bogum (fire) festival
Monday was the Dagomba fire festival. I’d been looking forward to it for ages as I haven’t really seen many cultural events here in Ghana. All Dagomba events have been banned by the government since the Yaa Naa in Yendi was murdered 4 years ago. But the funeral took place last year so cultural events are allowed again. Apparently it was during the Bogum festival that the chief was killed so it is especially feared by authorities. Anyway, we were all planned to go when it was announced on Sunday that the local authority had decided to ban any celebrations taking place in Tamale. How annoying. So we were frantically asking everyone where we could go to celebrate Bogum. Eventually we found out that it would be taking place in nearby Nanton, so Pam and I travelled there on Monday evening for the celebrations.
It started about 9.30pm. The Chief starts the first fire and everyone picks up torches made of dried grasses and lights them from the Chief’s fire. We then marched in a big line singing and dancing to a tree which is symbolic for that community.
The story is that the Chief lost his young son. In the night he gathered together the whole community to look for him with torches. He was found sleeping under a tree. The Chief said the tree was hiding him so the people should punish the tree by throwing their torches at it. 
After throwing the fire at the tree we all marched back to the village holding branches with green leaves to show the fire had been overcome.
It was great, I’m so glad we got to experience it! It ended around midnight.
We stayed in the village of Kpanu which is a Simil Aid community. The next day we met with the village women and elders about Simli activities. They have loads of Shea nut trees in the area, so we are looking at finding a market for Shea butter 
so they can produce that to sell. They know how to make it but they cant sell it. I know that The Body Shop uses Shea butter in lots of cosmetics, so am going to try and get in touch with them. It is such a nice community and always so welcoming. Last time I was there a baby was born and I met it again and it’s massive! Really goes to show how fast time is passing. Quite scary really!
