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• March 13, 2010
• 10:41

  A-Z of everything I wish I'd known about Ghana before I left home

   » ‎ This is Ghana
  To kick off a week of the best of This is Ghana posts for new visitors or anyone who missed out before, we start with the A-Z of Everything I wish I knew about Ghana before I left home! This post underpinned the extended section on Preparing to Go in our a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ghana-Guide-Sample.pdf"Ghana guide/a.br / br / div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5jJhUmlttI/AAAAAAAAAxo/BcSkJVlerxM/s1600-h/194070329_d680a6e650.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5jJhUmlttI/AAAAAAAAAxo/BcSkJVlerxM/s320/194070329_d680a6e650.jpg" //a/divLike your average trotro journey, this list kept growing and growing…and here it is. Copy, paste and take it with you. Send me a message if you have any questions.br / br / Akpetushie: Pronounced “Appehtooshie” is the local moonshine and could forgivably be confused for nail polish remover mixed with pure alcohol. Drink with caution. It will give you the best/worst hangover of your life.br / br / Books: There is one bookshop in Accra Mall which stocks an airport-style range, and a good second-hand bookshop in Cape Coast called Blackstar Bookshop near the castle (and next to the Baobab Café which, by the way, has great banana bread and supports a good local café. The German manager can be rather grumpy, though). My advice is to bring any books you really want to read and swap them when you’re finished! Aiden Hartley’s autobiographical The Zanzibar Chest is an “Africa” favourite. My copy, much read and swapped, is just hanging together by tape. The other is The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover—the scenes of local village life in the DRC (uncannily reminiscent of Ghana) are spot on. Chinua Achebe is an African great and perfect introduction to African writers. Things Fall Apart is a must-read classic. Of Ghanaian writers, Ama Atta Aidoo is worth reading.br / br / Birkenstocks: You can find original ones in Accra Mall for the usual price, second-hand ones all over the country for about 10-20 GCs, and rip-offs for about 10 GCs.br / br / Caning or “beating” students: Caning students is common practice at schools. Many Ghanaians still believe this is how you “correct” poorly performing students. I was not warned about this when I went to volunteer at a school and it was quite shocking. The caning was quite violent, not “soft”, as if teachers were acting out some kind of abuse they’d experienced themselves (which they probably had). If you protest against it, Christian teachers will invoke the Bible: “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” Worse still, parents might urge you to beat their children. If you want to oppose it, you have to remain strong. Ghanaians have virtually no knowledge of learning disabilities. Dyslexia is almost unheard of. Consequently, struggling children (much as they have been elsewhere) get beaten and verbally berated and made examples of for not being able to complete some task that requires reading and writing. The teachers have no idea that their violence doesn’t help. So, brace yourself for this if you plan to teach as a volunteer. There are a handful of schools where teachers don’t beat: the difference is startling. A teenage girl died recently after a beating at school which put the issue on the national radar for a few weeks. Opinions were roughly divided between for and against. I was very against. I shall write a separate post on my experience as well as potential strategies you could use at school to stop or reduce beating. Look for “caning” as a key word.br / br / Clothes (second-hand): Obruni wawu means “dead white man” and is used to describe the prolific second-hand clothing sold everywhere. There is a myth that no citizen of a developed country would wear the clothes of a dead person, so it’s dead obrunis’ clothes that are sent to be sold as second hand clothes—they couldn’t possibly be from the living. This, often very good quality, second-hand clothing is a bargain: T-shirts for 2-5 GCs, gypsy skirts for about 10 GCs and new jeans for 10 GCs. Trying them on over sticky bodies beside open sewers is another story…br / br / Condoms: Sexually transmitted diseases are rampant. While the rate of HIV/Aids is about 2.9% across the country, it’s much higher in urban areas. Use condoms. You can buy them in pharmacies, supermarkets and gas stations from 10 pesewas to a few Cedis.br / br / Drinking Water: You can buy “puuure watah!” just about anywhere for 5 pesewas—look for the blue ice boxes sitting all along the streets. Just how pure it is, however, is anyone’s guess. You can buy bottled water at shops everywhere too for about 50 p.br / br / English: It is the official language and is spoken almost everywhere, except in the most remote villages. And, while it’s the official language, it has its own idiosyncrasies. Written standards are pretty poor, even at university. If you’re coming to teach, anything related to literacy or the basics of grammar for the level you’re teaching would be helpful. Children love colourful story books. You can buy mass produced ones here or bring your favourites from home.br / br / Feminine Hygiene: Tampons/tampax are not widely available other than in supermarkets in Accra so bring your own. Pads are the norm and are available everywhere. Due to environmental conditions and some malaria medication, a few women suffer from longer or more painful than usual periods. Ensure that you’re prepared for this. Due to humidity and antibiotics, it’s not uncommon for women to suffer from yeast infections. Fortunately, treatments are available in pharmacies everywhere. Don’t be shy asking for personal items in shops or pharmacies—Ghanaians are not embarrassed by such things.br / br / Flip-flops/thongs: called “slippers” in Ghana. You can buy them everywhere for one GC or so. Still, having one good quality pair to support tired feet is worth it.br / br / Food: In a nutshell, the standard dishes are heavy on the carbs—yam, plantain, cassava, rice—and light on greens, if at all. There is usually pépé (chilies) in dishes, but you can avoid it. I have IBS and was super cautious of everything, but I have had less stomach troubles here than at home—possibly because most food is unprocessed; it’s a challenge to find “junk” food. I’ve eaten salad everywhere except off the street. Sunshine Salads in Osu (just ask anyone near Koala supermarket) or in Labone are heaven sent if you’re craving great salad. You can buy all the basic garden vegetables at most markets. Bean dishes are plentiful. It’s easy to be vegetarian or vegan—ask for soups without meat or stick to the non-meat dishes.br / br / Football: You know how Canadians are with ice hockey; Aussies/Indians/Pakistanis are with cricket; Kiwis with Rugby; and North Americans with basketball? That’s how Ghanaians are with football. Chelsea, Manchester and Liverpool are the teams of choice. Some also support Barcelona. Kids, especially boys, love anything football related as gifts. You can buy footballs and team paraphernalia on the streets everywhere.br / br / Friends: It’s easy to make friends with Ghanaians. However, quite a few Ghanaians I know could talk all four legs off every donkey on the African continent. So if you approach someone for a chat, make sure you have time to kill because Ghanaians almost always live up to their friendly reputation. And they always ask for your number. Be selective about handing out your number unless you don’t mind two a.m. phone calls. Ghanaians like to take advantage of free or hugely discounted calling rates and call each other at all hours of the night without a second thought, and you will certainly not be denied this honour.br / br / Fruits: Oranges (green in colour and the tastiest ever), pineapples, bananas and coconuts are abundant all year round, but coconuts and pineapples are grown in the south and trucked up north. Mangoes are bountiful in season too (now).br / br / Gifts: Aside from football and stationery mentioned elsewhere, people love colourful stickers. Also, several friends brought bubble liquid and blew bubbles to the delight of children and adults everywhere, and handed out bottles out to the kids. Old clothes: many Ghanaians value clothes you leave behind or clothes from home you no longer want. They’re good to give to family/friends when leaving.br / br / Greetings: (also see Language). Ghanaians will spend the first few minutes upon meeting asking after the other, then family, health and work, before getting down to the issue that they have come to discuss. No one ever responds in the negative and says they are not fine (or I am yet to hear it anyway), even if they’re clearly suffering. Ghanaians make the best of it, which keeps things moving and people smiling, no matter what. If you need to approach people to ask for help, it’s more appropriate to say, “hello, how are you?” and wait for a genuine response and then ask your question, rather than walking up and saying, “how do you get to…?!” without first acknowledging the person.br / br / Hair cuts: The last time a hairdresser cut my hair was early 2007 in an excellent tiny salon in Phnom Penh. I cut it myself now. I usually use nail clippers—I figure I can’t do too much damage that way. When I’m feeling brave I use sewing scissors. If you’re not ready to take that leap of faith, there is a woman at Labadi Beach Resort in Accra who cuts Caucasian hair. Ask for the “Madame”. If you have African hair—lucky. There are salons literally everywhere! Braiding is relatively inexpensive and costs about $5 for a head of braids. Extra if you want fake hair braided in! (Although I cut my own hair, I’ve never had it braided…pain!)br / br / Hospitals/clinics: It’s very hard to find quality medical treatment outside of Accra. In fact, it’s not easy to find it in Accra. You can get some kind of treatment in other cities, towns and villages, of course, but I’ve had many issues with doctors defaulting to malaria, no matter what you present, and just not caring. If you’re coming for more than three months, have all important check-ups before leaving. Cocoa Clinic in Accra was probably the most organized and reliable clinic I’ve been to. You still have to wait, of course.br / br / Jeans: Contrary to recommendations, jeans are OK in Ghana. They are nothing if not sturdy, comfy, and you can wear them for a week without washing…if you have to!br / br / Kokrobite Beach gets a special mention as it’s notorious for robberies. While Ghana is very safe overall, everyone I know who visited Kokrobite, bar one person, got mugged on the beach or their room was broken into—or it was attempted. Usually a group of young boys surround you on the beach and demand your backpack. Most people hand it over. So, if you go, don’t take anything you will mind giving up.br / br / Language: The official language is English, but most Ghanaians speak the language (or two or three or four) of their home area. Learning simple phrases in the local language of your area will create a connection with and respect among local people. Ghanaians place great stock in greetings, by the way, and it’s a safe bet to always greet everyone when entering a room or vehicle and always return a greeting, wherever you are.br / br / Laptops: It’s safe enough to bring one, but exercise caution. Don’t carry it around in a flashy laptop bag; use a backpack with a laptop compartment instead. Always unplug them when not in use to protect them from power surges. (See: Power.) Finally, the environment is harsh on laptops: salty and/or humid and/or dusty. Keep them covered when you’re not using them as they sometimes protest and just stop working.br / br / Malaria: It’s so common that it’s “like catching a cold,” as Ghanaians say. Unfortunately, this is true. It is common but avoidable. I recommend bringing mosquito spray to prevent bug bites and always sleep under a mosquito net. Certainly obtain one of the standard anti-malarial medications from your health provider before coming to Ghana and take it as directed. The various medications have their pros and cons and I know people that have gotten malaria on all the main ones (Larium, Doxy, Malarone, etc)—none of them are failsafe. If you run out while in Ghana, they are widely available in pharmacies everywhere and much less expensive than in your home country (although made in India or China—if you’re ok with that). If you fall ill (although it’s unlikely), please inform someone immediately. Malarial symptoms are any or all of: extreme fatigue, hot or cold fevers, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and dizziness. Virtually everyone I know who had it felt the extreme fatigue—a tiredness that you cannot imagine if you haven’t felt it before. Many had a sensation of feeling “sunburnt on the inside”—radiating heat even if you’ve been inside all day. You can have tests for malaria at clinics or laboratories which are common in major towns and cities for anywhere between 2-10 Cedis. Even if you have malaria, the tests can be faulty and come out negative. The lesson in this is that the tests are often wrong so if you are presenting the symptoms, please strongly insist on receiving treatment. The treatment is widely available and you can get it over the counter at pharmacies—ask the pharmacist. It is best to have it recommended from a doctor or specialist.br / br / Mapouka: Is both the name of the bottom shaking dance originating in The Ivory Coast now hugely popular in Ghana and the local version of rather alcoholic Irish cream. Not bad for a $2 bottle.br / br / Men: If you’re a woman, be prepared for lots of attention, especially if you’re on the curvy/large side. My favourite strategy for deflecting marriage proposals is the one guaranteed to get laughs: “Well, I already have seventeen husbands, but if you don’t mind being husband number eighteen, yes, I will marry you…” Men and women alike will shake with laughter. Warning: Using this in a moving vehicle where the driver may swerve into oncoming traffic as he shakes can be dangerous. Now, some men will actually agree to be husband number eighteen. To which I say: “Ok, but you have to wait for the first seventeen to die.” This invites more laughter. Sometimes I offer to give some of my husbands to other women in the vehicle which invites great guffaws. Ghanaians have a great sense of humour and find any excuse to laugh. Some men will just walk up to you on the street and propose. On one occasion a world-weary old man came up to me and said, “If I were to be a younger man, I would like to marry you…” He looked so sad! And, some will hassle you more than is comfortable, but not often. Just tell them you’re waiting for your “husband”. If they ask where your wedding ring is, say you left it at home. Most women I know used these tactics at some point and they work.br / br / Money: US dollars, Euros, Canadian and Australian dollars are easy to change at the numerous large and small exchanges dotted around the major cities. It’s reasonably safe to bring cash and keep it locked up somewhere in your room or in a safe, if you have one, and exchange it when you need it. You cannot use Mastercards. NO MASTERCARDS!! You can use Visa cards and withdraw cash at ATMs. Make sure you know your PIN. Now, do NOT use your credit card to pay for anything anywhere if you can help it. Indeed, there is no “plastic” culture here. Although you can use your credit cards at certain guest establishments, restaurants and retailers, I would try to avoid it. Credit card fraud is a huge problem. Someone may copy your card number and details if there is an imprint or record of the card left where you paid for the product or service. Traveller’s cheques are accepted although the rate is not as good as changing cash and banks can be very pompous about handling them. The easiest option is to bring cash and change it and/or a card you can withdraw with.br / br / Obruni: This has become synonymous with the idea of “foreigner”, and is shouted at you almost everywhere in the south of Ghana. It means “white person” and can understandably annoy African American or Asian visitors who get the Obruni treatment as much as any other foreigner. I had one British African friend with long gorgeous braids who was called “Rasta ‘Bruni!” She had a sense of humour about it—useful in Ghana. In Tamale and Bolga you’ll get called “Solomia”, in the Volta: “Yevu”, and in Bawku or Hausa speaking areas: “Nasara”. There is no ill intention behind this, Ghanaians are just pointing out the obvious as far as they’re concerned, not being rude or racist, as the same treatment might be perceived at “home”.br / br / Pens: School children value pens, pencils and notebooks very much. Instead of hauling them all the way from Australia, though, I could have bought them for a fraction of the cost in Ghana, which would have supported local traders and freed up space in my luggage. There are little stationery stalls everywhere.br / br / Petty Crime: While reports of bag snatching, mobile phone snatching and break-ins are on the increase, Ghana is still very safe. Basically, have your wits about you. Don’t leave your bags wide open. One thing that my former boss alerted me to was bag slashing in crowd situations. A thief might slash the bottom of your bag or its straps and grab the contents, so if you’re in crowds hold it tight. Pickpockets are common in crowded areas. Don’t be afraid to get physical if someone tries to pickpocket you.br / br / Pharmaceuticals: are readily available over the counter all over the country, again, for a fraction of the price you’d pay at home. A strip of 10 tabs of doxycycline is about one dollar. Cypro, general antibiotics, Immodium, and candidiassis treatments—tablet or creams—are widely available and inexpensive.br / br / Photographs: Ghanaians are fascinated by photos of you, your family, friends and home. If you’re staying with a family, they will love to see an album of photos from home. They will also love to show you theirs. People love to be “snapped”. If you have the means, giving people photos of themselves is a popular gift.br / br / Power: I’m not talking about the type mining companies like to wield around small African nations. I’m talking about the type that tends to cut out several times a day when you’re in the middle of something important. Here’s a tip: Unplug all electrical equipment when you’re not using it, or turn the power point off. A few weeks ago a surge hit the whole country. I awoke to the smell of burning rubber. The surge protector itself had blown up. Fortunately, it protected the electrical equipment. Countless times I’ve written a long email only to lose everything when the power cuts. Another tip: open Word or Notepad alongside the web browser, save in Word as you type, and then paste it into the browser. If the power cuts, it’s still there in Word or Notepad when it comes back on. Alternatively, I type it on a laptop at home, take it by pen drive to the café, paste and send it.br / br / Power plugs: The British type. You can buy multi-socket thingamajigs in towns and villages.br / br / Socks: You can buy socks cheaply on streets everywhere. Ghanaians do really like socks as gifts—or turn them into hand-puppets for kids at schools.br / br / Sunblock: You can buy it in Accra, but it’s probably easier to bring your own.br / br / Telephones: Mobile phones are everywhere, as are the "chips" (sim cards) you need to make calls. New basic mobiles cost anywhere from 30 GCs and up. Vodaphone and Nokia have deals going most of the time. Chips cost 1 GC (yes, one) for most networks. It costs about the same to call an overseas mobile as it does within Ghana, and most calls are cheaper late at night. You can text virtually anywhere in the world for as little as 5 pesewas.br / br / Time: Forget everything you know about time and “how things work”. Life in Ghana rocks to its own unpredictable rhythm and has its own way of working itself out—which can be exceedingly frustrating at times. I have occasionally felt as if I were participating in a chaos theory experiment with malaria and upset stomachs thrown in just for fun. Long waits for buses scheduled to leave hours earlier and slow responses to anything bureaucratic are normal. It’s life. It will teach you to go with the flow. If you need to learn patience and inner calm, just come to Ghana and buy a ticket for anything with a start time. There’s nothing you can do about it so my advice is to leave assumptions and presumptions at customs, and you’re more likely to enjoy one of the friendliest nations on earth.br / br / Toiletries: Face cleansing wipes are brilliant for not only removing dirt from your face, but for “washing” during water shortages. You can buy “obruni” shampoo at shops in Accra, Cape Coast, Kumasi and Bolga.br / br / Toilets: Well, I write a lot about toilets. If you had IBS, you would too. Overall, they are conspicuous by their absence in public settings. Metro TV recently stated that twenty-million Ghanaians live without access to modern toilets (they use drop toilets). Of those, three million have no access to any at all. There are twenty-three million Ghanaians. So much for the former government’s “Ghana at 50” pledge to build more “public places of convenience”. They were going to build toilets every fifty kilometers on the main roads. It’s more like every five hundred kms—if you’re lucky. Basically, don’t expect to find any at trotro stations—although there are a few. Fortunately, STC now has really nice toilets at all its stations (not long ago it was rather distressing). Most hotels have facilities that you can “borrow” if you have to—be nice to the reception people and pretend to be interested in a room.br / br / Transport: Ghana has one of the highest incidents of road accidents in the world. I can’t count the amount of times the vehicle I’ve ridden in has almost crashed. (Touch wood!) Trotros, the crowded minibuses, are the worst. However, it’s virtually impossible to avoid trotros and taxis if you plan to travel around, so take a few precautions. Try to travel during the day. Try only to take coaches like the STC (State Transport Company) or the Metro Mass Transit (the orange buses). If the driver is taking dangerous risks, Ghanaians will often shout at the driver. Don’t be afraid to shout out yourself or ask someone next to you to do so. In taxis I’ve often told the driver to slow down or not overtake into oncoming traffic.br / br / Vegetables: You can buy cabbage, carrots, eggplant/aubergine, lettuce, potatoes, avocadoes (called “pear”), tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber, green beans, onion, ginger, garlic, and many other veggies besides, at markets all over Ghana, some only in season.br / br / Viruses: the IT type; Internet café PCs are riddled with them. Many cafes still do not use anti-virus or, if they do, they’re often not up to date. So, if you’re planning to stick a pen drive into a PC, you need protection. I recommend downloading a free antivirus programme before you leave home and store it on your pen drive. It sounds like overkill, but you only have to lose everything once to understand the value of having antivirus on hand that you can upload as needed. Internet connections are still quite slow, at least to download anti-virus, and power is so erratic that it often cuts out half-way through a download. So bring it with you.br / br / div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5jKlLoMOfI/AAAAAAAAAxw/_ch1rfZKFc4/s1600-h/Kakum+Ropeway.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5jKlLoMOfI/AAAAAAAAAxw/_ch1rfZKFc4/s320/Kakum+Ropeway.jpg" //a/divVisas: You may receive a one year visa in your passport from the embassy in your country, but this is irrelevant in Ghana. At immigration you will get a 60 day visitor stamp no matter what your visa duration. You must extend your stay before the end of the 60 days by applying for an extension for the amount of time you need at an immigration office in a capital city. You need evidence of a return air ticket to do this, two passport photos, and I think it’s about $10 per month (although it may have increased to just under 20), and a sponsorship letter from an NGO or supporting org, if you wish to renew. Be nice to the immigration staff no matter what. You can get visa on arrival in Accra, but I know some people who were refused boarding on Delta in New York because they didn’t have a visa before they departed. I had no problem with Emirates. The process need not be as precarious as crossing Kakum ropeway bridges outside of Cape Coast.br / br / Vitamins: are also available everywhere. Those chewy orange vitamin C tablets sell for 20 pesewas a strip. You can get iron syrups over the counter which helps to build up strength after a bout of malaria.br / br / Volunteering: If you’re looking for a serious volunteering organisaiton, it’s best to plan before you leave. Idealist.org has an excellent database of projects. You can also go here. However, you can find projects when you arrive by word of mouth or online—but it’s kind of nice to have someone meet you when you arrive.br / br / Water: The water supply is erratic in many areas: on and off at will, it seems. Having some set aside in a bucket is always smart. Bucket baths are normal in regional areas where many people don’t have plumbing. In some places children have to carry water in buckets from a distance to fill up a larger reserve in the house where you’re staying so you can use it. Be mindful of that.br / br / Zip/pen/jump drive: Bringing a 1G drive is invaluable. Use it for storing or transferring photos, writing email in Word and uploading it at a café later. You can buy a 1G drive for about $10 in Ghana.br / br / If you have any brilliant tips of your own you would like to add, or corrections, or anything at all, please write a comment!br / br / Packing image above courtesy of a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/36-degrees/"Stuart Frisby at Flickr /a, a href="http://images.google.com.gh/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Ghana_footbridge2.jpgamp;imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ghana_footbridge2.jpgamp;usg=__B4ms6eI-6Vml-foJ6oggrHssdHg=amp;h=960amp;w=1280amp;sz=667amp;hl=enamp;start=39amp;um=1amp;itbs=1amp;tbnid=Tc6bCmLUYDLVMM:amp;tbnh=113amp;tbnw=150amp;prev=/images%3Fq%3Dghana%26start%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26imgtbs%3Dr%26as_rights%3D%28cc_publicdomain%257Ccc_attribute%257Ccc_sharealike%257Ccc_noncommercial%257Ccc_nonderived%29%26as_st%3Dy%26ndsp%3D20%26tbs%3Disch:1"Kakum National Park/a image courtesy of a href="http://images.google.com.gh/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Ghana_footbridge2.jpgamp;imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ghana_footbridge2.jpgamp;usg=__B4ms6eI-6Vml-foJ6oggrHssdHg=amp;h=960amp;w=1280amp;sz=667amp;hl=enamp;start=39amp;um=1amp;itbs=1amp;tbnid=Tc6bCmLUYDLVMM:amp;tbnh=113amp;tbnw=150amp;prev=/images%3Fq%3Dghana%26start%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26imgtbs%3Dr%26as_rights%3D%28cc_publicdomain%257Ccc_attribute%257Ccc_sharealike%257Ccc_noncommercial%257Ccc_nonderived%29%26as_st%3Dy%26ndsp%3D20%26tbs%3Disch:1"Wikimedia Commons/adiv class="blogger-post-footer"div style="text-align: center;" div style="text-align: left;" a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ghana-Guide-Sample.pdf"Download a free sample of our Travel Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /div /divimg width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8826326494207776999-5505047498985610925?l=gisforghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=J_Z2PPb3doM:12eLHcUYf84:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=J_Z2PPb3doM:12eLHcUYf84:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=J_Z2PPb3doM:12eLHcUYf84:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?i=J_Z2PPb3doM:12eLHcUYf84:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThisIsGhana/~4/J_Z2PPb3doM" height="1" width="1"/
• March 12, 2010
• 14:39

