An upbeat celebration

We were walking down a rural road in central Ghana on Easter Sunday when we heard drums being played in the distance. Janet’s mother is visiting and she had just bought a drum, so she was quite excited to see where the sounds were coming from. We headed toward the closest town a half a kilometer away. On the way, though, the sounds stopped; we walked into the town centre and there wasn’t a drum to be seen or heard.

It was getting dark so we began walking back to our hotel. The drumming began again five minutes later. It grew so loud we thought it might be a parade of drummers marching toward us. We stopped a man on the road and asked him if he knew where the sound was coming from. He said it was from a town several kilometers away. Drumming is an important part of the culture here. But we’ve only been exposed to it at funerals so far, so Janet asked if that’s what it was for. “No, just for happiness,” he said and went on his way.

- Mark