August 2

Dagbamete is a beautiful village. We will spend our last 10 days here. It is not half as rustic as I was expecting. The people don’t have much, but the buildings are in good repair and the streets are clean. As always, we are followed everywhere by a gaggle of young children, who were very excited to see the soccer ball I brought.

                Our host and drumming instructor is called Kwasi, and he is both formidable and wise, with a twinkle of humor and understanding. Our start up lesson today indicated that we are in the hands of yet another drumming master. He had some great lines that I should remember for my own practice.

-          The happier you are, the better your grade

-          If you do not understand, that is my problem. It is my job to solve that problem for you.

-          Never say you can’t do something. If somebody can do it, you can do it because you are a somebody.

The Kathy Armstrong Lodge, the village guest house where we are staying, is quite lovely. It’s cleaner and better kept than most of the hotels we have stayed at. A hot meal is served to us three times a day in the common area. It remids me a lot of the Gros Morne Cottage Hospital Hostel in Newfoundland.  I wonder how many visitors this place gets in a year?