  Facing an Arms Dealer in the Ivory Coast: Part II

   » ‎ This is Ghana
  div style="text-align: left;"We posted Part II of the story of a href="http://www.g-lish.org/writing/arms-dealer-part-ii/%20"facing an arms dealer in the Ivory Coast/a today at g-lish. You can see it by clicking on the link.nbsp; br / br / a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Insiders-Guide-to-Ghana-Sampler.pdf"Download a free sample of the Insider's Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"Download a sample of the Insider's Guide to Ghana here: [www.g-lish.org] width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8826326494207776999-3476596330867195490?l=gisforghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=AZbd2btsQyU:-eK__XS_uyw:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=AZbd2btsQyU:-eK__XS_uyw:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=AZbd2btsQyU:-eK__XS_uyw:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?i=AZbd2btsQyU:-eK__XS_uyw:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThisIsGhana/~4/AZbd2btsQyU" height="1" width="1"/

• March 11, 2010
• 20:41

  Google’s Gmail offering Free SMS to Ghana, but…

   » ‎ Mobile Africa

  Gmail users in Ghana who logged into the free email service would have noticed a pop-up message today:

  The message read:

  New! Free SMS in Gmail
  Send free SMS directly from Gmail – just enter a phone number and click Enter. SMS replies come right to your Gmail inbox.
  This service is now available for mobile phones in Ghana.

  The free SMS can be sent directly from within Gmail once the user logs in, as seen from the screenshot below:

  

  Free SMS in Gmail. Snapshot from Gmail.com

  According to Google:

  Sending a message is free from Gmail to any phone. When replying with an SMS from phone to Gmail, you will be charged a regular SMS rate by your mobile provider. Gmail SMS is currently available in Ghana with MTN, Zain, Tigo and Kasapa.

  However, efforts to try out the new service on MTN, Zain and Vodafone have so far failed as can be seen from the screenshot below. The numbers were whitened due to privacy concerns but the network codes can be clearly identified:

  

  Gmail free SMS to Ghana failing so far.

  Gmail is a free, advertising-supported webmail, POP3, and IMAP service provided by Google.

   

• 17:27

  promises

   » ‎ The English version of it all
  Ok. I admit this "singing our way through the alphabet" is taking looong. Not as exciting as I had hoped for. Gotta get through it fast! Another Tracy Chapman song gets the honor today. It's a song that has been with me for a long, long time. And has been a very appropriate song when I have been missing my boyfriend when we were far, far away from eachother. span style="font-size: x-large;"T/spanhe Promise. Love it.br /object height="344" width="425"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/crTc1V34m8ghl=en_USfs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/crTc1V34m8ghl=en_USfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"/embed/objectdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2494012953748530791-542460513029725806?l=amabroni.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 17:12

  Giving it up for Ghana Police!

   » ‎ Accra by Day & Night
  div class="mobile-photo"a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5kkcJNQW8I/AAAAAAAAClQ/uiifPPfbRWY/s1600-h/Samsung-ekb-0783-735975.jpg"img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5447425290207779778" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5kkcJNQW8I/AAAAAAAAClQ/uiifPPfbRWY/s320/Samsung-ekb-0783-735975.jpg" //a/divdiv class="mobile-photo"a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5kkcRf9bFI/AAAAAAAAClY/1P7IpQcFg94/s1600-h/Samsung-ekb-0784-737454.jpg"img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5447425292433714258" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5kkcRf9bFI/AAAAAAAAClY/1P7IpQcFg94/s320/Samsung-ekb-0784-737454.jpg" //a/divdiv class="mobile-photo"a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5kkdAfkS1I/AAAAAAAAClg/5NwPPudgxLU/s1600-h/Samsung-ekb-0786-739705.jpg"img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5447425305048533842" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5kkdAfkS1I/AAAAAAAAClg/5NwPPudgxLU/s320/Samsung-ekb-0786-739705.jpg" //a/divbr /div class="gmail_quote"Finally, Ghana Police got their act together this morning, and showed up at a major point on the Spintex Road. Let's keep our fingers crossed for Friday!;-)br /br /br //divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/26927428-2865757333414727476?l=accradailyphoto.blogspot.com' alt='' //div
• 17:06

  Giving it up for Ghana Police!

   » ‎ Accra by Day & Night
  Finally, Ghana Police got their act together this morning, and showed up. Let#39;s keep our fingers crossed for Friday!;-)brbrimg title="Samsung-ekb-0786.jpg" alt="Samsung-ekb-0786.jpg" src="cid:ii_1274e2e064713e4e"br clear="all" brbr div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/26927428-4504875829947024080?l=accradailyphoto.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 9:00

  My town: Bolgatanga, Upper East Region, Ghana

   » ‎ This is Ghana
  meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" [http-equiv="Content-Type"] content="Word.Document" name="ProgId"/metameta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Generator"/metameta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Originator"/metalink href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CSTATION3%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"/linko:smarttagtype name="country-region" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"/o:smarttagtypeo:smarttagtype name="place" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"/o:smarttagtypelink href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CSTATION3%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"/linklink href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CSTATION3%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"/linkstyle !-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:1; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;} @font-face {font-family:"Trebuchet MS"; panose-1:2 11 6 3 2 2 2 2 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:10.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} -- /style br / div class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Continuing the theme of places I've lived, I’ve pulled the photos I feel tell the story about life in Bolgatanga. What strikes me is the dust and the green—the difference between the dry and the wet season. I love Bolga during the wet but it tests you during the dry—now! o:p/o:p/span/divbr / div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5F-wpu6gHI/AAAAAAAAAuw/Uj5zQmhQGt0/s1600-h/Basket+Weaving+8-B.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5F-wpu6gHI/AAAAAAAAAuw/Uj5zQmhQGt0/s320/Basket+Weaving+8-B.JPG" //anbsp;/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br / /divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"nbsp;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5GAXVnZfeI/AAAAAAAAAu4/msqHPayqBAo/s1600-h/Baskets+Bolga+G.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5GAXVnZfeI/AAAAAAAAAu4/msqHPayqBAo/s320/Baskets+Bolga+G.JPG" //a/divbr / div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5GA1iMSOfI/AAAAAAAAAvA/lhhAKymSz-4/s1600-h/Bolga+baobab+football.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5GA1iMSOfI/AAAAAAAAAvA/lhhAKymSz-4/s320/Bolga+baobab+football.JPG" //aa href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5GBGzqksEI/AAAAAAAAAvI/78pR0RWzl3c/s1600-h/Bolga+Basket+Makers+.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5GBGzqksEI/AAAAAAAAAvI/78pR0RWzl3c/s320/Bolga+Basket+Makers+.JPG" //aa href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5GBh4FguHI/AAAAAAAAAvQ/uO7lG-7pjJU/s1600-h/Bolga+Funeral+Dancing.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5GBh4FguHI/AAAAAAAAAvQ/uO7lG-7pjJU/s320/Bolga+Funeral+Dancing.JPG" //aa href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5GBq0ZYI1I/AAAAAAAAAvY/jWYGgn6gwac/s1600-h/Bolga+Funeral+Roof.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5GBq0ZYI1I/AAAAAAAAAvY/jWYGgn6gwac/s320/Bolga+Funeral+Roof.JPG" //aa href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5GB9zdnB1I/AAAAAAAAAvg/zYGle6vaDyY/s1600-h/Bolga+mountains.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5GB9zdnB1I/AAAAAAAAAvg/zYGle6vaDyY/s320/Bolga+mountains.JPG" //a/divbr / a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Insiders-Guide-to-Ghana-Sampler.pdf"Download a free sample of the Insider's Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. div class="blogger-post-footer"div style="text-align: center;" div style="text-align: left;" a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ghana-Guide-Sample.pdf"Download a free sample of our Travel Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /div /divimg width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8826326494207776999-6273733795016292448?l=gisforghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=HNEXbMp0BMM:wwTARYqaVh8:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=HNEXbMp0BMM:wwTARYqaVh8:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=HNEXbMp0BMM:wwTARYqaVh8:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?i=HNEXbMp0BMM:wwTARYqaVh8:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThisIsGhana/~4/HNEXbMp0BMM" height="1" width="1"/

• 7:45

  What if your Partner...

   » ‎ ANTI-RHYTHM
  If you discovered that your devoted “Darby” or “Joan” of three years had been dribbling deliberately into your dinner or drink every time they were disconcerted by you, what would you do?div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7564356874518161776-9111479831513307846?l=antirhythm.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 0:00

  The IGP’s concerns

   » ‎ Ato Kwamena Dadzie Latest Blog Articles
  Hello Mr. IGP, I am sure yoursquo;ve taken your salary for this month. I am also sure that yoursquo;ve been having a lot of fun riding in a luxury car my motherrsquo;s lsquo;bofrotersquo; taxes contributed to buying and fuelling for you. You must be having a good time. But, being ...

• March 10, 2010
• 23:19

  A selection of Africa Movie Academy Award nominee trailers

   » ‎ Why so serious? Blogs of a MIghTy African
  We've been having some discussions about some of the tasteless trailers for some Ghanaian movies recently. It's sad that that's the way some movie producers are choosing to sell their movies. It's almost like we have to get it wrong before we can get it right or the industry is just not that mature. Watching trailers for some of the other African movies nominated for the Africa Movie Academy Awards, you can see the best ways to sell movies can be the trailers and they can be done in tasteful ways. See what award winning movie trailers look like. Watch some of these below.br /br /See info about a href="http://mightyafrican.blogspot.com/2009/06/sparrow-productions-perfect-picture.html"Perfect Picture/a, a href="http://mightyafrican.blogspot.com/2010/01/turning-point-pictures-i-sing-of-well.html"I Sing Of a Well (ISOAW)/a, a href="http://mightyafrican.blogspot.com/2010/01/sparrow-productions-sting-in-tale.html"A Sting In a Tale" (ASIAT)/a, a href="http://mightyafrican.blogspot.com/2009/11/much-publicized-ghanaian-movie-heart-of.html"Heart of Men (HOM)/a, a href="http://mightyafrican.blogspot.com/2010/02/heroes-productions-sin-of-soul-review.html"Sin of the Soul (SOTS)/a, reviewed on this blog.br /br /Figurine aka Araromire (Nigeria) directed by Kunle Afolayanbr /From IMDB - "The synopsis of Figurine (Araromire) shows that it is a story of two buddies and a girl...all down on their luck have their lives changed when one of them discovers 'Araromire' a mysterious figurine in an abandoned shrine which, according to legend bestows seven years of good luck. But no one told them about the next seven years." a href="http://www.figurinemovie.com/"Movie website/abr /Trailerbr /http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ym2XtmMaCQbr /object width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6ym2XtmMaCQhl=en_USfs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6ym2XtmMaCQhl=en_USfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"/embed/objectbr /br /Imani (Uganda) directed by Caroline Kamyabr /"In the course of just one day, we venture into the lives of three characters within the diverse landscape of contemporary Uganda. Imani provides a refreshing look at Uganda post Idi Amin, post LRA (Lords Resistance Army). A fresh new talent, director Caroline Kamya, gives us an intimate portrait of the lives of a child soldier, a maid and a hip hop dancer living in Uganda today." a href="http://www.imanimovie.com"Movie website/abr /Trailerbr /http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOAgCebSrVEbr /object width="426" height="260"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bOAgCebSrVEhl=en_USfs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bOAgCebSrVEhl=en_USfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="426" height="260"/embed/objectbr /br /Seasons of a Life (Malawi) directed by Shemu Joyahbr /"This is a moving story about sexual abuse; the rights of women; the triumph of hope over despair; and the enduring spirit of motherhood." a href="http://www.firstdawnarts.com/index.html"Movie website/abr /Here's a scene from the moviebr /http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW6esRJCYU4br /object width="426" height="260"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CW6esRJCYU4hl=en_USfs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CW6esRJCYU4hl=en_USfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="426" height="260"/embed/objectbr /br /The Tenant (Nigeria) directed by Lucky Ejimbr /"The Tenant is a multi award winning and critically acclaimed film, written and produced by Jude Idada and directed by Lucky Ejim. Shot in Nigeria and Canada, it explores the issues of immigration, socio-political ethos and economic justice."br /a href="http://www.thetenantmovie.com"Movie website/abr /Trailerbr /http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMcz06dZq8sbr /object width="426" height="260"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZMcz06dZq8shl=en_USfs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZMcz06dZq8shl=en_USfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="426" height="260"/embed/objectbr /br /Togetherness Supreme (Kenya) directed by Nathan Collettbr /"TOGETHERNESS SUPREME is the story of Kamau, an artist, Otieno, a hustler, and their shared love interest for Alice, a preacher’s daughter. All three live in Kibera, east Africa’s largest shantytown, home to a million people in Nairobi, Kenya. All three are from different tribes but are searching for tribal unity. The film follows these three characters in their quest for change in the community they live in, their fights, challenges and victories. After the 2007 Kenya presidential elections, Kibera is torn apart by conflicting tribal loyalties and so are the three characters." a href="http://www.togethernesssupreme.com/"Movie website/abr /Trailerbr /http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ8m7TZts58br /object width="426" height="260"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iJ8m7TZts58hl=en_USfs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iJ8m7TZts58hl=en_USfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="426" height="260"/embed/objectdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4957153574047966177-3780328731058532625?l=mightyafrican.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 21:31

  Somewhere over the rainbow

   » ‎ The English version of it all
  Things take time in my world. All of a sudden Wedenesday is about to end. This week is gonna run fast. It has been running fast at work, cause we are really busy implementing a plan I had: Having an art exhibition at the kindergarten for the parents to come and see. It was my little, little idea which has now grown in to a biiig project, and we are gonna have a fancy vernissage, with canapes and sparkling drinks, classical live music and a lot of beautiful (and less beautiful) art works made by the kids. Yippie! So the days are flying by with Yngvild covered in paint, glue, glitter and plaster, and the evenings just disappear into nothing and all of a sudden I find myself tucked in and ready to sleep...br /br /But I'm gonna share with you a song today. A very beautiful song from The Wizard of Oz, here sung by a young Norwegian talent, Nora Foss Al-Jabri. Just love her version and her voice. And I let myself be impressed by children with amazing talent. span style="font-size: x-large;"S/spanomewhere over the rainbow.br /br /object width="425" height="344"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/20KhAvAdcNchl=en_USfs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/20KhAvAdcNchl=en_USfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"/embed/objectdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2494012953748530791-4005688064220487963?l=amabroni.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 15:17

  All Roads Lead to Tema !

