This morning I woke up to my phone ringing. At 7. Okay, its true that a lot of Ghanaians get up and about at 5 or 6, but I prefer not to. Anyway, I answered the phone and ended up hearing that there would be a composer coming to the Dagbani Language Project for me to meet at 8:30. I said I would be there. After jumping in the car with my host father, I let out a complaint about why they couldn't give me just a little more notice! He reminded me that patience is necessary to survive in Africa. He always has a million things to do, yet he manages to do them gracefully until it reaches a certain point. He told me how you can get really worn out if you don't put on your "shock absorbers." It's so true. You need some heavy duty shock absorbers to deal with life here sometimes.
Funny. Shock absorbers sound a lot like God. "Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall." Psalm 55:22
I think I've been learning to let my shock absorbers take more of the shock instead of trying to absorb it all myself!
Monday, September 17, 2012
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Lessons at the University
The most fun thing I've been doing the last 2 weeks has definitely been my music and dance classes that I've been taking at the University of Ghana: Legon. Since I'm kind of in an in between phase right now, we decided it would be a good idea for me to get some ethnomusicology experience by taking some private lessons at the Performing Arts School! I've enjoyed every minute of it!
I signed up for xylophone, drumming, and dancing lessons for each day for the past 2 weeks. I didn't really know what to expect, but I've gotten so much out of it. Everyday, I headed out to the University around 8:30. I bargained for my taxi and directed them to the place and mostly didn't get ripped off! And I've gotten really good at explaining to my taxi drivers why I won't give them my phone number or buy them a ticket to America! haha. When I got to the University, I didn't have specific locations to find my teachers at or specific times where I knew I could find them! So I would look around and ask for help until I found my first teacher, and then look around for my 2nd, etc. It was actually not that annoying to track down my teachers everyday, and I met a lot of people in between!
Xylophone
My xylophone teacher was a young guy (I think a graduate student). Each day we carried the heavy xylophones outside under a big tree in the back for my lessons. The xylophone here has wooden keys with gourds of corresponding sizes situated under them to amplify the sound. Each gourd has some holes in it covered with spider web which helps create the buzzing speaker effect. It is a really interesting instrument. And it is pentatonic. At my lessons, I got to learn several traditional songs which I played with my teacher. One person does the lead part while the other person does the accompanying parts. The music is really beautiful! Here is a picture of us playing together:
Drumming
My drum teacher taught me the drum patterns to 3 traditional Ghanaian dances. These were definitely the most difficult lessons I took because I both don't have a lot of drumming experience, and I often found my Western rhythmical training blocking me from easily picking up the African rhythms. I worked really hard though and came out triumphant! It's been a nice challenge to have to throw out so much of my musical education in order to learn this music. A good reminder that musical knowledge is incredibly broad. Much of the drumming I learned was done with both sticks and with hand drumming so I (mostly) learned how to effectively hold two sticks in one hand while hand drumming with the other hand! Tricky. Here's a picture of me playing the drum:
Dancing
I learned the corresponding dances to the drum patterns I learned which was very useful since it both gave me a better understanding of the dancing and the dancing gave me a better understanding of the drumming! I was most excited about dancing because I've always loved African dance. It was no disappointment. My teacher was really fun and she taught me well. She also taught me the songs that are sung during parts of the dances. So we spent a lot of time dancing and singing together! On the side, she even taught me some traditional songs on the flute here too! Here are some pictures of me dancing in the corresponding costumes for each of the dances I learned!
Bima
Gota
Gahu
I signed up for xylophone, drumming, and dancing lessons for each day for the past 2 weeks. I didn't really know what to expect, but I've gotten so much out of it. Everyday, I headed out to the University around 8:30. I bargained for my taxi and directed them to the place and mostly didn't get ripped off! And I've gotten really good at explaining to my taxi drivers why I won't give them my phone number or buy them a ticket to America! haha. When I got to the University, I didn't have specific locations to find my teachers at or specific times where I knew I could find them! So I would look around and ask for help until I found my first teacher, and then look around for my 2nd, etc. It was actually not that annoying to track down my teachers everyday, and I met a lot of people in between!
Xylophone
My xylophone teacher was a young guy (I think a graduate student). Each day we carried the heavy xylophones outside under a big tree in the back for my lessons. The xylophone here has wooden keys with gourds of corresponding sizes situated under them to amplify the sound. Each gourd has some holes in it covered with spider web which helps create the buzzing speaker effect. It is a really interesting instrument. And it is pentatonic. At my lessons, I got to learn several traditional songs which I played with my teacher. One person does the lead part while the other person does the accompanying parts. The music is really beautiful! Here is a picture of us playing together:
Drumming
My drum teacher taught me the drum patterns to 3 traditional Ghanaian dances. These were definitely the most difficult lessons I took because I both don't have a lot of drumming experience, and I often found my Western rhythmical training blocking me from easily picking up the African rhythms. I worked really hard though and came out triumphant! It's been a nice challenge to have to throw out so much of my musical education in order to learn this music. A good reminder that musical knowledge is incredibly broad. Much of the drumming I learned was done with both sticks and with hand drumming so I (mostly) learned how to effectively hold two sticks in one hand while hand drumming with the other hand! Tricky. Here's a picture of me playing the drum:
I learned the corresponding dances to the drum patterns I learned which was very useful since it both gave me a better understanding of the dancing and the dancing gave me a better understanding of the drumming! I was most excited about dancing because I've always loved African dance. It was no disappointment. My teacher was really fun and she taught me well. She also taught me the songs that are sung during parts of the dances. So we spent a lot of time dancing and singing together! On the side, she even taught me some traditional songs on the flute here too! Here are some pictures of me dancing in the corresponding costumes for each of the dances I learned!
