Dawn's Blog

Contrary to what the title may have suggested, this post has almost nothing to do with shoes, except that I was wearing them during most of my adventures.

When I last posted, I was in the midst of a quarter-life crises. And while the crisis has not been resolved, I'm feeling a lot more at peace about my future. God has given me some really awesome people around me that have shared a lot of wisdom and been praying for me. Still no where near a decision, but feeling at peace about things.

I should probably tell you about Drum and Dance Camp. I spent 5 days last week in the mountains of North Carolina learning about African drumming, dancing, and various other things from some of the most talented African drummers in the world.  Highlights included:

• Learning to play the balafon (wooden xylophone) and performing it with a group in the talent show. 
• Learning new songs on the Djembe and just generally having an awesome time playing it. 
• Performing with our group from Douglasville (someone told us we won the Ms. Congeniality award)
• Learning African dancing and performing it in the talent show. Also, watching my friend Austin dance may have been the funniest and most awesome thing I have ever seen. 
• Experiencing some of God's most beautiful creation. 
• Successfully organizing a silent auction fundraiser. 
• Getting a small taste of some genuine West African culture. 

It was also probably the most time I have gone without wearing shoes in my whole life. So my shoes spent most of their secret life under my bed; not very exciting.

Shortly after my return, I went on another drumming trip. We took a group of the kids from Inner Harbour up to Helen GA (refer to previous posts) to perform for an arts festival they were having for the local school kids.  Highlight of this trip: my awesome drum solos got me the nickname "Thunder Hands".

In other news, wildlife in the woods is out in full force. We find scorpions in our breezeway a few times a week, and we've kept a couple as pets. We are still looking for good name ideas. They're actually pretty cool pets, we threw a moth in with them the other day and it was pretty cool to watch them catch it.

I think that's all I'll include for now. Happy Sunday!

As many of you know, I spent this weekend making a drum. A djembe, to be exact. I have yet to name her, so if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. Anyway, here's a quick summary of the drum-making process:

1. Obtain a hand-carved drum shell (the wood part) and a goat skin from Africa.
2. Give the shell a couple layers of wood stain.
3. Cover the three metal rings (two for the top and one for the bottom) with colorful fabric strips.
4. Tie loops of rope around one top and one bottom ring.
5. Put the wet goat skin on top of the drum between the top two rings.
6. Run rope back and forth between the loops on the top and bottom.
7. Using some clever lever action, pull this rope really tight so the skin has a lot of tension on it.
8. Cut off the excess goat skin and make the edge look pretty.
9. Repeat step 7 again the next day when the skin has dried.

The most challenging part for me was trying to pull the ropes to make the drum head tight. Apparently my entire body weight pushing down on the lever is not enough force to do it well, so I kept having to get help. And at one point the rope actually snapped and we had to tie it back together. But other than that I am very pleased with my drum and excited to use it. It was by far the best drum-making workshop I have ever been to.