Making this Doc Nearly Killed Us

Vân with the drum carving crew ready for business

Step #1 (well, after the tree is cut down and sectioned) is hollowing out the drum cavity

What a day! Went up north to the very small village of Okurase with our two 'drumming experts,' the subjects of our Ghana Drumming video, and it was much, much more than we bargained for. First, Yussif and Jaguar told us we would be back in Accra at 10:30am (we were suppose to start the day at 8am but Van and I got to their drum shop at 8:30). We got back to our hotel at 5pm. This was one of many communication problems we had with the drum makers/players.

A house made out of earth. This village didn't see many foreigners

We took Tro-Tro's, mini-vans where they crush four people on a bench where there should be two... three max. That means fifteen people counting the two in the front seat plus the two working who somehow fit in the vehicle as well. The shock absorbers, if they exist, suck. It is close to 100 degrees, don't even think about air conditioning. Paved roads are the exception. I think we spent about 5.5 hours in the Tro-Tros, counting the hour and a half waiting for it to fill at the Tro-Tro station at Kwame Nkrumah Circle.

Step #2 Start forming the frame

Step #3 The next stage of forming the frame involves a machete

Nothing is wasted. The drum shavings are used to fuel fires back in the village.

The shoot was short, orderly and fun; a good all around experience. Jaguar and Yussif and two locals then took us on a walk through the village. I have seen many small, rural, earthen-house towns like this in East Asia, India/Sri Lanka and Africa before but Vân had not. It was fun. The villagers aren't used to seeing “oburoni,” which literally translates to “someone from over the horizon” but what really translates to “white person.” Vân (Vietnamese-American) got a big kick out of being called “white person” everywhere. They don't seem to say it in a negative way but they do say it all the time.

Jaguar explains exactly what is going on up here in "The Bush."

We then came back out to the road to get our tro-tro back to Accra. I forgot to tell you that I offered to buy the eleven workers water, food or beer for their 45 minutes of helping us. Yussif and a local convinced me to instead give them 5 Cedi (US$3.46). I don't like giving money in exchange for being in a documentary and I rarely do it but it seemed to make sense in this case. Well, when we came back out to the road from the village to get our tro-tro, the largest of the workers – and when I say large, think Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon but six-foot-four, three times as muscular and with less body fat, if that is possible – crosses the street yelling at us. He was beyond reason, but being that I am part Vulcan, I tried to explain to him, in a rational way, that not only were we not making any money on this film, we were loosing money. He literally was not hearing a thing I was saying. Funny thing was my total absent of fear. Vân was terrified and I should have been. I walked towards the very large, sweaty, angry man (who was earlier working with a machete) but Yussif insisted I back off and that he would handle it. He also suggested we try to wave down an Accra bound tro-tro ASAP. We somehow got out of the village with all of our blood in our body (man I wish I had a picture of this guy! He avoided the camera).

Step #4 A fine-tuning shaver is used to smooth the exterior of the frame.

Step #5 A tool I have never seen before smooths out the inner drum.

The finished product.

Job is done, the drum frames head down to Accra.