Bima
Gota
Gahu
A long-awaited Update
Hello friends!
I've had many intentions of writing blog posts, but I've failed miserably. I see it's been a month now! Sorry for the long wait. You deserve a bit of an update.
Near the end of August, I left Nkwanta to spend a week and a half in Accra. I needed to see the doctor about a potential blod clot in my arm and then I was going to join up with the Wycliffe Discovery Team for some of their debriefing talks. My visit with the doctor did confirm that I had a clot in my arm so I got passed on to a specialist to see whether it was serious or not. After a 4 hour wait, an hour long ultrasound, and another few hours wait for the results, I found out that my deep veins were fine. It was only my superficial veins that were not working because of damage from the IV at the hospital and the medicine injected into my arm. Fortunately, nothing too serious. Unfortunately, my veins are still not working. Guess it takes quite awhile to heal... (No pain anymore, though, so that's good.)
With all the medical issues I was dealing with, we decided to have me spend a longer time in Accra. Eventually we decided that it would be better for me to move on to a different project instead of going back to Nkwanta. God has been incredibly faithful through this transition so far. When I left Nkwanta, it was actually right after finishing the recording of the newly composed Akyode worship songs. Therefore, I had already a finished a big project there. Right now we are planning on me continuing to Tamale to do similar work with a different ethnic group there. More on that when I know when I'm leaving and where I'll be staying!
In the meantime, I've been staying at a missionary family's house in Accra. Ed and Dayle Lauber are both working at the new GILLBT office here and so I've been able to spend some more time with GILLBT staff which has been valuable since it has taught me much more about the organization that I am interning with. I've spent some times at the office and have gotten to speak with the director about some possiblities of creating an ethnodoxology related program as a part of GILLBT. It has been very encouraging to say how he and others here see this music and arts work as so exciting and so crucial to the further development of the church in Ghana! It is exciting to be here at this time!
At home with the Laubers, I've gotten lots of time to rest and recooperate! They have welcomed me in as part of their family which has been wonderful. Dayle and I have enjoyed playing Settlers of Catan and Cribbage together many times! I've learned a lot about missionary life while being here and it has been really interesting. It's amazing how much there is to learn no matter where you are! Thanks for all your prayers during these past few months!
I've had many intentions of writing blog posts, but I've failed miserably. I see it's been a month now! Sorry for the long wait. You deserve a bit of an update.
Near the end of August, I left Nkwanta to spend a week and a half in Accra. I needed to see the doctor about a potential blod clot in my arm and then I was going to join up with the Wycliffe Discovery Team for some of their debriefing talks. My visit with the doctor did confirm that I had a clot in my arm so I got passed on to a specialist to see whether it was serious or not. After a 4 hour wait, an hour long ultrasound, and another few hours wait for the results, I found out that my deep veins were fine. It was only my superficial veins that were not working because of damage from the IV at the hospital and the medicine injected into my arm. Fortunately, nothing too serious. Unfortunately, my veins are still not working. Guess it takes quite awhile to heal... (No pain anymore, though, so that's good.)
With all the medical issues I was dealing with, we decided to have me spend a longer time in Accra. Eventually we decided that it would be better for me to move on to a different project instead of going back to Nkwanta. God has been incredibly faithful through this transition so far. When I left Nkwanta, it was actually right after finishing the recording of the newly composed Akyode worship songs. Therefore, I had already a finished a big project there. Right now we are planning on me continuing to Tamale to do similar work with a different ethnic group there. More on that when I know when I'm leaving and where I'll be staying!
In the meantime, I've been staying at a missionary family's house in Accra. Ed and Dayle Lauber are both working at the new GILLBT office here and so I've been able to spend some more time with GILLBT staff which has been valuable since it has taught me much more about the organization that I am interning with. I've spent some times at the office and have gotten to speak with the director about some possiblities of creating an ethnodoxology related program as a part of GILLBT. It has been very encouraging to say how he and others here see this music and arts work as so exciting and so crucial to the further development of the church in Ghana! It is exciting to be here at this time!
At home with the Laubers, I've gotten lots of time to rest and recooperate! They have welcomed me in as part of their family which has been wonderful. Dayle and I have enjoyed playing Settlers of Catan and Cribbage together many times! I've learned a lot about missionary life while being here and it has been really interesting. It's amazing how much there is to learn no matter where you are! Thanks for all your prayers during these past few months!
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