A Day at Dipale School

Tuesday we went to Dipale school and visited Mr. Babamo's P5 class. They drew pictures of their houses, family, and things around their homes. We will send their pictures to our friend Blair's 5th grade class in Moore, OK.

Dipale school Kindergarten classroom, surprisingly there is only one goat on the school ground.

The students drawing their pictures.

Mr. Babamo talking to the students.
The students with their final works of art. We took pictures of a few so you could see all of their hard work.

We had a lot of fun with the kids. The kids loved it. There are no art classes in the school, so it was a great opportunity for them to exercise their creativity.

Fire Festival

We may have a new favorite holiday! Last week was the Dagomba fire festival, Bugum Chugu. To celebrate,the whole village assembles in front of the chief's palace around eight. Everyone has long torches made of bound grass. The kids in each family spend the day making them for their relatives. Our counterpart Ibrahim's children made them for us. The drummers begin to drum to announce the arrival of the elders. Traditionally the chief would come out and light the first torch, but since our chief is sick, one of the elders started ours. Then everyone lights their torch off of the first one and begins to march through town, singing and dancing. The young men of the village are at the heart of the parade with the drummers, dressed in traditional clothes. There faces are covered in ash and they carry machetes, guns, tools, or juju sticks. Every so often the parade will stop moving and the young men will test their strength by screaming and pushing each other over. It is really crazy and the women, children, and everyone else backs away during this time. At the end of the procession there is a tree in which everyone throws their torch on to light it on fire. After the tree is set on fire everyone walks back to the village. They gather fresh branches from shea and neem trees raising them while singing and dancing all the way to the chiefs palace. After the chief's palace, the drummers lead everyone to different compounds. People run into the compounds and water is thrown on them. We went all through the village, sprinting through the dark. It was a blast. Living in a village with no electricity made this celebration that much cooler. So our videos kind of really suck, because it was so dark and dusty. Also it is really difficult to film while holding a giant torch and it was way more exciting to participate than record it. We went ahead and posted them for you to look at. There is no way to show how amazing this was.

The Garden

We haven't taken nearly enough photos of the farm. Here are a few before and after photos.

Right now we are growing okra, cabbage, aleefu and bra. Aleefu and bra are both leafy greens used in soup. They both can be used like we would use spinach.

This is the garden/farm just as we began weeding

Here are two beds we built

Scott and Ibraheam harvesting aleefu from one of the beds a few monthes later

Jennifer with Ibraheam carrying aleefu to be sent to Tunayili school

This is bra just before harvest

Some girls from Dipale Primary School harvesting bra