DAMBA and Richmond Big and Strong

DAMBA was this weekend,  it is the Dagomba tribe New Year festival.

Everyone told me to go to Kumbungu Damba celebration because he is a big Chief and the celebration would be big.  Instead I went to Dalun, even though its further, it is where my women are and they invited me to come.

So I show up at Rabi's house.  Rabi is the leader of the To Bom Yem VSLA group.  Rabi gave me a black and white woven two yard to wrap around my waist and a matching piece to go across my shoulder.  Then she wrapped my head with a white scarf and I backed baby Richmond Big and Strong.

So off we went to greet the Chief but we greeted the wives first and  never got around to the Chief.  This was m y favorite part.  Walking into the Chief's compound, there are a number of thatch roof mud huts, one for each of the ten wives.  The Chief is old, probably 100 years old and his wives ages range from probably 25 to 90?  I'd guess?

We went into each hut as the women here getting ready for the celebration.  It felt a lot like college.  Being a Chief's wife, its like being a sorority.  Everyone was getting their hair done, or their make up, or running to bath.  Each hut had a four poster bed, closets full of clothes and cabinets full of decorative cook wear. 

In one of the houses I met Sanatu.  I totally forgot she was a Chief's wife.  I have worked with her on the farms this past year.  We came to greet her in her bra and underwear but no one seemed to mind.  All the wives were so beautiful, each with pretty gold jewelry on and pretty fabrics with golden threads.  

So then the celebrations start.  On big circle of onlookers with dancing and drumming in the middle.  Then Chief comes out with his entourage and they sit in a big group, all the Wives follow and sit in a line in the chairs of the circle.  It just so happened that I got to sit next to all the Wives!  Right next to Sanatu.

There were two other white girls there, I'm sure they are teachers or volunteers here for a couple weeks.  They looked a little clueless.  I sat opposite them with Rahima on my lap and Rabi to my right and as the festival went on I was greeted by most of the women in our VSLA group.  Everyone loved my outfit.

Every time a Wife danced the people went crazy.  One time a daughter danced, she was so beautiful, she wore this woven cloth of light blue, light yellow and gold stripes.  She didn't even have the cloth sewn into a dress, it was just wrapped around her like a two yard, and she had yards of wrapped around her head.

Then they starting shooting off the guns and babies started crying and the sun started setting so I rode home.

On my way home I stopped by Coni's shop again, told her all about Damba.  She said she went to Kumbungu but had to turn and come back because the bees were really bad and stinging people.  In fact, people had to be hospitalized.

This is a crazy thing because Kumbungu Chief is known for his bees.  Kumbungu has the bees, its their thing.  At ceremonies, Kumbungu Chief takes bees with him in a pot.  Coni said people were insulting him because he could not control the bees and Chiefs are supposed to have some kind of power over that.

Today I came into town and stopped for a coke at my friend Memuna's place.  She said some wicked people had shot the hive at Kumbungu and disturbed the bees.  She said no, Chief cannot control the bees but these bees that attacked, and the Kumbungu bees are different.  She said the Kumbungu bees, you will never see, they do not come out.  They are not the same as the wild bees.  The Kumbungu bees only come out in times of war or trouble.

She said the bees have been with Kumbungu since "Chief, Chief, Chief, up until now.  You understand."  I nodded.

As I left Memuna's place she said "Friend, you are getting fat."  I nodded.

Thanks Memuna.  

Success

Last night I found myself in town having just missed the last bus to village.  There I was thinking about stressing when I saw the Kings Village truck.  I had to make some calls but got the drivers number and was able to come home in the truck.

