I stitched together 10 photos I took of the edge of the Nakpanduri escarpment and the vast savanna below it. Supposedly you can see the borders of Burkina Faso and Togo way off in the distance.

Click the image to the right to load it in a new window. Watch out! It’s looooong.

Everyone remembers the old Snow White song “Whistle While You Work” right? Today it was “Drum While You Work” as tons of BMC employees (again wearing their matching t-shirts & caps) descended on “downtown” Nalerigu for community service. The drummers pounded out a rhythm and the workers half-danced, half-swept the central area up.

This part of town is always littered with tons of trash since it serves as the bus station and vendors sell snacks and foods all around. I was impressed with their very fast and effective method. The women would line up, march forward, and sweep with the drummers behind them. After sweeping a while the ends of the line would move in until they formed a circle. Then, voila! a perfect pile of trash that the men would scoop up with shovels.

Nakpanduri is a village about 45 minutes northeast of Nalerigu where there is an amazing escarpment. Heidi and I visited it last year with Elisabeth Faile and today I joined a team of volunteers heading up there with Dr. Hewitt.

It was nice to take some nature photos and get a change of pace from the photo journalism stuff I’ve been doing.

This photo was a result of lots of patience and lots of dud photos. The monkey was sitting behind a tree at dusk but stayed in the shadow of the tree trunk he was tied to. Every so often he would peer around the tree to look at people and put his face in that magic sunset light. I waited forever between his peeks and would shoot several shots each time. I only got two good ones and this closeup is my favorite.

And you thought V.I.P. was special…

This is an entrance to the Tamale, Ghana soccer stadium built for the 2008 Africa Cup.

This afternoon’s 50th anniversary event was a parade through Nalerigu led by the BMC employees. The workers all wore their new BMC 50th t-shirts and ball caps. I was neat to see so many people sporting a t-shirt with my photograph plastered across the front.

Drummers accompanied the crowd the entire way as they marched down the main roads in town… and boy was there some serious dancing going on! The woman led the group singing church worship songs and dancing. It is wonderful to witness the pride and joy these workers have in being a part of such a wonderful institution.

I had a hard time photographing because of the size of the crowd, combined with the muddy road from the rains we’ve had, and the mopeds and bikes that were weaving around the group. I did manage to climb on the walls of the new Presby Church to get a better view of the crowd.

I was pretty busy following the big events of the day but I manage to go through the wards to see some patients. This old man was resting after a skin graft on his forearm for an infection that had been spreading. Though he didn’t speak English we managed to converse via signs, grunts, and nods. As is usually the case, he was very impressed that he got to see his image on my camera’s LCD screen.

This morning’s main event was the unveiling of the “improved” statue of Dr. George Faile II. Dr. Faile founded the hospital in 1958 and when he died in the US in 1989, the town decided to hold a funeral of their own for him. They erected a statue of him in front of the hospital and gave it glasses and a straw hat to protect him from the sun.

Today, to mark the beginning of the ceremonies they unwrapped the statue to reveal that it had been painted in great detail. I was moved by the crowd’s sincere enthusiasm and delight at this memorial to a man they all greatly respected. To the people of Nalerigu, Ghana this is one of the highest forms of praise and they are extremely proud of this man who 50 years ago came to their land and shared his God-given gifts with them. Most importantly he shared with them how to receive the greatest gifts one can receive from God – forgiveness and love.