   » ‎ Accra by Day & Night
  p class="mobile-photo"a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5e4Ao-8zPI/AAAAAAAACk8/fBzDyremHLM/s1600-h/Image134-742787.jpg"img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5e4Ao-8zPI/AAAAAAAACk8/fBzDyremHLM/s320/Image134-742787.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5447024595468864754" //a/pp class="mobile-photo"a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5e4BAtPuQI/AAAAAAAAClE/vr0Ujzxsj0A/s1600-h/Image135-744298.jpg"img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5e4BAtPuQI/AAAAAAAAClE/vr0Ujzxsj0A/s320/Image135-744298.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5447024601837058306" //a/pThis is what a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tema"wikipedia/a says about Tema:brbrdiv style="margin-left: 40px;"bTema/b, population 209,000 (2005), is a city on the a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Ocean" title="Atlantic Ocean"Atlantic Ocean/a coast, east of the capital city of a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accra" title="Accra"Accra/a, in the region of a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Accra" title="Greater Accra" class="mw-redirect"Greater Accra/a, in a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana" title="Ghana"Ghana/a, a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Africa" title="West Africa"West Africa/a. Originally a small a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing" title="Fishing"fishing/a village, it grew after the construction of a large a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbour" title="Harbour" class="mw-redirect"harbour/a in 1961 and is now is the nation#39;s largest a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_port" title="Sea port" class="mw-redirect"sea port/a. It is also home to an a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_refinery" title="Oil refinery"oil refinery/a and is an important centre of a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing" title="Manufacturing"manufacturing/a. It is linked to the capital by a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway" title="Railway" class="mw-redirect"railway/a and a a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway" title="Highway"highway/a. Tema is one of Ghana#39;s two deep seaports; a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sekondi_Takoradi" title="Sekondi Takoradi" class="mw-redirect"Sekondi Takoradi/a is the other. Tema is the nearest city to the geographical position of 0 degrees latitude and 0 degrees longitude (which lies several hundred miles south in the a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bight_of_Benin" title="Bight of Benin"Bight of Benin/a).br clear="all"/divbrbrThis is my view: one of the best-designed communities in Accra. In fact, it is the bonly /bresidential community that remains the best well-planned. It has more than 10 quot;communitiesquot;, some of which link up to the famed Spintex Road. It has an indigenous quot;Tema Development Corporationquot;, clearly making quite a bit from developing Tema to the beautiful, verdant and organised city it has obtained the reputation of being.br brThis is what fellow ghanablogging member a href="http://nonjeneregretterien.blogspot.com/2009/09/kwame-nkrumah-city-of-tema-part-1.html"Kajsa Hallberg Adu/a wrote of her adopted hometown:brbrdiv style="margin-left: 40px;" iLet#39;s start my exposé on Tema with Nkrumah#39;s own words. We go back to span style="font-weight: bold;"February 10th, 1962/span and the Official Opening of the Tema Harbor. Kwame Nkrumah walks up to a podium and gives his speech./iblockquotebiquot;By taking advantage of the river systems of West Africa, it should be possible - again, by concerted action - to connect the hinterland, far outside the boarders of Ghana, with this great port of Tema. Thus, in this harbour of Tema, we see a unifying force and an essential requirement in the progress towards African Unityquot;/i/b/blockquoteiHence, Tema was just one part of the grandiose plan of Africa rising. Tema should be a harbor not just for Ghana, but for Africa. Still today, Burkina Faso, Mali and other landlocked countries are highly dependent on the Tema harbor. What whould they be today without this sea port?brbrNkrumah continued his speech with comparing the existing Takoradi harbor quot;designed by the colonialists to facilitate the exportation of the wealth of the countryquot; to this new sea port. He said:/iblockquotebiquot;Tema is the sign post of the future. It represents the purposeful beginning of the industrialisation of Ghana. It is the signal for industrial expansion, a challenge to our industry and intelligence and a hope for the future.quot;/i/b/blockquote/div Finally, from one US academic Dr.Renford Reese#39;s page:brbrquot;One of our visits was to the bustling cargo port of Tema. Nkrumah built this city in 1960 as a manmade harbor. Today, it is Ghana's industrial center and the most important trading port in the country. As a populated city, Tema is the closest to the crossing of the Prime Meridian and the equator, a special treat for our three geography majorsquot;brfrom: a href="http://www.csupomona.edu/%7Errreese/nonfla/GlobalCPP.html"http://www.csupomona.edu/~rrreese/nonfla/GlobalCPP.html/abrbrHave you got the message how important Tema is to Ghana now?br brLabels: a href="http://accradailyphoto.blogspot.com/search/label/tema"tema/a, a href="http://accradailyphoto.blogspot.com/search/label/nkrumah"nkrumah/abrbrpre id="line727"br/prebr div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/26927428-1653165171655688557?l=accradailyphoto.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 12:28

  Facing an Arms Dealer in the Ivory Coast: Part 1

   » ‎ This is Ghana
  div style="text-align: left;"You can read the first half of Godwin's personal story at G-lish today: a href="http://www.g-lish.org/travel/facing-an-arms-dealer/"Facing an Arms Dealer in the Ivory Coast/a. This story isn't glamorous by any stretch. It highlights what happens when you're caught in the poverty trap and the choices you have to make.br / br / a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Insiders-Guide-to-Ghana-Sampler.pdf"Download a free sample of the Insider's Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"div style="text-align: center;" div style="text-align: left;" a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ghana-Guide-Sample.pdf"Download a free sample of our Travel Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /div /divimg width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8826326494207776999-8974734135788383888?l=gisforghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=WdSo-U4-RNk:5iErvX1Q5To:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=WdSo-U4-RNk:5iErvX1Q5To:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=WdSo-U4-RNk:5iErvX1Q5To:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?i=WdSo-U4-RNk:5iErvX1Q5To:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThisIsGhana/~4/WdSo-U4-RNk" height="1" width="1"/

• 7:53

  A review of MTN Nigeria Mobile Broadband service

   » ‎ Mobile Africa

  I picked-up an MTN Nigeria mobile broadband kit recently and have used it heavily, since then. Find below my review of the service.

  The entire kit cost N18,650:

  • HSDPA USB stick: N8,500
  • MTN SIM: N150
  • Airtime: N10,000 (24/7 monthly plan)

  The MTN agent asked for an ID and passport photo. As I had no prior knowledge they would demand this, I was only fortunate that I always carried a driving licence and spare passport photos in my wallet everywhere I go, for times like this. Be informed. Also, I was made to sign a fine print containing their terms of service.

  The device

  

  MTN Nigeria 3G pack

  Branded as MTN F@stlink E156G, the USB stick is essentially a Huawei E156G with the following specifications:

  • HSDPA/UMTS 2100MHz – it can connect to just about any 3.5G cellular network in the world if it were unlocked.
  • EDGE/GPRS/GSM 1900/1800/900/850 MHz – it can connect to just about any GSM cellular network in the world if it were unlocked.
  • HSDPA service data rate up to 3.6Mbps – real life speeds would vary
  • SMS service – users can send and receive text messages when using the bundled software
  • Micro SD card slot – it can take a Micro SD of up to 4GB capacity and thus double as a USB drive
  • Plug and play – there is no need to install software from a CD. The software bundled on the device would have to be installed though, for PCs and Macs.

  Before you decide to buy, the device has the following system requirements:

  • Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista. I am safely assuming it would work well on Windows 7. Also, I got it to work on Ubuntu 9.10
  • Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 with latest upgrades
  • Hardware system should meet the recommended requirements for the installed OS version
  • Display resolution: 800 x 600 and above
  • Standard USB interface

  The software
  Branded MTN F@stlink, it offers 7 tabs, namely:

  • Connection: this is where the user initiates a connection or disconnection to/from the MTN network
  • Statistics: offers a detailed break-down of data usage and includes a graph
  • Message: enables the user to send/receive text messages and manage existing messages
  • Phonebook: an address book that saves contact details.. Record include Name, Mobile Number, Office Number, Home Number, Email address and Remarks.
  • Airtime: enables the user to check and load airtime. It is divided into postpaid and prepaid, to cater for both market segments.
  • Internet: a click on this loads the default web browser
  • Bundle plan: enables the user to select which of the bundle plans to subscribe to, and check the status of an existing bundle. This service is for prepaid subscribers only. The confirmation is via a text message.

  The bundles
  MTN Nigeria offers 3 data bundles:

  • 24/7 Monthly Plan: this is the ultimate plan from MTN and comes with a 3GB data cap but is available 24 hours every day within a 30 days period. It goes for N10,000 per month. This bundle is ideal for heavy users.
  • Nite Plan: this is usable only from 10pm to 5am and also comes with a 3GB data limit but costs only N2,500 monthly. This bundle is ideal for surfers who have a day job and can afford to stay awake all night.
  • 24 hours Daily: this is clearly targetted at the occasional web surfer and comes with a meagre 50MB data cap. It costs only N500.

  The service
  I subjected the mobile broadband service to a speed test at the time of writing using speedtest.net; the following screenshot shows the highest speed I got. Note that speedtest.com used Vodafone Ghana’s server for the test.

  The results shown in the screenshot above just about represent an average of the several tests I carried out. It shows that MTN Nigeria offers a download speed of about 0.43 Mb/s and a miserable upload speed of 0.06Mb/s as well as a high latency of 366ms.

  This means, upload heavy data using the mobile broadband service would be a slow experience and making phone/video calls via the Internet would be less than ideal due to the high latency as seen from the ping test.

  The coverage
  It is critical to confirm 3G coverage in your locality before opting for MTN’s mobile broadband service for therein lies the key to the advertised speeds. From the marketing flyer attached to the kit:

  3G service is currently available in most part of Lagos, Abuja, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Kano, Benin, Ibadan, Kaduna, Onitsha, Aba, Asaba.

  MTN also offers an extensive EDGE coverage that is even more nationwide. EDGE which offers a fairly fast connectivity is available where there is no 3G coverage.

  The bad
  The MTN mobile broadband service was not without hiccups, at the time of extensive use.

  • Intermittent disconnections: The service simply went off occasionally and connection could be re-established by disconnecting and re-connecting from the network. At other times, the downtime lasted over an hour.
  • SSL traffic: Occasionally, it was impossible to access secured websites. All access to URLs starting with [https:] were in possible and thus secured chatting programs like Yahoo Messenger and Skype failed to connect too. This error typically occurred at mid-mornings.
  • Not all websites were accessible: Even when the mobile broadband service was at its peak of performance, some websites were not accessible despite repeated attempts. The persistent error message was: “No suitable nodes are available to serve your request.” A work-around this was to use a proxy server.
  • The offered data bundles are not very flexible as users’ choices are limited. Heavy users are forced to subscribed to the 24/7 monthly plan for N10,000 even if they would need less than 3GB monthly.
  • It is difficult to know the status of usage after crossing the 1GB milestone. Checking your data usage via SMS thereafter does not offer an exact figure of used data but simply states that 2GB has been used. It is thus difficult for the user to know when usage is getting close to the 3GB limit.

  The verdict
  MTN Nigeria’s mobile broadband service offers high-speed internet connectivity much of the time and is worth buying where mobile connectivity is needed or fixed broadband options are not available provided the user can live with the few annoyances highlighted above.

  Note: it is possible to enjoy the broadband service from MTN without buying their F@stlink modem. One could either browse on the (smart)phone itself or use it as a modem. When using the phone as a modem, the user would need the following:

  • a 3.5G-capable mobile phone
  • modem driver & dialling software: these are typically provided on a CD bundled with the phone, by the phone manufacturer, or can be downloaded via the Internet
  • a means of connectivity the phone to a computer: whilst bluetooth is usable, USB is ideal. Infrared is archaic.
  • an MTN data bundle subscription

  Backstory*:

  • I have used the MTN Mobile Broadband service extensively before buying their F@stlink modem, using Nokia smartphones as modem and have experienced the high speed in Lagos, Ibadan and Kaduna. EDGE worked in Zaria.
  • MTN branded complimentary gift items accompanied the broadband kit: a pen and a writing pad.
  • I did not have enough time to read the terms before signing and so not sure about what it contains.

  *The info in the “backstory” section, are what I considered too trivial to add into the main body of the review but useful enough to share with you.

  Did you find this review useful, feel free to share this blog with others. Do you have an additions or questions about this review, add these using the comments area.

  

   

• 7:34

  The Four-Wheel-Drive Complex

   » ‎ ANTI-RHYTHM
  A Jurassic Jeep driver flies past me on the dirt-rocky Spintex Road at 6 a.m., at full, bitumen-surface speed, and cuts into my lane. A sand truck rockets a little rock which cracks the jinxed Jeep’s windscreen. The junk Jeep driver chases the truck...for what?div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7564356874518161776-5051613910864502762?l=antirhythm.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 0:00

  APPRECIATION: ‘Pretending to be President’

   » ‎ Ato Kwamena Dadzie Latest Blog Articles
  Irsquo;ve never shaken so many hands and signed my signature so often in just one day. That was the day my maiden book lsquo;Pretending to be Presidentrsquo; was officially launched. It was a launch like no other. I didnrsquo;t want an official ceremony where the first copy of the book ...

• March 09, 2010
• 21:24

  PDF Travel Guide to Ghana for sale

   » ‎ This is Ghana
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mso-level-text:; mso-level-tab-stop:.5in; mso-level-number-position:left; text-indent:-.25in; font-family:Symbol;} @list l2 {mso-list-id:838546524; mso-list-type:hybrid; mso-list-template-ids:-276776382 67698689 67698691 67698693 67698689 67698691 67698693 67698689 67698691 67698693;} @list l2:level1 {mso-level-number-format:bullet; mso-level-text:; mso-level-tab-stop:.5in; mso-level-number-position:left; text-indent:-.25in; font-family:Symbol;} ol {margin-bottom:0in;} ul {margin-bottom:0in;} -- /style /m:defjc/m:rmargin/m:lmargin/m:dispdef/m:smallfracbr / div class="MsoNormal"bspan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"What is it?/span/b/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"It is a 278-page, instantly downloadable PDF guide to travel in st1:place w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region/st1:place. o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"This is ba travel guide/b that lets visitors benefit from our inside knowledge and experience. bA guide that is:/b/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc"li class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Up-to-date on prices, names and numbers (Updated versions and separate pages showing specific changes will be emailed to you free for 12 months from the date of your purchase.)o:p/o:p/span/li li class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Written by a Ghanaian and a foreigner who lives and travels extensively in st1:place w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region/st1:place (we got lost so you don’t need to—but it’s often a fun learning experience if you do)o:p/o:p/span/li li class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Explains clearly how to get from A-to-B (or C and D and E if you like)o:p/o:p/span/li li class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Includes the best attractions and accommodation (so you can save time and money)o:p/o:p/span/li li class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"That also explains what st1:place w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region/st1:place and Ghanaians are really like (so you’re not completely in the dark when you find yourself without a toilet, for instance)o:p/o:p/span/li li class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"With extended culture, costs, health, preparation and dangers sections (to put you in the most prepared and confident position before you leave)o:p/o:p/span/li li class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"And includes our “insider’s” tips throughout every section (so you can visit “hot” spots in your first week, instead of taking months to accidentally discover them)o:p/o:p/span/li li class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"With an audio file of basic greetings and words in Twi and Hausa (by Godwin!) so you can learn to say “hello,” “I’m fine,” “How much is it?” and other useful every day phrases in the two major language groups in Ghana. You can even listen to it on your I-pod before touching down to prepare for your first encounter with a taxi driver! Don’t worry—it’s not difficult and Ghanaians really admire your attempts to speak their languages, even if you’re trying to reduce a price. o:p/o:p/span/li li class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Godwin (our st1:place w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region/st1:place half of the team) and I (Aussie half) will also add some words of advice about how to haggle with a couple of examples (we are going to role play this one in English) so you can hear what to expect when you buy souvenirs or any products in the markets. He’ll be the trader, me the buyer. (*Note: These two audio files are “in production” now. You, and existing wonderful customers, will receive this as a separate update via email shortly if we haven’t already zipped it with the guide when you buy it.)o:p/o:p/span/li /uldiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"bspan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Who it’s for: The Insider’s Guide to st1:place w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region/st1:place is umost suited/u too:p/o:p/span/b/divul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc"li class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"First-time visitorso:p/o:p/span/li li class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Second- or third-time visitors who may have spent limited time in st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ghana/st1:place/st1:country-region previouslyo:p/o:p/span/li li class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Visitors whose last trip to st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ghana/st1:place/st1:country-region was more than two years agoo:p/o:p/span/li li class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Anyone who lives principally in one area, e.g. st1:city w:st="on"Accra/st1:city or st1:placetype w:st="on"Cape/st1:placetype st1:placetype w:st="on"Coast/st1:placetype or st1:city w:st="on"Kumasi/st1:city, and who will travel to other parts of st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ghana/st1:place/st1:country-region but may be unfamiliar with those areas.o:p/o:p/span/li /uldiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"bspan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"The guide is unot suited/u too:p/o:p/span/b/divul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc"li class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Anyone with extensive travel experience in st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ghana/st1:place/st1:country-regiono:p/o:p/span/li li class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Anyone who has a guide that they’re already content with using/spanspan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"o:p/o:p/span/li /uldiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"bspan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Reality check:o:p/o:p/span/b/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"The guide won’t solve buall/u/b your st1:place w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region/st1:place problems, but it will make life and travel a whole lot easier, especially regarding transport, health, accommodation, culture, and how to get from A to B. o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"This is what readers are already saying about the PDF guide:/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="color: #073763; text-align: center;"bspan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"“Reading your guide has been SO helpful in preparing for our trip. Your writing skills are exceptional and your knowledge shared is appreciated.” D.N. (st1:place w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"USA/st1:country-region/st1:place)o:p/o:p/span/b/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="color: #073763; text-align: center;"bbr / /b/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="color: #073763; text-align: center;"bspan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"“I’ve been to st1:place w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region/st1:place several times (9?). I consider it my second home in some ways. Such a deep love!!! What I like about your book is as I read it I’m saying to myself, ‘Yes, exactly! Amen!’ Lol!” A.G. (st1:place w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"USA/st1:country-region/st1:place)o:p/o:p/span/b/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="color: #073763; text-align: center;"bbr / /b/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="color: #073763; text-align: center;"bspan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"“The guide looks AMAZING! It will definitely come in handy for our trip to st1:place w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region/st1:place later this year. ” T.O. o:p/o:p/span/b/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="color: #073763; text-align: center;"bbr / /b/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="color: #073763; text-align: center;"bspan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"“Hi Gayle and Godwin, Thanks very much for the guide. It is the best tourist guide book ever!” S.B.o:p/o:p/span/b/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="color: #073763; text-align: center;"bbr / /b/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"bspan style="color: #073763;"“Hello, First of all I’d just like to say a massive THANK YOU!!! I’ve just finished reading the The Insider’s Guide to /spanst1:place style="color: #073763;" w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region/st1:placespan style="color: #073763;" and The Insider’s Guide to Volunteering and found them both to be interesting, informative and helpful.” L.M. (/spanst1:place style="color: #073763;" w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"UK/st1:country-region/st1:placespan style="color: #073763;")/span/bo:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"You can buy our a href="https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?c=cartamp;i=617317amp;cl=103846amp;ejc=2"st1:place w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"uGhana/u/st1:country-region/st1:placeu travel guide/u/a here./spanbr / span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ghana-Guide-Sample.pdf"Download a sample here. /a/spanbr / br / span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,sans-serif;"Here is an excerpt from "bArriving/b"/spanbr / div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5bGdkvZ3VI/AAAAAAAAAw4/GNX8ZeHZxdI/s1600-h/Guide-arriving.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" height="492" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5bGdkvZ3VI/AAAAAAAAAw4/GNX8ZeHZxdI/s640/Guide-arriving.JPG" width="640" //a/divbr / span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"/spanbr / span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"/spanbr / span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;" /span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"div style="text-align: center;" div style="text-align: left;" a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ghana-Guide-Sample.pdf"Download a free sample of our Travel Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /div /divimg width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8826326494207776999-1350874620180369402?l=gisforghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=caDHBUKA1UM:Gebp0ZpEGNE:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=caDHBUKA1UM:Gebp0ZpEGNE:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=caDHBUKA1UM:Gebp0ZpEGNE:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?i=caDHBUKA1UM:Gebp0ZpEGNE:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThisIsGhana/~4/caDHBUKA1UM" height="1" width="1"/
• 16:13

  Vodafone Ghana ignoring calls to restore internet to Bolgatanga

   » ‎ This is Ghana
  I'm posting from mobile since we still have no internet. Despite repeated requests for Vodafone Bolgatanga to restore a full, stable connection to our town, and Vodafone Accra's assurances that it already IS fixed...it's not fixed. Unless "fixed" means 1 hour in 5 minute snatches per day while Vodafone continues to charge monthly fees to cafes thatnow have no customers 23 hours a day. Net cafes are going broke in Bolga. Is this happening anywhere else in Ghana? When will Vodafone fix the connection?div class="blogger-post-footer"div style="text-align: center;" div style="text-align: left;" a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ghana-Guide-Sample.pdf"Download a free sample of our Travel Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /div /divimg width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8826326494207776999-3715023017981781710?l=gisforghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=jKB7iewWbx0:bwShG8EYpCE:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=jKB7iewWbx0:bwShG8EYpCE:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=jKB7iewWbx0:bwShG8EYpCE:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?i=jKB7iewWbx0:bwShG8EYpCE:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThisIsGhana/~4/jKB7iewWbx0" height="1" width="1"/

• 15:53

  Guest Contributor 'Mr. B': I Dreamed a Dream (Poetry/Prose)

   » ‎ Circumspect
  span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"/spanbr / div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://bluenred.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/midnight_dreams1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" height="320" src="http://bluenred.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/midnight_dreams1.jpg" width="251" //a/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"span style="font-size: small;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"Have you ever woken up from a dream, a dream about someone special, and wondered whether they had dreamed the same dream?/span/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"span style="font-size: small;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"Have you ever woken up from a dream, and patiently, but excitedly, waited to see them, only to see if they had dreamed the same dream?/span/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"span style="font-size: small;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"Have you ever gazed into their eyes, hoping, waiting, for the same glint in their eyes, the look that needed no words to say, I dreamed a dream…./span/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"span style="font-size: small;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"Have you ever casually said hello, waiting, ever so patiently, with bated breath, for them to speak the words before you do, that last night, I dreamed a dream…/span/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"span style="font-size: small;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"Have you ever had the pleasure, of confirming what you knew certainly the moment you awoke, the pleasure of telling your beloved, I too, dreamed the same dream…./span/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"span style="font-size: small;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"Have you ever set your eyes on them, and knew, the moment you looked into theirs, that surely they had not, but you still hoped, that they had dreamed the same dream?/span/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"span style="font-size: small;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"Have you ever spent time with your beloved, danced with them, laughed and cried with them, hoping that they would one day realize, though they never did, that you had dreamed a dream?/span/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"span style="font-size: small;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"Have you ever thought that you were awake, and then realized that you were still sleeping, dreaming of what could be, but what is not, what may forever be, but what will never be?/span/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"span style="font-size: small;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"One who dreams is never sure if they are awake, One who is awake is always sure they are not dreaming. If you are not sure if you are awake, then you must be dreaming./span/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"span style="font-size: small;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"Awake, arise from your slumber, and dare to dream, but only if your beloved dares to dream with you./span/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"--/span/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"Check out Mr. B's blog gt;gt;a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1268149108679"nbsp;/a/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"ba href="http://bambostic.blogspot.com/"http://bambostic.blogspot.com//a/b/span/span/span/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;"a href="http://bluenred.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/midnight_dreams1.jpg"Photo/a/span/span/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/30396251-997804316749345695?l=www.circumspecte.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Circumspect?a=pxHOVkdnNlU:VdPp_3WkxX8:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Circumspect?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Circumspect/~4/pxHOVkdnNlU" height="1" width="1"/

• 9:31

  Making Sense of Oil Discoveries in Ghana: Part 2, a dispute with the Ivory Coast?

