A couple of pictures...

Ok, really quick break from homework. I just got these pictures from Chen, an exchange student here at ASU. We had drum tuning on Friday, but no actual tuning took place (The TA Sonja had taken the sand and left it at her house), but we each did our own little jobs. I, for example, measured out about 75 sticks from Senegal to the right length to be gallan (the sticks used for playing Sabar)...Bill, the grad student in the background, was putting new heads on both ends of a drum body (why yes, that is goat skin. Why yes, he did think it was hilarious to spritz Sarah and I with goat water. Why yes, I did do laundry that night.) Sarah is scraping down redwood blocks to make sticks for much smaller drums (it took her all afternoon to make one!).

The first picture is of my instructor Dr. Mark Sunkett. He's great. I wish I had a picture of him standing...he's astoundingly tall!

The second picture is, from left to right, Bill, Sarah, and me.

The third picture is me, measuring gallan. I know that these last couple pictures are fuzzy, but it's very dark down there (basement of the Music building) so Chen's camera was having some shutter timing issues. You get the idea, though.

Enjoy! Hopefully I'll get a chance to write again this weekend!