What is a drum shield?

NOTE TO EMAIL READERS: You should view this one on the site if you can since I've included some video content. 

Back in early December I was with our team in Tema, Ghana for what turned out to be an incredible crusade. Months earlier I was asked to help facilitate a recording that was taking place during that crusade. Specifically - I had been asked to help get some studio quality musical instruments into the country since there were none locally available. A couple of months of research and purchasing, casing, shipping, and planning later we were on the ground and the instruments were there, ready for the recording.

Our technical team and musicians worked through a day of on and off rain to set the stage and test for the recording.


I was there too, helping the drummer get everything assembled and set in place. Once that was done, Derek, our technical director noticed that there were no extensions for the in ear monitors the musicians would rely on live and asked that I go and fetch some from the local music store in Accra (about 40 minutes from our location). Easy, right? I borrowed a driver, Samuel, and headed into town.

The music store didn't have the extensions. In fact, they had never heard of such things.

I was mid sentence, trying to articulate the type of cable I was seeking to the shop owner when my phone rang. My wife never calls while I'm in Africa unless there is an emergency, so I excused myself to answer. She asked me what was wrong, someone called her from a CfaN phone, but she couldn't hear anything on the other end. We hung up and I called Rob (Executive assistant to Evangelist Daniel Kolenda) who was on site with the team to see what was up.


He told me that during testing, our producer/engineer, Carlson, had discovered a problem. The stage noise from the drums were feeding through the other microphones on stage. This makes for an engineering nightmare during the editing phase of a recording since virtually every track would contain the overpowering noise of a full drum kit.

The solution? A drum shield. That thrown together wall of Plexiglas that every church in the developed world uses to shield the audience from the jarring reality that musical instruments make lots of scary noises.

That shouldn't be too hard to find, right? Certainly this would be easier than moving a small wooden structure by hand through a toll booth...



I hung up with Rob and asked the shop owner about it. Again, like with the monitor extension cables, he shook his head in confusion. He had no Idea what I was talking about and told me that maybe the bigger shop on the other side of the city might have those things. I thanked him, he gave Samuel directions to the larger store, and we went on our way.

An hour of traffic later we were on the other side of Accra at the bigger shop. Again, the owner had no idea what I was talking about. I searched the bins for any combination of adapters and cable, thinking I would fashion my own headphone extensions. No luck. The same went for the drum shield. It looked hopeless. All of that effort, months and months of preparation by the team and musicians would be gunked up by loud drums if we couldn't find a solution.

It occurred to me that yes, no-one here knew what a drum shield was, but they certainly must know about Plexiglas. If I could just find the right amount of Plexiglas and some hardware, we could build our own drum shield!

I asked the shop owner and his staff if they knew where to get some Plexiglas, and a short language barrier challenged explanation of Plexiglas later I had my answer. It turns out, everyone knows where the city's Plexiglas supplier is. The owner gave Samuel the shortest driving instructions I had ever heard, I thanked him, and we left.

The local Plexiglas supplier worked out of a shop about the size of the small wooden structure in the video clip above, under an overpass, in the busiest traffic spot in Accra. He proudly showed me his prime stock, and seemed genuinely curious of why I would want to build such a thing. After spec'ing the measurements I needed, and some creative negotiation by way of Guitar Center's website, we agreed on a price - around $600 USD.

I offered him the cash on the spot and he refused. I don't blame the guy. That's a lot of coin, and I probably wouldn't trust a stranger's foreign currency at that figure either. I told him that I would leave right now and go get the cash exchanged into Cedi's (the local currency), and return within one hour. I shook his hand after he agreed to cut the Plexiglas and have it ready for delivery when I returned.

I explained my plan to Samuel and told him that not only would we need the cash exchanged, but we now also needed to buy hardware.

Off we went!...

Again!

We parked in an un-gated alleyway next to a shopping center. Samuel looked at my backpack, concerned. I asked him if we should lock it in the trunk. He looked at our surroundings for a moment and decided that no, we should take it with us. "They are watching", he said, motioning with his brow towards a group of men leaning against the opposing wall of the alley.

We exited the car and the men moved towards us, shouting words I did not understand in a tone that I did. Samuel took my arm, leading me while telling me they would not follow to the street. He was right and I was thankful.

He instructed me to reverse my backpack with the straps behind me and used the remaining length of nylon to tie the pack on. He stood in front of me and reached his open hand back, taking mine. Samuel plowed through the crowd with this weighed down american in tow until we arrived at the bank. Armed guards stood outside of the small single office sized space during the exchange. Once my transaction was complete, we headed to the next destination, the hardware store.

