Blog

Hello everyone.

As a Boy Scout, I hiked in the Sierra Nevada mountains with Troop 90- a member of the Falcon Patrol. Bill Braun, Brian Peele, Bo Boar, Mike Richardson and later his little brother Kevin were my brothers in arms whose names I can still remember. We trekked the backwoods for days and weeks at a time, doing the usual Boy Scout kind of stuff. "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight." Well, at least some of the time.....

On one occasion we had hiked the first two weeks of the John Muir Trail. After having spent all that time in the backcountry we emerged leaner, meaner, and quite a bit scruffier to meet our parents waiting for us at the trailhead. Brian Peele was met by his mother by a stern "Shave it off!" after he allowed his high school manliness to grow on his upper lip and chin. We thought it was pretty cool! She apparently did not. At least he did not have to suffer the ignominy of a slathered up mom kiss in front of his friends.

Why tell this story? Because Sonia and I are emerging after a hiatus of silence and we want to kick start our new website without any trailhead "events." Our former website was hindered by several issues, the main one being the poor internet access we had in Chad (can anyone say "dial up 33.6 modem speed??) As Mark Twain once intoned "The report of my death is greatly exaggerated" (in May of 1897 when his demise was reported in the New York Journal) and Sonia and I would like to inform you of the resurrection of our new website.

This launching of our new site coincides with our change in assignment that has been in its genesis for almost a year. This pilgrimage from the dust, heat and scrub of Chad to the wet, wild and rain forest of the DR Congo will be explained in several installments on our site and by future emails from us.

We invite you to visit our site at www.talkingdrumsafrica.org and take a look at our new features. From there you can pass to Sonia's Facebook account and keep up with our goings and comings or visit our YouTube account to catch some video clips from Chad and a smattering of clips from the Congo.

You can also read Sonia's first Hot Flashes from the Jungle by clicking on "Recent Post" at the bottom of the right column of our home page.

Please excuse the piles of old sheetrock, dust, and trash bags full of junk as we are still developing our website. As was the case with our original site, we want it to be a full service site where you can stay up to date with what we are doing. Right now we are in the USA, raising awareness and support for our new field of labor. We plan to eturn to Africa at the end of this year.

Until the next communiqué,

Godspeed