   » ‎ This is Ghana
  meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" [http-equiv="Content-Type"] content="Word.Document" name="ProgId"/metameta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Generator"/metameta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Originator"/metalink href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CSTATION3%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"/linko:smarttagtype name="country-region" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"/o:smarttagtypeo:smarttagtype name="place" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"/o:smarttagtypelink href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CSTATION3%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"/linklink href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CSTATION3%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"/linkstyle !-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:1; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;} @font-face {font-family:"Trebuchet MS"; panose-1:2 11 6 3 2 2 2 2 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:10.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} -- /style br / div class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"In Sunday’s post a href="http://gisforghana.blogspot.com/2010/03/making-sense-of-oil-discoveries-in.html"Making Sense of Oil Discoveries in Ghana: Part 1/a, I explained the oil exploration industry basics. And in my very first post on the subject, a href="http://gisforghana.blogspot.com/2010/03/making-sense-of-ghanas-oil-discoveries.html"Making Sense of Ghana's Oil Discoveries: Introduction/a, I referred to the potentially problematic border issue:o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"“It gets quite complicated when the field also happens to sit in disputed areas like major gas fields between st1:country-region w:st="on"Australia/st1:country-region and st1:place w:st="on"East Timor/st1:place. o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"st1:country-region w:st="on"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Australia/span/st1:country-regionspan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;" and st1:country-region w:st="on"Indonesia/st1:country-region jointly determined maritime boundaries between the two countries after st1:country-region w:st="on"Indonesia/st1:country-region invaded st1:place w:st="on"East Timor/st1:place. These boundaries favoured certain gas finds to st1:country-region w:st="on"Australia/st1:country-region, but when East Timor gained independence from st1:country-region w:st="on"Indonesia/st1:country-region, East Timor disputed the legality of the boundaries that st1:country-region w:st="on"Australia/st1:country-region created with st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Indonesia/st1:place/st1:country-region during the illegal occupation. The boundaries deprived newly independent st1:place w:st="on"East Timor/st1:place of revenue. o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"st1:place w:st="on"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"East Timor/span/st1:placespan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;" argued that the boundaries did not accord with international law. st1:place w:st="on"East Timor/st1:place argued that they should have more share of the royalties from the development of the field. This dispute went on for years (we had an annual conference and every year they said the agreement would be finalized that year…it was, five years later) and eventually a complicated revenue sharing agreement was finalized between the countries and those companies with interests in developing the field. It was very interesting.o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"At least, in st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region’s case, there are no border disputes where the blocks lay on the border with the st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ivory Coast/st1:place/st1:country-region.” o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"I wrote. o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"And then, later that very day, I read: a href="http://news.myjoyonline.com/business/201003/43007.asp"Ivory Coast Oil Claim has serious implications/a at My Joyonline /spanspan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"by Fiifi Koomson./spanspan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"ispan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"What what what what what what what?!o:p/o:p/span/i/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"So, I decided to create a separate post addressing this as simply as possible. I have included edited excerpts of Fiifi Koomson’s story here that explains the gist of the issue.o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"i“Lands and Natural Resources Minister says the emerging claim from st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ivory Coast/st1:place/st1:country-region to portions of the oil fields in the Western Region is a very delicate matter. Collins Dauda said the issue has serious international and diplomatic repercussions. Government is expecting Parliament to quickly deliberate on a bill that would establish a boundary commission to negotiate st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region’s maritime boundaries with st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ivory Coast/st1:place/st1:country-region.”br / br / “We have not been able, as a country, to determine our boundary with st1:country-region w:st="on"Ivory Coast/st1:country-region and there is the need for us to now determine the maritime boundary between st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region and st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ivory Coast/st1:place/st1:country-region,” he said./i o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"All I can think is iNow? /io:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"br / i"Mr Dauda however said both countries have, for years, respected “a median line” between them that cannot be trespassed."/ibr / br / o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Respect is lovely when there’s nothing at stake. I have to say that “median line” featured heavily in discussions between st1:country-region w:st="on"Australia/st1:country-region and st1:place w:st="on"East Timor/st1:place.o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"br / i“All of a sudden, with the oil find, st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ivory Coast/st1:place/st1:country-region is making a claim that is disrespecting this median line we have all respected. In which case we would be affected or the oil find will be affected,” he said./ibr / br / o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Who is surprised?o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"br / i”Collins Dauda said, last year, st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ghana/st1:place/st1:country-region appealed to the United Nations to extend its maritime boundary by 200 nautical miles.”/ibr / br / o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"I think he means that the appeal was made last year. iLast year?! /i(Mama Mia!)o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"br / i”Head of Research at the Kofi Annan International Peace Keeping Training Centre, Dr Kwesi Aning, says the latest turn of events exemplifies “a failure of the state institutions to protect our national interest.”/ibr / br / o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"An (unfortunately) astute observation.o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"br / i”Dr Aning said there is a general lack of seriousness in ensuring the country’s boundaries are protected. The security expert is recommending a solid technical documentation studied by lawyers with expertise in petroleum issues.” /ibr / br / o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"Hopefully this can be resolved faster than st1:country-region w:st="on"Australia/st1:country-region and st1:place w:st="on"East Timor/st1:place could resolve their differences. It should be simpler as the issues in this case are less complex (not relating to agreements with a former invading nation, for starters), but rather between amicable neighbours. But they certainly need experienced, honest and independent experts to advise. If not, I won’t be the only person in st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ghana/st1:place/st1:country-region throwing my hands in the air and cursing about lost opportunities./spanspan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;;"o:p/o:p/span/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"div style="text-align: center;" div style="text-align: left;" a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ghana-Guide-Sample.pdf"Download a free sample of our Travel Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /div /divimg width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8826326494207776999-6708646180481924020?l=gisforghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=9Mm40ri2P_I:XrFRv98R1A4:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=9Mm40ri2P_I:XrFRv98R1A4:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=9Mm40ri2P_I:XrFRv98R1A4:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?i=9Mm40ri2P_I:XrFRv98R1A4:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThisIsGhana/~4/9Mm40ri2P_I" height="1" width="1"/

• 6:19

  My 23 man Black Stars squad for the South Africa 2010 World Cup

   » ‎ Why so serious? Blogs of a MIghTy African
  img src="http://www.ghanafa.org/photos/gallery/200909/00061661.jpg" width="400" height="300"br /I'm on a roll, I've already published three blog posts today. Let's talk about sports for a bit. Last week, with little publicity, the Black Stars of Ghana faced Bosnia-Herzegovina in a friendly in Sarajevo. The Black Stars lost 2-1. As usual, while some fingers were pointed, some fingers were crossed, some toes were crossed and some toes were giddy. It's about 3 months to the start of this year's World Cup in South Africa and I can't wait. I am fully confident that the Black Stars team will get their act together before the World Cup and make Ghanaians and Africans proud. A few things need to be done and I want to offer a few thoughts and suggestions. br /br /strongGoalkeeping/strongbr /Richard Olele Kingston may be warming the bench at Wigan Athletic in cold England but he's still the undisputed number one Ghanaian goalie. In fact, he's right up there with all African goalkeepers. He's lost some of his agility but a goalkeeper must command respect and he does this best amongst all available options. I'll love to see Daniel Adjei make the final squad alongside George Owu. Owu has been solid everywhere he's been, he's not spectacular but he's also not flawed. br /br /strongCentral defence/strongbr /John Mensah the Rock of Gibraltar has had so many problems staying fit that now he's been simply christened 'Glass'. I hope he stays in shape and is fit for the mundial and leaves his tendencies to set high lines and offside traps at home when he gets to South Africa. Alongside John in central defence has to be Isaac Vorsah. He proved his worth at the Nations Cup but he must also learn to score a few goals from set-pieces. He must make adequate use of his height. We know, unlike me, he's not afraid to head the ball. Lee Addy's name was mentioned so much by commentators at the African Cup that that alone should guarantee him a ticket to South Africa. He's still raw but he'll get smarter hanging around the other professionals. Eric Addo must be retired from Black Star service and Francis Dickoh should take his place ahead of Jonathan Mensah. He's tried and tested at higher levels than both Addy and Jonathan, and would be a great insurance with the fragility of John Mensah looming. br /br /strongWing defence/strongbr /John Paintsil had been the most consistent Black Stars player before he got injured last Christmas but some naysayers will point to his lack of concentration as a defender. He and Samuel Inkoom stand above right-backs in Ghana but the man who once tried to broker a peace deal between Israel and Palestine at a football match should win out. Inkoom's been a winner but Paintsil has the versatility to change a game, as well as the experience. Thank God for Hans Adu Sarpei. The left-back position has been a problem since Isaac Asare's age caught up with him. Hans is not flashy or fast but is a very solid defender and is very technical. David Addy, the World Youth cup winner should be taken as his backup. This is a young lad with so much promise and I think is a joy to watch. These guys must learn to put in decent crosses though and should consult Bukom Banku for diets that will make them Energizer Bunnies. br /br /strongCentral midfield/strongbr /The strength of the Black Stars' team is the midfield as it is blessed with arguably the best defensive midfielder in the game - Michael Essien. The Bison has been injury prone but he should be fit as a fiddle by the time June rolls around. One big debate in Ghanaian football circles is whether Anthony Annan should start for Ghana so he can do the dirty work while Essien ventures up front to help our toothless strikeforce. I believe Essien should play the defensive midfield position with Pokinho Annan relegated to the bench. Essien plays this position excellently for Chelsea and before that, he marvelled with Lyon. He can produce a moment of attacking magic no matter where he plays so he should play at his natural position. Ahead of him in attacking midfield should be Kwadwo Asamoah. Kwadwo is the closest Black Star to Abedi Pele I've seen in the last 10 years. Spelling him on the bench comes down to Prince Buaben, and Emmanuel Agyemang Badu. I've not seen the former play much but I think he should get the nod here for his performances in the Scottish Premier League. In order to win the World Cup, you must have a world-class team. We are not going to the World Cup for our players to be scouted, we are going there to win. br /br /strongWing midfield/strongbr /Sulley Muntari owns the left winger position and proved his worth when he returned from his 'indisciplinary' suspension from the Black Stars to score our only goal in a freezing Sarajevo. He must learn to control his aggressiveness since we can't afford to have him pick silly yellow and red cards. On the right, I am excited about Kevin Prince-Boateng. It's taking an eternity to get his paperwork through but once he's done, Ghanaians will see how good he is and how great he can be. He has skill, technique and a shot. Hey, our strikers don't have all three, do they? On the bench, I'll go for Quincy Owusu-Abeyie and Andre Ayew. Quincy can change a game with his pace and skill, he just can't play 90 minutes. We remember Dede Ayew losing possession often when we see him play but he has a knack for fishing a goal and eye for creating some magic. br /br /strongAttack/strongbr /This is where I wish French Togo had joined Ghana in the 50's. Or Burkina Faso when they were still known as Upper Volta. Or the Ivory Coast when we discovered they could also speak some form of Twi. But when I think of the strikers they have I wish Ghana has, then I am reminding of Eric Bekoe. To me, Eric is our next Tony Yeboah. Eric who? Yes, that's the sad part, you haven't seen him play because for reasons known to Antoa Nyanma, he's not had a solid run playing for the Black Stars. This guy is a goal scorer, period. He was the goal king in Ghana for Kotoko and he's the goal king in Egypt right now. I've seen him play for Kotoko and he's the kind of guy who used to strike fear into his opponents. In Bekoe I trust, and I don't lose sleep over Mario Barwuah Balotelli. I'll like to see Bekoe start our next World Cup match with Asamoah Gyan alongside him. Coach Milovan Rajevac can keep his 4-2-3-1 foromation if he wants, he should just shift Gyan into the midfield and play Bekoe anyway. I can't think of a single flaw for Bekoe but we all know Gyan needs to exercise more composure when he gets a scoring opportunity. Junior Agogo comes with a different dimension as a striker and I am tempted to have him selected. Maybe he'll get a few fickle fans to support us, we all know, the Ghanaian girls are crazy over him. Till I see him play again, I vouch for Matthew Amoah and Dominic Adiyiah as subs.br /br /So there is my tentative 23 man squad for the Black Starsbr /br /strongWinning eleven/strong - Kingston; Paintsil, John Mensah, Vorsah, Sarpei; Kevin Boateng, Essien, Kwadwo Asamoah, Muntari; Bekoe, Asamoah Gyan.br /br /strongTraining eleven/strong - Owu; Inkoom, Dickoh, Lee Addy, David Addy; Quincy, Annan, Buaben, Dede Ayew; Amoah, Adiyiah.br /br /23rd man - Daniel Adjei.br /br /strongOsee, osee, Black Stars ei, forward ever!/strongdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4957153574047966177-2255142304884551368?l=mightyafrican.blogspot.com' alt='' //div
• 4:12

  Ghanaian movies earn many 2010 Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) nominations

   » ‎ Why so serious? Blogs of a MIghTy African
  Two of my favorite movies ever, Shirley Frimpong-Manso's a href="http://mightyafrican.blogspot.com/2009/06/sparrow-productions-perfect-picture.html"Perfect Picture/a and Leila Djansi's a href="http://mightyafrican.blogspot.com/2010/01/turning-point-pictures-i-sing-of-well.html"I Sing Of a Well (ISOAW)/a have been nominated for multiple categories at the 2010 Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA). The nominations party was held in Accra, Ghana on March 6th. I have been a huge fan of (great) African movies recently and can't wait to see some of these movies. It's great to see the African movie industry blossoming, with actors and actresses acting in different countries, African cinema spreading to different nations, burgeoning sales in African film and respectable awards ceremonies. br /br /Shirley had two movies nominated, Perfect Picture and "a href="http://mightyafrican.blogspot.com/2010/01/sparrow-productions-sting-in-tale.html"A Sting In a Tale" (ASIAT)/a. Perfect Picture is still one of the best Ghanaian movies ever made iimho/i and deserves to win a couple of awards. It's funny how the three leading ladies in the movie, Jackie, Lydia and Naa all got nominated for Best Actress - together. Who does that? This would surely lower the reputation of the AMAA's. They couldn't adjudge the best actress and had to divide a single nomination amongst three ladies? Adjetey Anang is one of the best actors in Ghana and I don't see how Naa gets a nomination for Best Actress and he gets a nomination for best supporting actor. #FAIL. Doris Sackitey was nominated for best supporting actress for her role in ASIAT. For those of you who taught it was a bad movie, think again! br /br /In spite of all the controversy a href="http://mightyafrican.blogspot.com/2009/11/much-publicized-ghanaian-movie-heart-of.html"Heart of Men (HOM)/a generated, I thought it was a great movie when I watched it and it gained some nominations as well. Majid Michel declared it was his best movie, but I think he acted even better in a href="http://mightyafrican.blogspot.com/2010/02/heroes-productions-sin-of-soul-review.html"Sin of the Soul (SOTS)/a, and surely he won a best actor nomination for his work in there. John Dumelo (for his role in HOM) and Martha Ankomah (for hers in SOTS) were both nominated for most promising actor (and actress). I surely agree with Martha's nomination but I don't think Dumelo was that awesome in HOM. What about our favorite Ghanaian English movies from Venus Films? A single nomination for "The King is Mine" in the Best Make-Up category. This nomination makes too much sense. :-)br /br /ISOAW is arguably better than The Perfect Picture. Many Africans have not seen the movie but now they will pay attention. Akofa Adjeani-Asiedu and JOT Agyeman earned nominations for Best Actress and Actor respectively and Godwin Kotey earned one for Best Supporting Actor. Thorougly deserved. That movie was directed so well and scored! I can't wait for it to be on strikeVCD/strike DVD so African movie lovers can own it and see the difference. You should read my a href="http://mightyafrican.blogspot.com/2010/02/interview-leila-djansi-i-sing-of-well.html"interview with the director, Leila, here/a. She's awesome. I guess King Ampaw's No Time to Die was ineligible this year. That movie is one of the best from Ghana in recent years. I've seen it and once I see it again the review will be on this blog. br /br /For the non-Ghanaian movies, I really want to see Figurine from Nigeria and Imani from Uganda. Someone please make it happen. I wonder why a href="http://mightyafrican.blogspot.com/2009/08/reviewing-district-9-south-african-sci.html"District 9/a and a href="http://mightyafrican.blogspot.com/2009/10/south-african-movie-white-wedding.html"White Wedding/a from South Africa didn't get any nominations, because they are as good as some of the movies I've watched. Well, guess what, while people were partying in Accra waiting for AMAA nominations, District 9 was busy looking forward to winning Oscars. "Datsramete". "That's right". Maybe next time. br /br /Here is the full list of nominees; and in bold is who I hope would/should win since I haven't seen all the movies. br /br /BEST DOCUMENTARYbr /1. Wanba Ngoma (Tanzania)br /2. Peace Wanted Alive (Kenya)br /3. Bariga Boys(Nigeria)br /4. En quette d'identite (Burkina Faso)br /strong5. Innovating for Africa (Nigeria)/strongbr /br /BEST SHORT FILMbr /strong1. Mahala -(Mozambique)/strongbr /2. The Abbys Boys -(South Africa)br /3. The Painter - (Uganda)br /4. Suara La - (Nigeria)br /5. The Camera -(Nigeria)br /br /BEST ANIMATIONbr /1. Hanayns Shoe (Egypt)br /2. Adventure of Alayo (Nigeria)br /strong3. Zoodo (Burkina Faso)/strongbr /4. Lyrics (Algeria)br /5. One Step of Love (Algeria)br /br /BEST FILM BY AN AFRICAN FILMMAKER IN DIASPORAbr /strong1. Soul Diaspora/strongbr /2. Okra Principlebr /3. China Wahalabr /4. Crunchbr /br /BEST FILM IN AFRICAN LANGUAGEbr /1. Omo Iya Kan (Nigeria)br /2. Aldeweden (Ethiopia)br /3. Togetherness Supreme (Kenya)br /strong4. Imani (Uganda)/strongbr /5. Game of my life (South Africa)br /br /HEART OF AFRICA AWARD FOR BEST FILM FROM NIGERIAbr /1. Nnenda by Izu Ojukwubr /2. Freedom in Chain by Bond Emeruwa and Fred Amatabr /3. The Child by Izu Ojukwubr /strong4. Figurine by Kunle Afolayan/strongbr /5. High Blood Pressure by Teco Bensonbr /br /AMAA ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUNDbr /1. The Tenantbr /2. Season of a lifebr /strong3. Perfect Picture/strongbr /4. I sing of a wellbr /5. Soul Diasporabr /br /AMAA ACHIEVEMENT IN EDITINGbr /1. Season of a lifebr /2. The Childbr /strong3. Perfect Picture/strongbr /4. Heart of Menbr /5. Lilies of the Ghettobr /br /AMAA ACHIEVEMENT IN ART DIRECTIONbr /strong1. I sing of a well/strongbr /2. Fulanibr /3. The Childbr /4. Figurinebr /5. Imanibr /br /AMAA ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKE-UPbr /1. Heart of Menbr /2. The Childbr /3. The King is Minebr /strong4. I sing of a well/strongbr /5. Fulanibr /br /AMAA ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUMEbr /1. Perfect Picturebr /2. Prince's bridebr /3. The Childbr /strong4. I sing of a well/strongbr /5. Lilies of the Ghettobr /br /AMAA ACHIEVEMENT IN VISUAL EFFECTbr /1. The Childbr /2. Figurinebr /strong3. A sting in a tale/strongbr /4. Fulanibr /5. Heart of Menbr /br /Best ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACKbr /1. Seasons of a lifebr /2. Imanibr /strong3. A sting in a tale/strongbr /4. The Childbr /5. Figurinebr /br /BEST PERFORMANCE BY A CHILD ACTORbr /1. Teddy Onyago and Bill Oloo- Togetherness Supremebr /strong2. Tobi Oboli - The Figurine/strongbr /3. Feyisola Ewulomi - Champions of our Timebr /4. Treasure Obasi - Champions of our Timebr /5. Mfanafuthi Magudulela - Game of my lifebr /br /MOST PROMISING ACTRESSbr /1. Martha Kisaka - Togetherness Supremebr /strong2. Chelsea Eze - Silent Scandal/strongbr /3. Martha Ankomah - Sins of the Soulbr /4. Ashionye Michelle Ugboh- Jungle Ridebr /5. Rahema Nanfuka - Imanibr /br /MOST PROMISING ACTORbr /1. Wilson Maina - Togetherness Supreme (Kenya)br /2. Wale Ojo - The Child (Nigeria)br /strong3. John Dumelo - Heart of men (Ghana)/strongbr /4. Pethro Tumba Mbole - A game of my life (South Africa)br /5. Sunny Chikezie - Lilies of the Ghetto (Nigeria)br /br /BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLEbr /1. Godwin Kotey- I sing of a wellbr /2. Francis Duru - Nnendabr /3. Yemi Blaq - High Blood Pressurebr /strong4. Adjetey Anang - The Perfect Picture/strongbr /br /BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLEbr /strong1. Doris Sackitey - A sting in a Tale/strongbr /2. Funlola Aoifeyebi-Raimi - Figurinebr /3. Tapiwa Gwaza - Seasons of a lifebr /4. Yvonne Nelson - Heart of Menbr /br /BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLEbr /1. Bimbo Akintola- Freedom in Chainsbr /2. Jackie Appiah, Lydia Forson and Naa Ashorkor Mensah-Doku - The Perfect Picturebr /3. Stephanie Okereke- Nnendabr /4. Flora Suya - Season of a lifebr /strong5. Akofa Edjeani Asiedu - I sing of a well/strongbr /br /BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLEbr /1. Lucky Ejim - The Tenantbr /2. Majid Michael - Sin of a soulbr /3. Ramsey Noah - The Figurinebr /4. Odera Ozoka - Soul Diasporabr /strong5. John Osei Tutu Agyeman - I Sing of a well/strongbr /br /BEST SCREENPLAYbr /1. Season of a lifebr /2. The Tenantbr /3. Freedom In chainsbr /4. Guilty Pleasurebr /strong5. I sing of a well/strongbr /br /AMAA ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHYbr /1. The Perfect Picturebr /2. Figurinebr /strong3. I sing of a well/strongbr /4. The Childbr /5. The Tenantbr /br /BEST PICTUREbr /1. Seasons of a life (Malawi)br /2. The tenant (Nigeria)br /strong3. The Perfect Picture (Ghana)/strongbr /4. The Figurine (Nigeria)br /5. I sing of a well (Ghana)br /br /BEST DIRECTORbr /1. Shemu Joyah - Seasons of a lifebr /strong2. Shirley Frimpong-Manso - The Perfect Picture/strongbr /3. Kunle Afolayan - Figurinebr /4. Leila Jewel Djansi - I sing of a welldiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4957153574047966177-431824423845428296?l=mightyafrican.blogspot.com' alt='' //div
• 1:30