Again, Samuel went in front while I did my best to keep up and not knock anyone over with my over stuffed front pack.

We walked at a very good clip into the depths of the city. So deep in fact that the sun disappeared behind the clothes and linens that hung between buildings above our heads.

After about 30 minutes we arrived at a wide open street market, lined with every ware one could want. Every little shop had their specialty. The hinge guy sold hinges, but no screws to attach them. The door handle guy sold door handles, but no hinges to hang a door on and so on. We bought hinges from the hinge man who then directed us to the screw salesman. We bought screws from the screw salesman who then directed us to the washer salesman. We bought washers from the washer salesman who then directed us to the nut salesman.

You get the idea.

At this point I realized that I had broken my promise to our Plexiglas friend. Sourcing the hardware had taken well over two hours and I felt terrible guilt at the thought of this man sitting there with all of that freshly cut Plexiglas, wondering if I had abandoned the deal.

Samuel guided me quickly through the thickening afternoon crowd back to our car. The group of ill-intentioned men had given up on me and moved on by that point, a reminder that we were burning daylight.

We drove through terrible traffic back to the overpass where my Plexiglas was to be delivered, but we couldn't get to the side of the road where the shop was located.

Samuel pulled us into a mostly empty parking lot with line of sight to the shop on the other side of the highway. We got out of the car and danced and waved until the idle workers spotted us and retrieved their boss. When he recognized us he instructed his men to bring the product over to my side. They lifted those heavy sheets of plexi over their heads and ran through traffic to where we waited, excited to make the sale... but there was a problem.

My friend, who I had shaken hands with earlier in the day, who agreed to have the cut Plexiglas ready had changed his mind. After I left he told his men to leave the product alone until I returned with the money.

Samuel was furious, and began verbally lambasting the man and his workers until they moved in close. Attempting to avoid a confrontation, I asked him to please just cut the product, telling him "We have to GO".

They laid the plexi down in that parking lot, measured, and cut it faster than I imagined was possible. While they did that, Samuel flagged down a flatbed truck for hire to carry it back to the crusade site. I paid the Plexiglas man and shook his hand again, thanking him.

As we got into our car a group of the workers gathered around me, saying "Bless me! Bless me!". I've heard that phrase before, in Nigeria, but it was always in the context of money. I assumed they wanted to be tipped for running the Plexiglas through traffic. I apologized, saying I did not have any more money and thanked them for their hard work. The man closest to me said "No! You are here with the evangelist! Bless me!". I felt at once humbled and stupid for assuming these men wanted more money. I began to pray with them, casting out sickness in them and their families and claiming victory over other struggles in the name of Jesus! Samuel even jumped in with the men to receive.

At the time of this writing, I was an IT guy who also knew a thing or two about music on assignment to help with a recording. So not an evangelist, and not a pastor. I was physically and mentally exhausted after spending the day trying to gather materials build a drum shield in the middle of Ghana, and these men wanted my hands to bless them on the side of a busy highway simply by way of my association with "The evangelist".

We hugged and said our goodbyes. Samuel looked past me towards the highway, his eyes widening, and said very sternly, "We have to go!".

I turned around to see what the trouble was to find that while we prayed, the flatbed for hire had left without us. We jumped in the car and sped off, trying to spot the truck in traffic, but it was gone. Samuel did tell the driver where to go, but he could just as easily slip away and keep the Plexiglas for himself.

After another hour in traffic we broke loose from the highway and started along some less congested back roads. We came to an intersection and stopped, where Samuel broke the silence by hopefully stating "I believe he is already there" (Meaning the driver was hopefully waiting for us at the crusade site). I chuckled and turned to him saying "Yes, hopefully". We moved towards the intersection and both saw it at the same time - In the opposing lane of traffic was the truck! He had lost his way and was looking for us!

We had hired the truck so as not to damage Samuel's car with the jagged edges of the freshly cut plexiglass, but time was short and the driver did not seem to know his way around town. We flagged him to the side of the road and pulled the Plexiglas from his truck, sticking it in the rear seat and trunk of Samuel's little car, paid the man, and drove as fast as we could back to the crusade site where the meeting was already in progress.

The next morning, Jako, (who at the time was one of our incredibly capable on site engineers but now leads major evangelistic efforts over the whole of Africa) and I gathered a group of volunteers and measured, drilled, and assembled the drum shield. It was ready for the official start of the recording later that afternoon.

Anything can be done, folks.

Jako

A hardworking team of local volunteers.