Today was the first day of the Damba festival. It is one of the biggest festivals that the Dagomba tribe celebrates. It is difficult to ascertain exactly what they are celebrating because they try to tie it to Mohammed and the Muslim religion but the rest of the Muslims in the world are not celebrating it. Others say that it is from their ancestors. We had not sent a gift to the Ya-Naa since we arrived in Ghana in August so we took the opportunity to send a gift of rice, oil and money to the palace this afternoon. Nazo called this morning and told us that he would not be coming to work because he had to go to the palace since he is one of the king’s messengers. We were not aware that the festival was taking place so when we found out that he and Mr. Iddrisu were both going we seized the opportunity to send our gift with them. It was a win- win situation for us. All we had to do was buy a 100 pound bag of rice and 5 gallons of cooking oil before the guys got ready to take it at 2:00pm.
It took us a while to find the rice and the oil because the vendors we usually buy from were either not open (probably because of the festival) or they had sold out. We hunted around for about an hour before we found some. This afternoon Steve made up the envelopes of money to send with the gift. The motor king would not start so Steve took Mr. Iddrisu, Nazo and the food stuff to town and hired a yellow-yellow to take them to the palace. A yellow-yellow is a small three wheeled vehicle that people use like a taxi.
The guys were not gone very long and they came back with a monetary gift for us. The Ya-Naa had given them 50 Cedis (almost 10 dollars) to give back to us as a way of saying thank you for the gift we gave. Nazo explained that the return gift is a way of keeping the messenger that delivers the gift honest. If a gift is not sent back then the one that sent the gift will suspect that the messenger kept the gift for himself. Steve divided the gift between Nazo and Mr. Iddrisu. They were pleased with the extra money.
Steve got the weather station hung back up this afternoon and it appears to be working. The temperature was 90 degrees this afternoon with a heat index of 107 degrees.
Thank you for all you do for us and the work. Please keep us in your prayers.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