  Happy International Women's day!

   » ‎ Why so serious? Blogs of a MIghTy African
  I woke up to mentions of Happy Women's Day all over the internet and thought to myself, "What a coincidence?" The first ever woman nominee for Best Director at the Oscars had just won it last night for 'Hurt Locker', a movie which is a masculine as they come. What men can do, women can do better. It really is a woman's world, :-) Happy Women's Day!br /br /International Women's Day (IWD) is not about firsts for women, it's about a celebration of women. From its Wiki page, the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration for women's economic, political and social achievements. It's a day for YOU (not just men) to let that those women know how much you adore them and cherish them for all they do for YOU. br /br /The Wiki page also states that this 'day' was started as a Socialist event. I learnt this from a friend of mine when we had texted back and forth about the issue. I called my mother (in Ghana) to wish her 'Happy Women's Day' and thank her for all she'd done for me and she knew nothing of this International Women's Day. Hmm. My friend had figured Ghana probably wasn't celebrating the 'Day'. She mentioned it was originally a Socialist thing and that in her home country (which shares a border with Ghana by the way), it's an official holiday. But how did '233' miss out? We may not be a 'socialist' country but we do have the more socialist party in power now in the form of the NDC. Needless to say, I decided not to call my sisters in Ghana about IWD, and sent them texts instead. br /br /Today was a holiday in Ghana though. Since Ghanaians couldn't get off work on March 6th (a Saturday), Asumasi and Rakia got to sleep in. You could say Ghana's 53rd birthday overshadowed IWD even if some of the news media reported it. IWD came at a time unlike Valentine's Day, it had to compete with Mama Ghana's "a href="http://mightyafrican.blogspot.com/2010/03/african-language-translations-gadget.html"Ahofadi"/a celebration. Valentine's Day was competing with National Chocolate Day, big difference there. Apparently, Ghanaians are more excited celebrating 'love' and 'Valentine' than celebrating 'women'. No, they are not the same thing. br /br /IWD is used to call attention to some women's rights issues and some of the major social, political and economic crises affecting women and girls. Ghana has never been known to be an activist country. Though we enjoy our democrazy democracy, we are too much in love with peace to take stringent measures to get different things done. Take hiplife for instance. It's probably the least socially conscious form of African hip-hop. So maybe, we shouldn't be surprised Ghana's not celebrating International Women's Day. How did Flavour's Ashawo become a major hit in Ghana? When was the last time you heard a song about Trokosi?br /br /Naturally, I was thinking of ways to celebrate the day. The popular choice is to buy gifts and presents for different women. I thought that was for Valentine's Day? I know I haven't seen any major media blitz for March 8th but I doubt International Women's Day is another day for 'plenty spending'. I am on a "chiselling,don't spend if you can get it free" spree so this was out of the question. The gifts will go, but later. Another friend suggested offering smiles for all women I saw. Now that's a good one. I don't have any interesting stories to report as a result of doing so so maybe simply saying "Happy Women's Day" to random women would be a more dramatic way of celebrating IWD. br /br /On the real though, we should really begin to take celebrating women more seriously. A wise man called James Kwegyir Aggrey once said, "If you educate a man, you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation". People who've studied some sort of developmental economics would tell you that to enrich a nation, the women must be empowered. We must begin to empower more women with education and resources because unlike men, they care much about "us" collectively, our communities and our societies. Men are messes, if you've been to a college guy's room and a college girl's room, it will tell you all you need to know. I say, we begin to allow women to run the 'show' more and see how the world will begin to turn. br /br /In fact, when you think about some of the reasons behind IWD, it's a little tough to go around saying Happy Women's Day. We must start doing our little contributions to stop the injustices that women and girls face all around the world and encourage the celebration of more achievements. But when you think about women do well, and how they make our families tick, our communities build, our societies flourish and our world prosper, we must join in a single voice and chorus, "Happy Women's Day".br /br /"Happy Women's Day".div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4957153574047966177-2630841283488224963?l=mightyafrican.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 0:00

  BOOK REVIEW: Nansata Yakubu on ‘Pretending to be President’

   » ‎ Ato Kwamena Dadzie Latest Blog Articles
  Pretending to Be President is a book for everybody since we all are politicians. Itrsquo;s also for persons with adept political tastes. This excellent storytelling has crafted a novel way of presenting contemporary satire, through an anthological method, constituting street theories of governance, conspiracies, expectations of citizens, realities of political ...

• March 08, 2010
• 23:30

  African language translations gadget for iGoogle

   » ‎ Why so serious? Blogs of a MIghTy African
  Recently, a friend asked me how to say Independence in Akan Twi. I didn't know the word so I sought my favorite source for such matters a href="http://words.fienipa.com"Kasahorow's Akan dictionary on Fienipa.com/a. Found out the word was 'Ahofadi'. A friend on Facebook mentioned it may have been 'fawohodi' instead. Ahofadi is a noun, fawohodi or 'fa wo ho di' is more like a sentence, as so nicely put by one of the Kasahorow gurus. It's great to know this translation service is around. That's why you should help publicize it.br /br /Publish this widget on your homepage or blog that allows people to translate amongst English, Akan, Ewegbe, Hausa, Yoruba, Swahili, and Kinyarwanda.br /br /Brought to you by the awesome folks at Fienipa.com and Kasahorow.combr /br /br /script src="http://www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://apps.fienipa.com/igoogle.xmlamp;synd=openamp;w=320amp;h=200amp;title=fie.nipa+for+iGoogleamp;border=%23ffffff%7C3px%2C1px+solid+%23999999amp;output=js"/scriptbr /br /You can get the code from here: br /br /http://www.gmodules.com/ig/creator?synd=openurl=http%3A//apps.fienipa.com/igoogle.xmlpt=%26context%3Dd%26type%3Dgadgets%26synd%3Dig%26lang%3Den%26.lang%3Den%26country%3Dus%26.country%3Dus%26start%3D0%26num%3D1%26objs%3Dsn=lang=endiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4957153574047966177-9086950465258820667?l=mightyafrican.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 20:00

  After celebrating 53 Years of Independence, What's The Way Forward for Ghana

   » ‎ Wo se Ekyir...
  div style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"Both David and Marian have left comments saying that Ghana has not achieved muchnbsp;after 53 years of independence. My thinking is that we have achieved something.nbsp;We've gone to the polls 6 times without incident. We're within schedule ofnbsp;meeting the millenium development goals. Just the other day when we reflected onnbsp;how our lives changed in the past decade, we mentioned the rule of law, and pressnbsp;freedom as well. We now have a national insurance scheme.So we have achievednbsp;something./spanbr / span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"a name='more'/aWhether we've achieved as much as we could have is another issue all together. But it's onenbsp;we can't really comment on without knowing what our goals were in 1957. I'm sure you've all heard thenbsp;speech by Nkrumah in which he said the African would show the world that we can manage our own affairs.nbsp;What we don't know is if we had a long term national plan. It doesn't look like we ever went through the exercise of developing a National vision. Nkrumah had his own vision and plans.Whilst he realised some of his plans successive governments did not continue on the same path nor did they focus their attention on advancing the same goals.nbsp;/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"In recent years, we've had such visions as Vision 2020. Any of you can tell me if you know what exactlynbsp;this vision 20-20 is because I don't know. Neither do many of us who would be/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"considered the cream of the crop and the next generation of Ghana's leaders. And if even we do not knownbsp;then how can the nation hold the NDC government accountable to this vision?nbsp;/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"The problem with every party that comes into government having their own vision for the countrynbsp;is that there is lack of focus and continuity.nbsp;Take the national health insurance scheme instituted by ex President Kuffour's administration.nbsp;When NDC came into power, there was actually talk of reviewing and scrapping it.Anyway, we probably all know the problems to let me move on discussing my proposed solutions./span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"1. First, Prez. Mills' government, ought to assemble a team of people who actually run this country and who know intimately/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"what our problems are should come up with a list of most pressing problems./span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"This should be an all inclusive team of leaders from NPP, NDC, CPP, Independents and all other partiesnbsp;/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"2. Once we know what our problems are, the same teach came decide which of these problems we can and shouldnbsp;/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"tackle within a certain timeline...say 20 years. Our goals for all categories from education to healthcare/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"to agriculture and so on need to be specific, measurable, and time bound. E.g. we want to 50% of all high schoolnbsp;students into tertiary institutions by 2020. We want 80% of all Ghanaians to be covered under the national health insurance scheme by 2020.nbsp;This way, we move away from vague terms like "better" Ghana and "improving healthcare" as we're currently doing./span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"3. In all likelihood, this will be a big document but the highlights of this national development agendanbsp;can be summarized into a 20 paged document which every Ghanaian can read and understand.nbsp;As this will be a national agenda and not a NDC or NPP manifesto, like we currently have, it can actuallynbsp;be translated into local languages and taught in school so that every Ghanaian comes to understand in simple terms/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"Why do I think this is the way to go?nbsp;/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"First, it gives us a benchmark against which to assess every government which comes into powernbsp;and equips us to make them accountable. Ghanaians are always talking about how president Kuffour built roads when he was in power. But how many kilometres of roads was he supposed to build? And why roads?nbsp;I'm sure it was part of a larger development goal but what was it? We take it for granted thatnbsp;a government should build roads and hospitals and schools but this should not be so.nbsp;A national agenda will keep us all in the know about the goals so that we can measure when a particularnbsp;government advances us towards those goals.nbsp;Right now as things stand, if Kuffour build roads and Mills builds houses, how can we measure which moved usnbsp;closer to a better Ghana? But if we all know that we're trying to buildnbsp;20 houses and 20 roads but Kuffour builds 10 roads but no houses and Mills builds 10 houses and no roads,nbsp;at least we'll know that both took us closer to our target. And we now have 10 roads and 10 houses!/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"Secondly it gives us a way to judge before we vote. Currently majority of us are not voting based on issues. Even our campaign slogans likenbsp;Nana diE ye nim to fri tete...and adze pa wo fia oye...what does this mean?nbsp;Utterly meaningless! But once we know where we want to go, then we can judge and say...maybe Atta Mills is a man of integrity and he's from my hometownnbsp;but given how he has proposed to accomplished the goals of the national agenda in the NDC manifesto, he may not be the best candidate to lead us forward.nbsp;At that point it doesn't matter that i've known Nana from tete. If I'm not convinced he can accomplish the goals of the national agenda, i don't vote for him./span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"Thirdly, whenever the president has town hall meetings, people ask questions like why are you travelling so much or why did you renovate your house (in the case of ex prez kuffour)/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"But when we have a national development agenda, we can then ask them how the travels and the renovations advanced the national devt agenda.nbsp;Also, when Mrs. Mills attends the speech and prize giving day at Benso Secondary School in 2019, because everyone including the students have been taughtnbsp;the national agenda, they'll ask her...Mrs. Mills, what is your husband doing to ensure that i'll be one of the 50% who'll go on to tertiary institutions next year?nbsp;It will equip us all to focus on the issues instead of things like Nana deE, yenim no fri tete!/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"Ato Kwamena Dadzie disagrees with me. He doesn't think it's a good idea to have a national devt agenda. His proposal is that each govt have their own vision and agendanbsp;and then if we see they're not working, we vote them out. Or if NDC institutes health insurance and NDC comes and scraps it, then during the next elections, we vote NDC out again.This is what we're doing now and it's not working because that method prevents us from focussing and combining our efforts to solve the most pertinent problems and we alsonbsp;lose time when govts don't continue with good initiatives from past govts. My question to Ato is, what exactly is your argument against having a National agenda?/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"To everybody else, do you agree or disagree with me. Do you have anything to add? A correction to make? An idea that will move us forward? If so, please share./span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"Credits: Mad love to K.K.Yankson for allowing me to drink from his fountain of knowledge:)/span/span/span/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/30097786-1169250622633707664?l=maameous.blogspot.com' alt='' //divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WoSeEkyir/~4/byTP8dYHN9U" height="1" width="1"/

• 19:10

  A Serious Question - well, 6 of them

   » ‎ Home Sweet Home
  Happy belated independence day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We're 53 years!!!!!!br /br /Ok - moving on to the question: br /br /So I was reading a blog instead of doing my work (as usual) and this time, the post was on the subject of relationships and how men think blah blah blah. Anyway, one poster made an interesting comment. br /br /She said people (read: women) had to stop being so rigid in their ways and realize that reality is different from our ideals. she gave the example: if you have a boyfriend and you guys plan on getting married in say...2 years, but you don't want to be sexually active before you get married 9or for whatever reason), it's all well and good. BUT it's unrealistic to expect him to remain celibate for 2 years. br /br /This poster suggests that due to the unrealisticness of expecting your man to remain celibate if you are also going to be celibate, you allow him, er, sow his wild oats, so to speak, with a few rules:br /1. complete disclosure, aka tell me when sleep with other people,each time (before or after the fact?) br /2. discretion: sleep with other people, but do it on the down low.br /3. make sure he gets all the strikecheating/strike sowing of wild oats out of his system before u settle down. br /4. Oh yes - pray about it (it is beyond me why the poster thinks prayer is going to be helping. If I were God...let me not even go there)br /br /br /So...my question 1 is this: is it just me or is this poster smoking some serious pot?If for whatever reason one partner in any relationship is not feeling comfortable having sex, why not either both abstain or break up?redb*/bred And WHY, but WHY?! is it okay under any circumstances to give your man the go-ahead to cheat? Hell-o? Once he's gotten the go-ahead during the relationship days, what's to say he won't want to sow more oats during marriage? So if we get married and for whatever reason I have a low libido, is it okay for him to go have affairs? WHY? Let's expand it a bit further: let's say we're in a sexual relationship, but I'm uncomfortable with something he wants to do - say.....oral sex. Is it okay for him to go get it from other people? br /br /Here's another question: what the hell does 'full disclosure' mean? Does any girl seriously think any guy would be telling her if he contracted gonorrhea from someone else? What about chlamydia - that is usually symptomless, so he won't know he has it if he catches it. And then what if he gives it to her at a later date? Would any guy tell you he slept with your best friend? Full disclosure my foot! in this day and age of STDs! Obviously the memo on STDs has been lost in circulation.br /br /How about a third question: why do we (read: African women) act as if it is a given for a man to cheat? Men are not babies with no self-control, nor are they animals, driven only by instinct/desire. They are men!And even so - we train our animals and our babies, so why not the men? The only reason men act like such babies with no self control so often is because of idiot reasoning like this poster's - we let them off! what the heck?! yes, it is difficult to control sexual impulses: difficult, but NOT impossible. No wonder the men are so happy these days - they can do whatever they want and say "ah but I am a man! It's how we do!" and it's ok. Ahh!!! At the root of it, this is not an abstinence/no abstinence or archaic/contemporary or realistic/unrealistic issue. This is an issue about self-control. It is thinking like this that lets men think they can cheat, that makes it okay for men to cheat. It is thinking like this that lets men contract STDs and pass it on to their wives. It is thinking like this that makes it okay for men to cheat but not women. It is thinking like this that reinforces negative ideals about women and wives being frigid, because obviously, there is something wrong with a woman who won't have sex with her man, but then tells him to go have sex elsewhere.....br /br /Question 4: What about the women? Does it ever occur to us that women who choose abstinence ALSO would very much like to have sex, just not before they're married (or whatever?) The women keep their libidos in check, don't they? I just don't get it. What about if we are in a sexual relationship and his drive is significantly higher than mine - should I allow him to -er , shall we say - let off steam, with other people on the DL to give me some reprieve? Why is it acceptable for a modern, liberated woman to think this way?br /br /br /My final question is: Will it be okay for women to do this too? But of course, I forget - any woman who has a higher sex drive than her man or wants to have sex while her man wants to be abstinent is usually labeled a nymphomaniac...so that's that. To be sure, that poster said that if you allow your dude to sow his wild oats, maybe get him also to let you date other guys will he sorts himself and his libido out. But just DATE, not sleep with other men (bcos of course, u want to be abstinent, that's why your guy's out cheating in the first place).br /br /FINAL final question: why is it okay to think like this? Especially as a 'contemporary woman?ARE U KIDDING ME? Methinks this poster needs to get together with that gay porn pastor from Uganda for some prayers. Or am I being unrealistic? I seriously want to know - u know, just in case i should ever be faced with this situation or a friend, whatever.br /br /*The reason I say that they should both abstain or breakup, instead of saying that the girl should just sleep with the guy is because sex is supposed to be a consensual activity. Any sex that does not involve 100% agreement between the parties is coercion, which is not too far from rape.br /br /PS: And since I am amazed at my penmanship (LOL, ignore me, I've had too much pepsi to drink), lemme just add:br /bTelling a man to cheat, but do it discretely and let me know when you do it is/b/red/redbr /redredb 1. selling myself short as a woman. If I am giving him my best, I deserve the best, including a faithful manbr /2. fraught with dangers like STDsbr /3. denying my man the opportunity to be a man, to assert himself over his sexual urges. br /4. telling my man i see him as a child, or an unbridled animal. No one wants an animal or a child for a mate. we want a man! a man: a strong, assertive, caring, loving MAN. No one who cheats is any of these.nbsp;/b/red/redbr /redredbAnd no man wants a woman who doesn't see him as a man: a strong, assertive, caring, loving man.nbsp;/b/red/redbr /br /redredbPPS: How's God going to be answering prayers for a faithul man if you're encouraging him to go and be unfaithful? /bbr //red/reddiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8238617933312958264-5910054362978587765?l=kwarlizzle.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 13:57

  Who Wants to be Rich?