I have begged rides home in the truck before, but usually the truck is full and I feel guilty for asking a favor.  Last night it was just Joe and I, he had to run last minute to pick something from town.  We were also picking up our friend Judith.  There was such comfort in riding back to village in the truck.  But the comfort wasn’t from the fact that it was a private car, a goat free car, a noise free car, it was something else.  Joe is my age and here we were in town, on no ones schedule, free to pick all the things we needed without worry as to carrying it from the roadside or on our lap for the ride home.  And yet, it is still more.  It felt good to drive out of crazy town into the country, back to home, to calm, to dark sky and yellow moon.  But what occurred to me in the glow of those glorious little working dashboard lights  is how much I do miss real relationships.  Just being, just chilling, not feeling guilty about taking or asking, or guilty for cultural insensitivities, just to sit in this truck and drive home with my friends talking about what is happening in their lives.  It felt good.

SUCCESS.  The only project I have going in Peace Corps right now is weekly meetings with a women’s group in Dalun, a village five miles away.  After everyone learned to write their names, and we learned numeracy, we started a Village Savings and Loan Association VSLA.  I love these women because they are always there when I ask them to be.  They named their group Ti Bom Yem, We Seek Knowledge.  They are the best.  I was discouraged recently because after we set rules for the group, women must run to the roadside and back if they are late, people did not show up.  The first week it was market day so I understood low attendance, but the second week just made me fear for the continuation of the group. 

This week, it took an hour but everyone showed up!  I did not care, I did not even tell them to run, I was just thrilled they were there.  We elected a Chair Person who will run the meetings, we handed out personal record books and every woman gave a thumbprint for every two cedis she has contributed.  The money counter counted the money, everyone memorized the amount, the three key holders locked the box and done!  We had completed our first successful savings meeting.  In a couple weeks we will talk about how to borrow loans from the group.

These women are the only reason I am still here.  Their group name alone gives me hope for them.  Oh you want knowledge?  I will bring the knowledge!  They want to learn how to make soap.  I’m also going to show them/talk about mushroom cultivation AND show them my bread baking solar oven when it is finished.

On the way home, I was so elated.  Then I saw my friend Alex, he is the Kings Village handy man, broken down on the bi-water road.  So I stopped and talked to him for a little bit while a small boy fixed his flat tire.  I thought about how nine months ago, I would not have known Alex and I would have ridden right by him.  My bike seat keeps falling down, he says he will fix it and that he likes fried rice, so have some when he comes.

Riding into Kings Village, I decided to stop at Coni’s shop.  Usually I am so tired or hungry and I just want to get home so I can sit and browse the internet or watch a movie or something totally reclusive.  But Coni was sitting there and we were talking, so I bought a coke and I sat there for hours with her.  She shared her dinner with me, I bought eggs, we talked and then I helped her close up shop. 

This is what killed me a little bit.  Closing up Coni’s little food stuffs and cold drinks shop felt a lot like closing up Vienna Coffee Shop all those late late nights in college.  She has complained about being lonely at the shop.  She was going to start selling kabobs just so she could hire someone to run it and she would have someone to talk to.

I honestly enjoyed the evening.  It felt like integration.  I’ve a fellow PCV who said “It’s all about the relationships.  This experience, it’s really just about the relationships you make.”  It’s true.

I feared loneliness before coming and come to find out, I just wanted to be left alone.  I feel like people want to talk to me all the time.  When people are knocking on your door all the time, calling your phone all the time and you just want to be left in peace, you think “I’m not lonely, in fact, everyone leave me alone!”  But until you have a truly social moment with a friend, and you aren’t there because you have to be or because you want their food or because you feel it is your duty to socialize and you are strategically planning when it is acceptable to leave and what excuse you will give to get away, you do not realize how lonely you are.

Coni says I can run her shop sometimes, but she cannot pay me.  I do not mind this idea at all.  This is community.  This is giving.  This is living.  It is social and it is love and I am lucky.  That thought came to mind while sitting and chatting tonight.  How lucky I am to have done this.  How proud I am to be a PCV and be among my peers.  As much as I hate it sometimes, it is my dream job.  Even though I thought about leaving when I thought the women’s group was on the edge of collapse.  Or when my full grown garden was dug up and replaced by my neighbor’s onion nursery.  Or any number of things that happen on a daily basis that you just hate.

Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul.

And sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.

Emily Dickenson