the concrete. The drummers could watch whoever was dancing and know exactly how to play the drums… it was like a secret code of drumming/dancing. Fascinating.
We enjoyed dinner at the hotel where I had a chicken kabob and some yam chips. We ended the meal with some fresh fruit, which was absolutely divine - bananas, mangos, oranges. With that, I returned to my room and slept soundly.

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