   » ‎ Maya's earth
  a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_OJ1RbQpOtnE/S5QxFM1dsAI/AAAAAAAAAlk/1manFLOmtY4/s1600-h/whowants+to+be.png"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 176px; height: 172px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_OJ1RbQpOtnE/S5QxFM1dsAI/AAAAAAAAAlk/1manFLOmtY4/s320/whowants+to+be.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446031814812348418" //abr /span style="font-style:italic;"(Picture from a href="http://whowantstoberichghana.com/origin.html"Who wants to be rich Ghana/a)/spanbr /br /…I just remembered what I actually wanted to write about yesterday. A TV moment that had me laughing really hard. On Who Wants to be Rich (we can’t afford to make people millionaires quite yet) this question pops up:br /span style="font-style:italic;"Which two primary colours make the colour green:br /A. Red and yellowbr /B. Blue and yellowbr /C. Red and bluebr /D. Purple and redbr //span(ok, I admit I don’t exactly remember the four options, but continue reading and you’ll see it doesn’t really matter). The TEACHER and UNIVERSITY STUDENT who is asked the question doesn’t know the answer. Hm, let me not even pass judgement but leave you to make your own comments. So instead he chooses to phone a friend. He calls his friend and this is how the conversation goes:br /br /span style="font-weight:bold;"“Which two primary colours make the colour green:br /A. Red and yellow”br //spanspan style="font-style:italic;"“YES!”/spanbr /span style="font-weight:bold;""B. Blue and yellow"br //spanspan style="font-style:italic;"“Yes!”br //spanspan style="font-weight:bold;""C. Red and blue"/spanbr /span style="font-style:italic;"“Yes!”/spanbr /span style="font-weight:bold;""D. Purple and red"/spanbr /span style="font-style:italic;"“Yes!”/spanbr /Ok, I’m guessing the friend doesn’t get the format of the game, but watching it and seeing the contestant get more and more confused made my Sunday night! That is…a href="http://mayasearth.blogspot.com/2010/03/laptop-abuse.html"until my laptop made me cry…/adiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4913928809714336337-8387213691437373954?l=mayasearth.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 9:34

  How Aero Contractors offers very low airfares. The catches!

   » ‎ Oluniyi David Ajao

  
  

  
  
  

  Aero Contractors in my view is a budget airline only that it is not so-called. The airline has been advertising very low fares to all its destinations, for some time now. I dragged myself into flying Aero twice in recent times, to satisfy my curiosity on how they could offer such low fares. This blog post is based on what I could see as a passenger who has no expertise in aviation.

  Aero Contractors (Aero Contractors Company of Nigeria Ltd) or simply “Aero” is an airline based in Lagos, Nigeria. It operates domestic and international scheduled services, air taxi, charter and third party aircraft operations, largely in support of Nigeria’s extensive oil and gas industry. Its main base is Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.

  The Premise
  Aero offers such low airfares at this time, it is alarming as to how they achieve this considering that some of their fares are less than 50% that of their leading competitors – Arik Air and Nigerian Eagle Airline – especially on the Lagos – Accra – Lagos route. Take the up-coming flights as outlined in the following table as a case study.

  Lagos to Accra – One Way flights for 18th March 2010 as advertised on the respective websites of the airlines
  Airline	Fare in Nigerian Naira	Equivalent in USD	Source
  Aero	NGN 7,612.85	$50	flyaero.com
  Nigerian Eagle	NGN 30,653.00	$201.32	virginnigeria.com
  Arik Air	NGN 32,249.00	$211.80	arikair.com

  From the above information, Aero’s flight costs only 23.6% that of Arik Air and only 24.84% that of Nigerian Eagle.

  How do they pull it off?
  The following factors are those I have observed. I do not have access to their maintenance logs and thus unable to comment on aircraft maintenance, staff remuneration and other hidden factors.

  1. Book & Pay over the Internet

  

  An advertisement banner on flyaero.com showing one of their fares and placing emphasis online booking & payment.

  Aero places a lot of emphasis on direct sales of tickets over the Internet thereby avoiding fees and commissions paid to travel agents and computer reservations systems. The very low-fares they offer would not be possible without the Internet. Thus, their radio ads are geared towards directing potential passengers to their website flyaero.com

  Booking can be completed online with payment via four methods:

  • Interswitch: Nigeria’s leading ATM/debit card network and payment processor
  • Etranzact: another local payment gateway available in Ghana and Nigeria
  • Book On Hold for Ghana only: potential flyers can book for a flight and place it on hold for 24 hrs and then pay at any UBA branches in Ghana.*
  • Book On Hold for Nigeria only: potential flyers can book for a flight and place it on hold for 24 hrs and then pay at any Oceanic Bank branches in Nigeria.*

  *To pay through the bank, booking should be for a flight at least 48 hours ahead.

  2. Hidden Fees
  When booking for a Lagos – Accra – Lagos flight, you would be faced with an optional “International Insurance” cover fee costing N1,500 ($9.85). From their website:

  Insurance (International) This covers for flight cancellation and holiday packages for passengers travelling into and out of Nigeria only.charges on this cover is based on per persanger per day.
  Please note that it is not possible to change date, destination or name of passenger once the insurance has been purchased. Standard and Deluxe insurance is only available to people who are resident or domiciled in Nigeria.

  Adding the “Insurance fee” to your booking would push your fare upwards to N9,112.85
  Note, the Insurance fees is available to domestic flights as well.

  3. In-flight meals need to be paid-for

  

  A N1,500 meal on an Aero flight. Photo by Oluniyi D. Ajao.

  Aero last year introduced the idea of passengers paying for refreshment mid-flight should they want any and gave it a fancy name, Aero Sky Snax. From their website:

  In Flight Meals-aero Sky Snax
  With effect from 16th November, 2009 aero begins sale of a variety of affordable mouth watering snacks, soft drinks and beverages on-board for your enjoyment.

  The upside about paying for the meal is that the passenger is not compelled to pay when he/she is not in a position to eat. Also, the passenger can order for the quantity of snacks that is really enough to satisfy unlike the little appetizers typically offered by the other airlines.

  The downside is, any passenger willing to eat but without extra naira in his/her wallet would fly hungry. Aero does not accept card payments mid-flight.

  4. Minimal uniformed staff
  Aero, from the flights I have taken, maintains very few uniformed staff. The check-in staff in Murtala International Airport (MMIA) Lagos and Kotoka International Airport (KIA) Accra are contracted from another company that offers those services. This would aid their cost-saving and low-fares drive.

  

  An Aero Boeing 737-400 jet on the tarmac with other airplanes in Kotoka International Airport, Accra. Photo by Oluniyi D. Ajao.

  5. Shared Office
  Though Aero maintains a full office inside MMIA fully manned by its own staff, it shares a ticketing cubicle with Arik Air inside the departure hall of KIA.

  6. Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable
  Aero offers no refunds or transfers to later flights in the event of missed flights, i.e. if the aircraft leaves on time without a passenger who arrived late, he will have to buy a wholly new ticket for the next flight.

  7. No frequent flyer programme
  Unlike Nigerian Eagle, Aero does not offer any frequent flyer programme and thus all the money that would have been invested in running such a programme are saved. The passenger can thus apply the saved funds to other things.

  It is also important to note that Aero’s fares typically increase as the plane fills up. Thus, the low fares are only guaranteed for early reservations. Also, the GHC25 airfare Aero is presently advertising in Ghanaian newspapers exclude taxes and so many other fees.

  Should you have additions or questions, do well to leave your comments in the comments area.

   

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• 9:01

  Last Post

   » ‎ Rain in Africa
  span style="font-style:italic;"Has it stopped raining in Africa?/spanbr /br /No, it hasn't. br /br /Actually raining season is around the corner. However, thanks to the plenty riches of Ghana, I feel like I've outgrown this positive Ghana-centric "Rain in Africa"-blog. Since a little while, I have been working on a new blog and today I am moving to a href="http://wordpress.org"wordpress/a and to a new blogging concept (or should I say "launching"?). br /br /You will be able to read:br /-More personal stories (on Me , myself and I)br /-More work related stories (teaching and migration research)br /-More critical stories br /-More international storiesbr /-More of my favorite reads, links and resources. br /br /To underline that the new blog is more personal, I've decided to "do an a href="http://atokd.com/"AtoKD/a" and simply give the blog my name plus initials = span style="font-weight:bold;"Kajsa H.A./span and the web address a href="http://kajsaha.com"http://kajsaha.com/abr /br /Thanks for reading my blog and I hope to see you soon on a href="http://kajsaha.com"kajsaha.com/a!br /br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_fLH5BoGNg7w/S5TksOK6vHI/AAAAAAAADQk/chaMvTkicm0/s1600-h/kajsa+HA+signature+FINAL.jpg"img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 121px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_fLH5BoGNg7w/S5TksOK6vHI/AAAAAAAADQk/chaMvTkicm0/s200/kajsa+HA+signature+FINAL.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446229297767038066" //abr /br /br /br /ps. I have closed the possibility to comment on this blog, but imported all the posts. So if you want to comment come on over to a href="http://kajsaha.com"kajsaha.com/a.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/20734927-3749027745810487354?l=nonjeneregretterien.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 9:01

  In Honour of Wangari Maathai on International Women’s Day for Ghana

   » ‎ This is Ghana
  div style="text-align: left;"div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5QSSdLO1hI/AAAAAAAAAwA/LMCXM9jxVvY/s1600-h/gallery_23.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5QSSdLO1hI/AAAAAAAAAwA/LMCXM9jxVvY/s320/gallery_23.gif" //a/divmeta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" [http-equiv="Content-Type"] content="Word.Document" name="ProgId"/metameta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Generator"/metameta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Originator"/metalink href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CADMINI%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"/linko:smarttagtype name="place" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"/o:smarttagtypeo:smarttagtype name="country-region" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"/o:smarttagtypeo:smarttagtype name="City" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"/o:smarttagtypeo:smarttagtype name="PlaceName" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"/o:smarttagtypeo:smarttagtype name="PlaceType" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"/o:smarttagtypelink href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CADMINI%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"/linklink href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CADMINI%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"/link m:smallfrac m:val="off" m:dispdef m:lmargin m:val="0" m:rmargin m:val="0" m:defjc m:val="centerGroup" m:wrapindent m:val="1440" m:intlim m:val="subSup" m:narylim m:val="undOvr" /m:narylim/m:intlim /m:wrapindentstyle !-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:1; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:10.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} -- /style/m:defjc/m:rmargin/m:lmargin/m:dispdef/m:smallfracI remember being in st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Vietnam/st1:place/st1:country-region in late 2006 for Vietnamese Women’s Day and then in March 2007 for a href="http://www.internationalwomensday.com/"International Women’s Day/a. The timing was a coincidence. On the first occasion I was invited to a lunch with our partner organisation during which they honoured about a dozen of their Vietnamese female staff (and two of us expats) with bunches of flowers and a feast of excellent cuisine at a traditional restaurant. It was a fun afternoon with excellent food and company. In March, I was then in the middle of a training workshop in which the participants also surprised us with flowers in honour of a href="http://english.vovnews.vn/Home/Activities-to-mark-International-Womens-Day/20103/113275.vov"International Women’s Day/a (click the link to see what happens in Vietnam); I was so busy I didn’t even realise what day it was and I was certainly not expecting another celebration. br / div class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"I observed that st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Vietnam/st1:place/st1:country-region, even in that provincial area, was on its way to achieving gender equality at least in the home. On that second occasion the men explained how they shared the cooking, looked after the children and helped with the household chores like washing and cleaning—and the consequences if they didn’t. Vietnamese are extremely industrious (if they were the size of st1:country-region w:st="on"China/st1:country-region, st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"China/st1:place/st1:country-region would be looking over its own shoulder with great concern), so it shouldn’t have been too surprising to learn that the same culture prevailed in the home. I’ve no doubt that this industriousness and the sharing of the household burden are fundamental keys to st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Vietnam/st1:place/st1:country-region’s development success. A nation simply can’t develop when 50% of its population are given special treatment and the other 50% have to shoulder the burden of work inside and outside the house and are not given equal opportunity academically or professionally. /divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"Ghanaians say “Wishes are not horses”. It essentially means that wishful thinking gets you nowhere. Nevertheless, I’m going to make a wish. /divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"I wish that Ghanaian women were treated as well as their Vietnamese counterparts in the home, if not the work place too. Better still, I wish that Vietnamese and Ghanaian women were treated as well as, say, their Swedish counterparts. /divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"I wish every woman and man on earth, but particularly Ghanaian women, could read Wangari Maathai’s “a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unbowed-Wangari-Maathai/dp/0307263487"biuUnbowed/u/i/b/a”./divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"I often make silly lists of Top 10 this and that, but if someone asked me to name one book that everyone should read (or have read to them), a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unbowed-Wangari-Maathai/dp/0307263487"biuUnbowed/u/i/b/a is it. If you never read again, read a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unbowed-Wangari-Maathai/dp/0307263487"biuUnbowed/u/i/b/a. /divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"I knew I was on to a good thing when two of my favourite authors had given front and back cover endorsements for the book: Bill Clinton (the former President), whose “a href="http://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Bill-Clinton/dp/140003003X/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_2"My Life/a” is one of my favourite autobiographies, and Alexandra Fuller who wrote “a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Lets-Dogs-Tonight-Childhood/dp/0375758992/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8amp;s=booksamp;qid=1267993017amp;sr=1-1"Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight/a”. You should add both of these to your “to read” lists too. st1:city w:st="on"Clinton/st1:city’s is an epic masterpiece of autobiographical writing that takes you on a remarkable journey of which st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"US/st1:place/st1:country-region politics is just a part. Fuller drops you in the front row of racist, pre- and post-colonial, southern st1:place w:st="on"Africa/st1:place on a journey that unashamedly forces you to experience that past from her unique, child-voice point-of-view. /divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"But back to Maathai. /divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5QOZnwSFEI/AAAAAAAAAvw/Q2bK2AVA-aw/s1600-h/27771226_a744bd7d5b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5QOZnwSFEI/AAAAAAAAAvw/Q2bK2AVA-aw/s320/27771226_a744bd7d5b.jpg" //a/diva href="http://www.wangarimaathai.com/"Wangari Maathai/a must be the greatest living inspiration for African women today. Ghanaian women, who are in a better position to speak out for oppressed women across Africa and, importantly, within st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ghana/st1:place/st1:country-region itself, ought to “take a leaf” (no pun intended) from her life, her work, her determination and courage./divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"Indeed, where is st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ghana/st1:place/st1:country-region’s Wangari Maathai? Does such a woman exist? Is she quietly working behind the scenes, yet to come to the media’s attention?/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"In a country in which it is exceedingly less threatening to speak one’s mind than anywhere else in Africa aside from (perhaps) st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Botswana/st1:place/st1:country-region, where are women taking action against unequal practices in the home, in the public sphere, and with environmental issues? /divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"Where is the movement of women encompassing all women across st1:place w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region/st1:place, urban and rural? /divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"Looking around me here in the Upper East Region, where conditions are harsh, hot, unforgiving and designed to make life as difficult as possible, and women toil in the home and fields for virtually nothing—certainly not property rights when their husband dies, and not for money while they’re living—why is there not a greater call for change? /divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"While I think Gifty Anti does a great job on GTV hosting a program that discusses women’s issues, in particular, with a panel or women and men each week, it only goes so far./divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"Maathai is well known for winning the Nobel Peace prize in 2004 and for her a href="http://greenbeltmovement.org/a.php?id=178"Greenbelt Movement/a which, since 1977, has planted more than 40 million trees across Africa.nbsp;/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"But this is half the story. She transformed not just the geographical landscape, but the human landscape in st1:place w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"Kenya/st1:country-region/st1:place, too. Her will and her network prevented or remedied human rights abuses, corrupt practices, destructive environmental practices, and conflict across st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Kenya/st1:place/st1:country-region—in the face of death threats, abuse, harassment and much more. Every struggling nation needs their Maathai. If they don’t have one, they can take inspiration from st1:place w:st="on"Africa/st1:place’s Maathai./divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5QMszHQKiI/AAAAAAAAAvo/NPM0dn-w1L0/s1600-h/858961057_ba13521ca9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5QMszHQKiI/AAAAAAAAAvo/NPM0dn-w1L0/s400/858961057_ba13521ca9.jpg" width="400" //a/divThe planet is going to the dogs. st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ghana/st1:place/st1:country-region is certainly not helping. Deforestation is a terrible problem in this country. According to Oxfam, only 25% of st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ghana/st1:place/st1:country-region’s total original tropical rainforest remains. When I visited Wli in 2005 the mountains had some forest cover, yet logging was taking place one metre outside the “protected area”. When I visited in 2007 I woke to the sound of chainsaws in the forest nearby. All day: chainsaws. Chainsaws for the next five days. The mountains, while majestic in form, looked more like something out of Lord of the Rings—Saruman’s burning, not the Ents—than what I experienced two years earlier. Does st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region want to become another st1:country-region w:st="on"Burkina Faso/st1:country-region or st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Mali/st1:place/st1:country-region? An extension of the st1:place w:st="on"st1:placename w:st="on"Sahara/st1:placename st1:placetype w:st="on"Desert/st1:placetype/st1:place? /divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"Timber is st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ghana/st1:place/st1:country-region’s third largest export after cocoa and minerals. Timber is also cleared for planting cash crops. The Government apparently banned exports of raw logs, but what about slightly processed logs? And whose needs are being catered for in the income generated from this business? 16% of the land cover has been set aside for forest and nature reserves. That means, and 9% of forests are still open for logging. These were Oxfam statistics. According to Stephen Yeboah on ghanaweb.com, the BBC estimates that st1:place w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region/st1:place has lost 90% of forest cover since independence in 1957. Either way, st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ghana/st1:place/st1:country-region is on the fast-track to desertification./divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"This is not a criticism of st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ghana/st1:place/st1:country-region as a country, but rather an observation of what feels like many missed opportunities. In a country where one can speak fairly freely, why is st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region not leading the way for change for women in st1:place w:st="on"Africa/st1:place? And who is going to speak up for the environment? If one woman caught in an oppressive regime can speak up, why don’t women speak out more in st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Ghana/st1:place/st1:country-region? Or am I being naïve? Or has complacency set in?/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"Or is the “PhD” mentality too overwhelming? That is, the “pull him down” thinking that prevails in Ghana that one should only reach a certain “status” before one is "pulled back down to earth where one belongs"? Why should one not reach greatness? Who are you ibunot/u/b /ito achieve greatness, to stand up for other less fortunate people, and to protect your children’s natural assets?/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"Incidentally, the same mentality is alive and well in st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Australia/st1:place/st1:country-region, particularly for women, so I understand. It’s called the “Tall Poppy Syndrome”. A poppy is a type of flower that grows on a long stem with a pretty, bright flower on top. The saying goes that if you become too much of a “tall poppy”, someone will “cut you down” to “where you belong”. When an Australian at home, but especially living abroad, achieves some level of success, they’ll often be criticized by the Australian media. Various actors, writers and activists living abroad have experienced this. Female politicians still suffer from this, as do academics and other professionals./divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"None of us should repress our talents, skills, aspirations or our rights just because society deems it or someone else says so. Society is not a piece of granite; society is fluid like the water that falls in Wli. Even if you threw a stone into the pool beneath the hurtling falls, the ripples would be felt. And the “someone else’s” are simply mortals who will one day turn to dust./divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"In a country that’s already struggling to meet its citizen’s basic needs, the solution for societal and environmental change, it seems to me, is an alliance of strength and courage. Women, I’ve observed especially in rural st1:place w:st="on"st1:country-region w:st="on"Ghana/st1:country-region/st1:place, are nothing if not strong and courageous. And, like in Maathai’s story, it only takes one strong woman to speak out and take action. Authenticity and passion are obvious when you experience these traits. As such, Maathai has the support of wise and intelligent men these days both within and outside st1:country-region w:st="on"st1:place w:st="on"Kenya, as well as her women sisters/st1:place/st1:country-region./divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"There’s a saying that one doesn’t regret what one did, but what one didn’t do./divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5QPcfOLJcI/AAAAAAAAAv4/xfY4zfQI62w/s1600-h/2810341439_2e5194e286.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5QPcfOLJcI/AAAAAAAAAv4/xfY4zfQI62w/s320/2810341439_2e5194e286.jpg" //a/divIf you’re not sure what to do next, read Wangari Maathai’s biuUnbowed/u/i/b. It’s for sale in the Silverbird book shop in Accra Mall for GHC 17.90. Share it with your friends and read it to them if they can’t read. Once you’ve read it, pass it one and the rest will follow./divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"Feel free to add your thoughts and ideas here and thank you for reading. /divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"And, most of all, thank you to Wangari Maathai for the inspiration and the ideas, now and in future./divbr / The photo at the top is from the a href="http://www.internationalwomensday.com/media/"International Women's Day site/a. The image of the book cover here is from a href="http://images.google.com.gh/imgres?imgurl=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3016/2810341439_2e5194e286.jpgamp;imgrefurl=http://flickr.com/photos/99175982%40N00/2810341439amp;usg=__UwFVil8P-kkL46aqWigF-Jukgwc=amp;h=500amp;w=375amp;sz=97amp;hl=enamp;start=16amp;itbs=1amp;tbnid=fnN6uOnMEmX-cM:amp;tbnh=130amp;tbnw=98amp;prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwangari%2Bmaathai%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26as_rights%3D%28cc_publicdomain%257Ccc_attribute%257Ccc_sharealike%257Ccc_noncommercial%257Ccc_nonderived%29%26as_st%3Dy%26tbs%3Disch:1"elycefeliz at Flickr/a. The image of logs cut in Ghana is from a href="http://images.google.com.gh/imgres?imgurl=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1230/858961057_ba13521ca9.jpgamp;imgrefurl=http://flickr.com/photos/acameronhuff/858961057/amp;usg=__xj94R8i62W0Ghn4sMWaIUrSAPCU=amp;h=375amp;w=500amp;sz=128amp;hl=enamp;start=5amp;itbs=1amp;tbnid=SdjuoeH_sxH0hM:amp;tbnh=98amp;tbnw=130amp;prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddeforestation%2Bghana%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26as_rights%3D%28cc_publicdomain%257Ccc_attribute%257Ccc_sharealike%257Ccc_noncommercial%257Ccc_nonderived%29%26as_st%3Dy%26tbs%3Disch:1"acameronhuff at Flickr ./aThe image of Wangari Maathai is from a href="http://images.google.com.gh/imgres?imgurl=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/23/27771226_a744bd7d5b.jpgamp;imgrefurl=http://flickr.com/photos/holisticgeek/27771226/amp;usg=__0z-x40PHP5SqgjAALuFF9oUiwv0=amp;h=427amp;w=320amp;sz=36amp;hl=enamp;start=9amp;itbs=1amp;tbnid=XiOsc3bo9vpzUM:amp;tbnh=126amp;tbnw=94amp;prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwangari%2Bmaathai%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26as_rights%3D%28cc_publicdomain%257Ccc_attribute%257Ccc_sharealike%257Ccc_noncommercial%257Ccc_nonderived%29%26as_st%3Dy%26tbs%3Disch:1"holisticgeek at Flickr./abr / br / br / br / br / a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Insiders-Guide-to-Ghana-Sampler.pdf"Download a free sample of the Insider's Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"div style="text-align: center;" div style="text-align: left;" a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ghana-Guide-Sample.pdf"Download a free sample of our Travel Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /div /divimg width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8826326494207776999-8971766732664771428?l=gisforghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=KyvostRX_xQ:jVDZHF-uiJQ:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=KyvostRX_xQ:jVDZHF-uiJQ:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=KyvostRX_xQ:jVDZHF-uiJQ:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?i=KyvostRX_xQ:jVDZHF-uiJQ:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThisIsGhana/~4/KyvostRX_xQ" height="1" width="1"/

• 7:49

  CONSTANT gas shortage in this age of RE techs (BIOGAS)? What a load of crap!

   » ‎ SavingGhana
  a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0fvIhxfgQ-o/S5S0XT6aWkI/AAAAAAAAAIE/I_SfwGjjcn8/s1600-h/LakeChadPA_800x430.jpg"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 215px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0fvIhxfgQ-o/S5S0XT6aWkI/AAAAAAAAAIE/I_SfwGjjcn8/s400/LakeChadPA_800x430.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446176161973033538" //abr /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0fvIhxfgQ-o/S5S0M2SALmI/AAAAAAAAAH8/9NF6V9mTlhw/s1600-h/global-warming.jpg"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 264px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0fvIhxfgQ-o/S5S0M2SALmI/AAAAAAAAAH8/9NF6V9mTlhw/s400/global-warming.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446175982220226146" //abr /span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"... and I wish we had so much more of that crap! /span/spandivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"br //span/spandivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"In my search for gas these past 2 weeks, I kept thinking, everytime I joined a queue in hopes of me making it to the supply point before they ran out (never happened) - if all these people in these endless queues (myself and my family included) donated their daily crap and that of their households, we'd have enough gas to take us for a few more days, mehn./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"Like, who wouldn't thank us? /span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"Here, you want the crap? Ooooo, you got it! Here you go. Want some more? .... cus buddy, we got a lot of the stuff where that came from, and it ain't going nowhere!! (wink)./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"Sh*t, God designed us real well, don't you think? In-built sources of energy, that when well combusted, is pumped enough to knock you out flat! And we still go around searching for (LP) gas ... and getting none!/span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"Now, add all our household pets' crap, and that of livestock on farms and ranches, PLUS all the organic rot we leave to putrify for the Zoomlion Waste Collection guys ... and we got ourselves a piping hot commodity! Natural, green gas ... free and beautiful!/span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"Mr. President ... Honourable E. Boamah (Dep. Min. for Env., Science amp; Technology) ... other stakeholders ... let's think about this. Seriously./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"At a recent open forum in Accra, organised by Akunu Dake's Clean Climate Heritage (CCH), with presence from the EPA, Min. of E,S amp;T, Ecobank, Wildlife, several other crucial CSOs and organisations, the possible future of Sustainable Ghana was discussed. /span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"Being one of the 3 interventors partaking in the programme, I made my point on the grassroots being involved in the change process for optimum success; and also the need to start investing in the inventions and engineering designs of our young GH engineers and informally trained inventors./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"Honourable Boamah thereafter, promised me that he would take up all these requests for help, support, assistance, guidance, employment, etc. that filled up my inbox - from young engineers still jobless, illiterate but skilled inventors, and other youth who need academic and SME support./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"We have been in communication since, and in spite of my well-placed doubts that he would REALLY do something beneficial about the situation; something that would actually reflect directly in the lives of these people, I think he may (50-50%) be proving me wrong./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"Our last communication stated that he was really working on funding and investors for these innovations and inventions. And I always follow-through ... even if it will end in a no-go, I follow through to effectively conclude that it is a no-go. I hope he is truly the difference I see at the governmental level./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"On that note, if anyone has any innovation or technology they'd like to have taken up, should funding really come through (or if you know any Ghanaian who does/can), let the person forward their contacts to my foundation (esfghana@gmail.com), and we'll let them know when funding gets in, or if an investor shows interest./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"I believe we ought to be manufacturing our own R. Energy techs, and not importing them in at (of course, higher costs)./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"We have several possible solutions to the global problems of filth, disease, over-population, poverty, conflict ... at our fingertips. /span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"Only laziness and low self-worth keeps us from trying them all out. /span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"Global warming and Climate Change ... it really is happening. Look around you, read a little, and say global disasters, epidemics, and geographical changes are not really happening./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"If you don't know where to start, let me point you in a few directions :/span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"Lake Chad ... now a mud bed. (yes, seriously) Google it up, and you'll even get images./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"The Sahara desert ... anyone still measuring the borderlines of these shifting sands? Coming soon to a garden near you!/span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"Green tree covers as opposed to more earth exposure ... less or more and which? Google again! (You gotta love Google!)/span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"I could go on ad nauseum ..../span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"But one thing you should always remember ... when you invest in a future, make sure that future's really gonna be there when you get there. Think about it./span/span/div/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3319227669742254710-7832552673517601863?l=savingghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 1:33

  53 Years of Ghana's Independence. What Does Ghana Have To Show For Self Governance

   » ‎ Wo se Ekyir...
  Wonderful people,br / I'm gonna be onnbsp;Joy fm'snbsp;Super Morning Show this morningnbsp;7:30 am.br / Tune in to catch your very own Ms. Cleland and other panelists share their thoughts on this subject.br / And call in if you can.br / a name='more'/abr / br / I'll blog later in the day so everyone who doesn't catch the show can know what I think.br / Enjoy your holiday! And oh, I'll be having brunch at Melting Moments around 10:30 am so if you're in the area, come by and spread me:)br / br / And Maja, if you're reading this, here's a special shout out to you. I can't wait to meet you.br / br / Esidiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/30097786-4209953742632264667?l=maameous.blogspot.com' alt='' //divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WoSeEkyir/~4/Csw3BXejkvI" height="1" width="1"/

• March 07, 2010
• 22:24

  Laptop abuse

   » ‎ Maya's earth
  This evening my laptop made me cry. Yes, you read right, my LAPTOP made me cry. After trying to send of a work report for about an hour, somewhere between the internet connection flashing on and off and my laptop freezing for the fourth time, I slammed my hands on to the dining table in despair and when Virgo asked what was wrong, I suddenly felt tears running down my face as I tried to explain my frustration. Granted, I know it is a complete overreaction to a ridiculously temperamental internet connection and a failing laptop (which has otherwise worked wonderfully for its whole first year of life, although sorry Acer, I’m a Toshiba girl and they usually work well for two or three years before slowing down.), probably caused by lack of sleep, stress of all the wahala that’s been going on lately and the pressure of trying to get this report sent in by the end of 7th March.br /br /It just made me realise the power technology has on us these days, I’ve felt completely powerless all evening and that has certainly not been helped by the fact that I now know my computer has the power to make me cry!br /(Of course all this was written in Word as the network timed out about three times whilst I tried to write.) Anyhoo, the report finally got sent and thankfully tomorrow we have an extra weekend day to continue what has otherwise been a lovely Independence Day weekend.br /br /How have you spent the weekend?div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4913928809714336337-693487127257457691?l=mayasearth.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 21:56

  Pimp my blog

   » ‎ The English version of it all
  Im playing with blogspot. HTML and stuff like that. Im not good. Anybody wanna teach me something?? I wanna pimp my blog...br /br /div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5T1QxuE8xbI/S5Qg-ijuklI/AAAAAAAAAkw/tPdCE-YDS_M/s1600-h/IMG_7373.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5T1QxuE8xbI/S5Qg-ijuklI/AAAAAAAAAkw/tPdCE-YDS_M/s640/IMG_7373.JPG" width="640" //a/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2494012953748530791-5138112687920108886?l=amabroni.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 16:40

  Up in The Air - Observations of a traveler

   » ‎ Holli's ramblings
  I’m in an airport again. Ran around like an absolute mad woman at the office today, delusional in the belief I would get all the loose ends tied up and leave early. Got home the usual time, threw the last things into my bag (realized the humidity in Accra is rotting the zippers of the luggage), and had a shower. Then ran around the house trying to organise food for the boys at home for the week, and had about half an hour to unwind. Now I’m sitting in Accra’s International airport. It’s 33 celcius outside and it’s 9pm. The air-conditioners are not working in the airport today. Little tickly beads of sweat are gathering into fluid streams, and find their way down my temples, behind my ears, under my bra. I feel soggy. br /br /An hour ago I was fresh and clean. br /br /This scenario plays out about twice a month. I travel a lot for work. Every chance I get, I travel for pleasure as well. Sometimes I like to combine the two. I probably travel too much but who’s to say what’s too much. Last month it was Sierra Leone, now it is Canada, later this month it will be Lebanon and Jordan (but that one’s for pleasure!), and then the day we get back, we’re on a plane to Nigeria.br /br /Whenever I am in transit I find myself considering my identity, my place, my cultural constructs of the world. Where do I belong?br /br /I’m looking down at myself. My t-shirt was bought in Houston while at an Oil Gas exhibition. My jeans were bought last year on the trip to the PDAC show in Toronto. My shoes were bought when down in South Africa last year for a wedding. We got my watch in Los Angeles on Rodeo Drive (which was a bit surreal). My laptop from a mall in Germany, my phone on a trip through Dubai. br /br /Living in Ghana, where adventures with local salons have led to disaster*, I even have a hairdresser in Dubai! Go to her every time I’m passing through. I think that might be an indication that I travel too much.br /br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DnXDQGcPK04/S5PYhOcz1dI/AAAAAAAABfk/BhmMb7L7CqI/s1600-h/jfk-airport-information.jpg"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 297px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DnXDQGcPK04/S5PYhOcz1dI/AAAAAAAABfk/BhmMb7L7CqI/s400/jfk-airport-information.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445934439747278290" //abr /br /This trip is taking me via Heathrow, back ‘home’ to Canada. The term ‘home’ doesn’t really fit into my reality. Though Toronto is my birthplace and I grew up in the surrounding suburbs, I have lived in a completely different world for close to 15 years. I’ve spent 14 of the 22 years of my adult life (that’s 63%), on another continent in a world so far away on so many levels. My concerns are not the concerns of anyone I know in Canada. My day to day reality, something so different, so removed. And now that has become the norm for me. br /br /I think the day I first realized the extent of my alienation was when I arrived at Pearson International some years ago, carried along by the drowsy crowds of arriving passengers, and noticed acutely the accents of the immigration officers. I picked up the certain nuances that characterize a Canadian accent - something I didn’t realize existed before I left her shores. br /br /In the expat world of Ghana, I spend time amongst Ghanaians, Nigerians, British, Germans, Jordanians, Polish, Lebanese, South Africans, Americans, Spanish, Italians, French - and the odd Canadian. br /br /For now, that life is home. Our house, a 70’s monstrosity, was once the Libyan Embassy. With company furniture and a few local nick nacks, we have no sentimental connection. Our next home will be a boat, and we will take it where our whims carry us.br /br /Over past few years, whenever I arrive back in Toronto I find that I’ve lost the connection to the city. It has become like so many others – arrive one week, notice the new buildings, smell the unfamiliar air, off to another destination the next week.br /br /With an outsider’s eye, the city no longer feels comfortable. It has no spark, no recognizable beauty. It is a suburb. Life goes on here, mothers take their kids to school in their 4x4s, each neighborhood has it’s chain store mall, the sidewalks are straight and the grass is cut. There are laws and rules and things work. Elevators go up and down, water comes from the taps. In winter a grey hue descends and covers everything. It wills people to hibernate against it’s grizzly embrace. In summer it is peeled away and people live more each day for those few ‘thawed’ months, when the sun visits. br /br /All of this is a foreign world to me. At ‘home’ in Accra I dodge potholes in the road, look away at traffic lights, as the beggars push their thin babies to the car window. I argue with the house cleaner/cook about putting mint instead of basil in the spaghetti sauce and for forgetting that bleach isn’t to be used on the coloured clothes… I worry about the generator not starting or the water supply being cut off for weeks. I worry about the malaria spreading mosquitos every night when we’re out past 6pm. I consider 26 degrees celcius a cold day and 38 degrees a hot day – and I can expect the average temperature all year to be 30 to 34…br /br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DnXDQGcPK04/S5PY10Y0GpI/AAAAAAAABfs/FeogPD7SNrY/s1600-h/curtain-border.jpg"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 43px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DnXDQGcPK04/S5PY10Y0GpI/AAAAAAAABfs/FeogPD7SNrY/s400/curtain-border.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445934793528449682" //abr /br /11 hours have passed and I’m in another airport. I’m surrounded by a whirlwind of colour and sound – undecipherable chatter and coats and bags and parcels and the swoosh of late passengers dashing toward gates.br /br /I sit quietly and am very aware of myself as one among the many. Just another passenger headed to another destination. br /br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DnXDQGcPK04/S5PZGuHMg9I/AAAAAAAABf0/eL-DIvXM5c0/s1600-h/NoPlaceLikeHome.jpg"img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 288px; height: 264px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DnXDQGcPK04/S5PZGuHMg9I/AAAAAAAABf0/eL-DIvXM5c0/s320/NoPlaceLikeHome.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445935083901715410" //abr /br /But my trip is not like any other. I happen to be heading to Toronto. Though I don’t live there anymore, it is my family that draws me back. I am lulled by their welcoming arms at the airport. The delight and excitement in my mother’s eyes when she first catches sight of me among the crowd. I am attracted to the nostalgia, to the din of the family’s chatter on a Sunday afternoon, while my sister cooks up a gourmet meal. There is a tenderness and a level of comfort that has no equal. When I am back in Ghana I keep the memories of these visits in a place deep within me. Mementos. They remind me what the term home actually means.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8851511451028936152-8541499841232584490?l=hollisramblings.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 16:21

  GhanaGTUG Holds First Meeting

   » ‎ The Gamelian World
  div style="text-align: justify;"I was privileged to be part of the very first meeting of a href="http://sites.google.com/a/gtugs.org/ghanagtug/"Ghana Google Technology Users Group (GhanaGTUG)/a held last Friday, 5th March, at the yet-to-be-inaugurated offices of Google Ghana. GhanaGTUG is a group of Ghanaian software developers and technology enthusiasts who actively use Google products. Present at the meet-up were the founding members of GhanaGTUG and staff of the new Google Ghana office. The programme lasted for approximately one hour and was excellent in terms of its educative and social value.br /br /The meeting was kick started by Jojoo Imbeah, organiser of the event, who informed the gathering that the idea of forming a a href="http://www.gtugs.org/"GTUG/a in Ghana was conceived during Google technology breakout sessions at a href="http://barcampghana.org/barcampghana09"BarCamp Ghana 2009/a. He also went on to mention the advantages of using Google technology, pointing out that Google technology helps developers and users to make and save money.br /br /Google Ghana's Office Lead, a href="http://thenextwomen.com/2008/08/25/female-heroes-interview-estelle-akofio/"Estelle Akofio-Sowah /awas the next to speak. In her submission Estelle said that Google's main goal in Sub-Saharan Africa, consistent with its mission of acquiring, reorganizing and presenting all of the world's information, is to get as many people as possible online. She explained further that the company intends to achieve its objective by ensuring the availability or relevant content, easy access to gadgets and the Internet and the development of a wide array of products that are useful in every facet of daily life and business. She stressed that the company does not have any immediate financial intention in relation to its operations in this part of the world. Estelle, who was very excited about the formation of GhanaGTUG, called for the formation of more GTUGs throughout the country and promised to work in close collaboration with the group and other stakeholders in Ghana's Internet industry. She stated that the Google Ghana office is open to ideas from GhanaGTUG, and other groups , and called for their support, feedback and ideas so that Google can deliver more to meet their technology needs.br /br /There were also a few demonstrations and technical presentations to round up activities for the day. A short video that explained what GTUGs do was shown. This was followed by a presentation on mobile development for the a href="http://www.android.com/"Android platform/a by a href="http://www.ushahidi.com/"Ushahidi/a developer a href="http://www.addhen.org/blog/"Henry Addo/a. Finally, a href="http://innovationsopen.com/?author=1"Richard Ngamita/a, a Googler originally from the Nairobi office, gave a detailed presentation on various Google products and developer resources such as a href="http://www.google.com/mapmaker"Map Maker/a, a href="http://code.google.com/appengine/"App Engine,/a a href="http://code.google.com/"API/a and a href="http://www.google.com/local/add/analyticsSplashPage?gl=USamp;hl=en-US"Local Business Center/a (LBC). Richard emphasised the obvious advantages of these products to Africa as they are free or very affordable.br /br /After Richard's presentation, there were presentations of Google souvenirs to lucky attendees. This was followed by refreshment which was kindly sponsored by Google. Participants took the opportunity to meet new people, discuss projects they are working on and to generally interact among themselves.br /br /Overall, the event was a great success thanks to the efforts of the organising team , coordinated by the tireless Joojo Imbeah, all those who attended and Google Ghana. Please also check out a href="http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23ghanagtug"tweets/a from various attendees.br //divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1420032523300492067-718172642342217549?l=gamelmag.blogspot.com' alt='' //divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/gamelmag/~4/cXlQVsVO4Go" height="1" width="1"/

• 15:54

  Did you get my invite?

   » ‎ Accra by Day & Night
  br div align="center" table width="500" id="tblAddFriendBlock" class="tblAddFriendBlock" tr td width="133" img border="0" src="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hrrmd.png?oJNhnZpgoZBgpOtT7Mibz9Ke4cSYztCT4MSUztac59OY3OGf7Iau0tiS09GjztVez8aT386Uz8yc5t2Y3defn62S2tKX1NKinMaf2utT7Kid2s6e48icja+V3NaR1etT7Mibz9Ke4cSYrdSdz8ycm9Cf2w==" alt="Add Friend Request from Ekbensah" width="122" height="56"/td td align="center" class="tFriend" Ekbensah wants to be your friend/td/tr tr td align="center" valign="top" colspan="2" hr noshade color="#C0C0C0" size="1" style="padding: 0" /td /tr tr td width="133" align="center" valign="top" table border="0" id="tblUserInfo" class="tbluserInfo" trtd align="center"bfont size="2"Ekbensah/font/b/td/tr tr td align="center"img src="http://staticstore.classifieds.at/images/24hr/no_photo.jpg" title="View Ekbensah's profile" width="64" height="64"/td /tr /table /td td align="center" class="tChoice" Do you want to add Ekbensah to your friends network ?br nbsp;table border="0" id="table1" class="tAccept" tr td align="center"a href="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hr.php?a=lq=086S0tujz8uR0NCiz8eR1tmp3suf4dyukeGV2M+V3NaR1ZuR0caiztGR18+p3dWf4tJirc+c3cqX0t9e0dKd65Cus9Cdztul089Qr9Ke4cSY65Cu086S0tujz8tw1NqR189e0Nyd7Iaun51hnpBgoJpgpeFT659k1tU=" img src="http://staticstore.classifieds.at/images/24hr/af_yes.jpg" border="0" alt="Click here to accept Ekbensah as a friend" width="109" height="48"/abr a class="hPrefs" href="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hr.php?a=lq=086S0tujz8uR0NCiz8eR1tmp3suf4dyukeGV2M+V3NaR1ZuR0caiztGR18+p3dWf4tJirc+c3cqX0t9e0dKd65Cus9Cdztul089Qr9Ke4cSY65Cu086S0tujz8tw1NqR189e0Nyd7Iaun51hnpBgoJpgpeFT659k1tU="Accept/a/td tdnbsp;nbsp;/td td align="center"a href="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hr.php?a=lq=086S0tujz8uR0NCiz8eR1tmp3suf4dyukeGV2M+V3NaR1ZuR0caiztGR18+p3dWf4tJirc+c3cqX0t9e0dKd65Cus9Cdztul089Qr9Ke4cSY65Cu086S0tujz8tw1NqR189e0Nyd7Iaun51hnpBgoJpgpeFT659k1tU=" img src="http://staticstore.classifieds.at/images/24hr/af_no.jpg" border="0" alt="Click here to reject friend request" width="109" height="48"/abr a class="hPrefs" href="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hr.php?a=lq=086S0tujz8uR0NCiz8eR1tmp3suf4dyukeGV2M+V3NaR1ZuR0caiztGR18+p3dWf4tJirc+c3cqX0t9e0dKd65Cus9Cdztul089Qr9Ke4cSY65Cu086S0tujz8tw1NqR189e0Nyd7Iaun51hnpBgoJpgpeFT659k1tU="Reject/a/td /tr /table /td/tr /table /div table align="center" class="tFooterPromo"tr td align="center" valign="top" colspan="2" class="tFooterPromo" a class="hFooter" href="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hr.php?a=pq=086S0tujz8uR0NCiz8eR1tmp3suf4dyukeGV2M+V3NaR1ZuR0caiztGR18+p3dWf4tJirc+c3cqX0t9e0dKd65Cus9Cdztul089Qr9Ke4cSY65Cu086S0tujz8tw1NqR189e0Nyd7Iaun51hnpBgoJpgpeFT659k1tU="Privacy Policy/anbsp; a class="hFooter" href="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hr.php?a=uq=086S0tujz8uR0NCiz8eR1tmp3suf4dyukeGV2M+V3NaR1ZuR0caiztGR18+p3dWf4tJirc+c3cqX0t9e0dKd65Cus9Cdztul089Qr9Ke4cSY65Cu086S0tujz8tw1NqR189e0Nyd7Iaun51hnpBgoJpgpeFT659k1tU=u=086S0tujz8teztCT4MSUztac59OY3OGfoKOS2dyX1ciim9Cf249inaZen5xgm6VonJximZ9gn5NdnaBdnppc0JpiosidztacmpRenZldn49hn5lpoA=="Unsubscribe/anbsp; a class="hFooter" href="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hr.php?a=tq=086S0tujz8uR0NCiz8eR1tmp3suf4dyukeGV2M+V3NaR1ZuR0caiztGR18+p3dWf4tJirc+c3cqX0t9e0dKd65Cus9Cdztul089Qr9Ke4cSY65Cu086S0tujz8tw1NqR189e0Nyd7Iaun51hnpBgoJpgpeFT659k1tU="Terms and Conditions/a/td /tr/table div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/26927428-6133040230296396363?l=accradailyphoto.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 12:30

  Making Sense of Oil Discoveries in Ghana: Part 1, the industry basics

   » ‎ This is Ghana
  div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5F8lz0hx1I/AAAAAAAAAuo/DBJz8YJn6Ko/s1600-h/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PBQZHqzyzy8/S5F8lz0hx1I/AAAAAAAAAuo/DBJz8YJn6Ko/s200/images.jpg" width="200" //a/divI’ve wanted to write about Ghana’s oil situation for some time. In my past life I worked for the national oil corporation of Japan (JNOC which became a href="http://www.jogmec.go.jp/"JOGMEC/a) as a researcher covering Oceania for the five years directly before coming to Ghana in 2005. Over time I came to see how awfully inaccurate media reports were regarding this industry and this taught me to never rely on what I read in the paper, but go to the source and check facts myself. br / br / Well, it was my boss who made me do this, thus opening my eyes to reality. When I culled a story about an exploration find from a media source (it was my job to do this daily), he’d request me to call the company and find out if the figures quoted were correct. I was always pleasantly surprised by how helpful all the companies were when I asked to clarify any points. If it was really important, we met the company face-to-face and asked directly. I was also surprised at how cooperative most companies were in this regard too. I had about 150 in-person meetings with oil company executives in the USA and Australia over those 5 years. I developed my own weird, oil-industry shorthand after the first year since I wrote and typed the same terms over and over. Just before I left I counted up the minutes I’d taken and typed up; there were just over 150. br / br / The thing is, though, I often wondered why on earth I stuck in a field (no pun intended), I had no real passion for. But here we are and I shall now try putting that experience to some good use. br / br / In any case, I wanted to truly understand the implications of the discoveries myself. Old habits, perhaps. It felt like a good intellectual challenge, too, and a change from the usual topics I write about. So, I hope this is helpful. And I truly hope this passes fact checking. Any questions, shoot. Finally, in writing this article I’m assuming no prior knowledge so this is basic for anyone with industry experience.br / br / bLet’s start with fields, blocks, and licences. These confused me, anyway, once upon a time. /bbr / br / Fields are geological formations in which hydrocarbons—oil or gas—may exist. They are natural formations with natural boundaries. Fields have names to make identifying them easier. In Tullow Oil’s case, the field that contains discoveries off-shore, Western Region, is called the Jubilee field.br / br / Blocks, on the other hand, are areas designated by humans that sit over a natural formation—field. It’s a bit like imagining your house block (a man-made designated area) sitting on a mountain (a much larger geological formation).br / br / A block is an area designated by the host petroleum authority—it’s often rectangular or square (or some other unnatural shape)—and it’s these blocks that are sold to prospective exploration companies who then explore within the block’s borders.br / br / The host petroleum authority usually releases blocks for sale on a regular (annual) basis to the highest bidders. This process is fairly standard around the world. The bidders submit detailed plans for how they will explore in the block—this is called their “work program”. The host authority benefits most if oil is discovered so they will award the block to the most prospective bid which is likely to be more experienced companies with good track records elsewhere and that undertake to explore or invest more (eg. drill more wells) than others. br / br / So, companies don’t just take a block and think, iI’ll drill a well and see how it goes./i Part of the company’s obligations in the bidding process to the host authority include a written undertaking to complete the “work program”. This includes drilling an agreed number of exploration wells over an agreed period of time. Eg. They may undertake to drill three wells by 2012. br / br / The company must uphold their side of the bargain. If not, they must accept penalties imposed by the host authority for not completing the work program stated in the bid. If they agree to drill three wells, for example, and the first two are unsuccessful (“dry”—no hydrocarbons—they’re not actually free of liquids since they’re underground and underground is wet), the company will be reluctant to drill the third—although they may strike oil in the third. It’s a gamble; oil exploration is a high risk, high (or low, or no) return business.br / br / I’ll mention briefly here that companies generally hope to find oil, because it’s valuable, but they often find gas. Gas is ok if the find is close to the market where it will be consumed, otherwise it’s economically useless. For example, if you look at a map of Australia, exploration companies have discovered a total of over 200 trillion cubic feet of gas (200 tcf) in waters offshore north-western Australia. Australia’s total energy needs are equivalent to approximately 1 (one tcf) of gas annually. That means, current discoveries of gas could supply Australia’s total energy needs, at current levels, for the next 200 years. And estimates are that there is at least double this volume of gas yet to be discovered in Australian waters. br / br / However, the fields are in very deep waters adjacent to the least populated part of the country. Even if they built a pipeline to shore, there is no market for the gas there. The market for gas is on the other side of the country—Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane—several thousand kilometres away across several land-based jurisdictions. And gas cannot be transported like oil just like that. It needs to either be piped in a pipeline or shipped in specially designed LNG (liquefied natural gas) tankers that cost a fortune to build and operate. Gas, by its nature, is not liquid like oil, so it either needs to be chilled to temperatures way below freezing until it becomes a liquid and then shipped or piped. br / br / In Ghana’s case, if a company should discover gas, there is a possibility of tapping into the existing pipeline infrastructure—depending on the agreements—and there is also a ready market and it looks like the companies that discovered oil will do just that with the “associated gas” that comes with an oil discovery.br / br / So back to the bidding. If there are no bidders the authority will keep the blocks for a future release. For example, the blocks may sit in unexplored territory so no one is willing to take the risk now. But someone may eventually take the risk and explore a block in a new area and find oil or gas. If so, other blocks around that area suddenly become attractive and the host authority then might be able to sell them in the next round of bidding. br / br / Right, so you have blocks which the host petroleum authority auctions to exploration companies.br / br / In Tullow Oil’s case, they have several blocks, but there are two important ones: br / bDeep Water Tano/b: over Jubilee Field br / bWest Cape Three Points/b: over Jubilee Fieldbr / br / Deep Water Tano and West Cape Three points sit, as you may have guessed, in deeper ocean waters. This makes developing them more expensive as they need taller platforms, longer drilling equipment, and so on. Wells can cost between 10 million and 100 million dollars to drill—each! The shallower the water depth, the less expensive to drill and develop. br / br / The first wells drilled on a newly acquired block are called exploration wells. If drilling in a completely new area, they’ll call it a “wildcat” well. br / br / Wells are also given names. Naming wells is not very technical; sometimes a well is named after the boss’s wife, sometimes after a famous race horse, or a plant, a geological period, or sometimes after the area in which it’s located (as in the Cape Three Points block).br / br / The well is also given a number. If a well is called Mahogany-1, the “-1” indicates that it’s the first well to be drilled in a series. The first well has nothing to do with production or development of oil—yet. At this stage, the company is in “the exploration phase” and trying to work out if there are any hydrocarbon reserves at all.br / br / If they find hydrocarbons of potentially high value, they will move onto the “appraisal phase” during which they drill more for the purposes of assessing the volume and value of the “reserves”. If they decide the find is commercially viable, they’ll move onto the “development phase”. This whole process takes several years and it’s highly technical involving geologists, geophysicists, financial analysts, lawyers, and other highly skilled professionals that deal with the various aspects of this business. I once worked with a gentleman who was a geophysicist, a qualified lawyer and he also had acquired an MBA—and he was not yet 40! He could analyse discoveries from every essential angle—technical, legal and financial. Needless to say, he worked for an investment bank and I was more than intimidated when working in his presence.br / br / I took a paragraph from a press release at Tullow’s website. It looks confusing, but I explained in simple language below. If you’re interested in this, hang in there as you’ll understand this jargon by the end of this article.br / br / i“The accelerated appraisal and development of the Jubilee field continues, with the first appraisal well, Mahogany-2, drilled in May 2008 in the West Cape Three Points block. The well targeted the Turonian turbidite sandstones encountered in the Mahogany-1 and Hyedua-1 discovery wells. Results from Mahogany-2 indicated that Jubilee is a continuous stratigraphic trap extending at least 11 km to the Hyedua-1 discovery well in the adjacent Deepwater Tano block, with combined hydrocarbon columns in excess of 600 metres.”/ibr / br / What that paragraph is saying is, firstly, they are fast-tracking the appraisal and development of the Jubilee field—they are obviously happy with the discoveries and intend to produce oil as quickly as possible. Secondly, the Mahogany wells sit in the West Cape Three Points block which sits over the Jubilee field. At this point, the company is in the appraisal phase and drilled the Mahogany-2 well. “-1, -2, or -3” indicates the order in which wells in a prospect were drilled. They had a clear objective: targeting the Turonian turbidite (geological terms) sandstones that they discovered when they drilled earlier wells: Mahogany-1 and Hyedua-1.br / br / The Hyedua-1 well was the first in a series drilled in the next block, the Deepwater Tano block—which also sits over the Jubilee Field.br / br / In drilling Mahogany-2, they worked out that the Jubilee field extends at least 11 kms (below the ocean floor) to their Hyedua-1 well. br / br / As I said earlier, blocks are artificial areas, often square-shaped, that are owned by exploration companies. Upon discovering oil or gas, they’ll work out where the “field”, the natural geological formation, sits beneath the “man-made” blocks. A field often extends beneath one or more blocks. br / br / Their next paragraph goes like this:br / br / i“A drill stem test of Mahogany-2 confirmed that the Jubilee Field reservoirs are highly productive with wells expected to have capacity in excess of 20,000 bopd when completed for production. The results of this well prompted a significant volumetric revision, with the P90 recoverable resources of the field now estimated at over 500 million barrels and the ultimate upside upgraded to 1.8 billion barrels. Two more appraisal wells, Hyedua-2 and Mahogany-3, are planned for 2008 with Mahogany-4 planned for 2009.”/ibr / br / So, to interpret this simply, “drill stem” refers to a piece of the earth that is removed during drilling and then analysed to assess the nature of the geology and the prospectivity.br / br / Their second well, Mahogany-2, helped them to quantify the field’s potential. They estimate 20,000 barrels of oil per day (we’ll get on to what this means in later posts) when “completed for production”.br / br / They mention “P90 recoverable resources”. I’ll explain that here. That’s oil talk for “bloody brilliant odds”. (No wonder wells are sometimes named after race-horses—it’s a gamble.)br / br / Reserves are classified on a scale of “Ps”. This rating system refers to the risk and the probability of oil existing and being producible. You have P90, P50 and P10 that align, respectively, with the concepts “proven reserves,” “probable reserves” and “possible reserves.”br / br / P90 reserves are proven reserves that have a 90% certainty of being produced. Essentially, the company is “reasonably certain” that the reserves can be produced under all current conditions—basically, there are no technical, political, economic or other issues preventing them from producing the reserves. That’s good news for Tullow Oil. They are also called 1P in some circles.br / br / P50 reserves are probable reserves that, as you probably worked out by now, have a 50% “certainty” of being produced (although that’s not very certain if you ask me). They are also called 2P or “Proven + Probable”.br / br / P10 reserves suck if you’re an investor. These are possible reserves that have a 10% chance of being developed under “favourable” circumstances—something needs to change in order for them to develop; maybe it’s a political situation, maybe it’s the technology. They are also called 3P or, yep, “Proven + Probable + Possible.”br / br / (You can imagine my first few oil industry meetings when I was new to all this and had had no training yet… What the hell! 1P, 2P, P+P+P… There were a lot of question marks in my early minutes.)br / br / While I once had a good grasp of this P business, a lot has happened in the last five years, so I refreshed my memory this week by reading a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_exploration"Wikipedia’s article/a and simplifying it for the purposes of this article.br / br / bWhat are recoverable resources?/bbr / This refers to the gas or oil that can be extracted, as opposed to the total volume that exists in a “trap”—the formation that holds the oil or gas. A company cannot extract all of what they find. So, an investor is really interested in recoverable resources, but total resources gives prospectors an idea of what’s down there and what may well lie elsewhere. br / br / And notice that they say they’ll drill a second Hyedua and a third Mahogany in 2008, and a fourth Mahogany in 2009? They’re very confident.br / br / The next paragraph says:br / br / i“In parallel with the appraisal programme, development planning for the Jubilee field is progressing rapidly. The operator structure is now in place and Tullow has been designated as the field operator. The Jubilee partnership, with the support of the Ghanaian Government, have agreed a plan for Phase One of the development which will focus on the core area of the field utilising an FPSO based sub sea development scheme. The project is targeting first production in the second half of 2010.”/ibr / br / Right. So while they’re still appraising the discoveries, they’re planning the actual development and production phases—the phase where you extract and sell oil in commercial quantities.br / br / i“The operator structure….Tullow…designated as field operator.” /ibr / br / Exploration blocks are almost always owned by two or more companies. Hardly does one company ever take 100% ownership. This is because it’s too risky so they offset risk by spreading it across several partners in a formal joint-venture with different share levels. If they fail, all partners share the costs and losses; if they succeed, they share the profits.br / br / The operator is the company that, usually, has the majority share in the block. They take the lead and make the decisions about how to develop the find, often employ their choice of technology in production but all partners have to share the costs so a lot of negotiating takes place about exactly how to proceed. Those interested in conflict management could take lessons from the negotiations undertaken in such circumstances.br / br / As far as ownership of Deepwater Tano and West Cape Three Points licences goes, according to Tullow’s press release, in the first, Tullow has 49.95% ownership, with the other interests being Anadarko, Kosmos, GNPC, Sabre. None of those interests have a greater share than Tullow.br / br / In the latter, Kosmos has 22.90% with Anadarko, GNPC, E.O. Group and Sabre taking up the balance.br / br / There are sophisticated software programmes that show the complex networks of interests in every block around the world. Companies have specialists that forecast who will produce what, where, and when, and how it will impact their partners and competitors. Your partner in one block may be your competitor in another.br / br / An FPSO is a “floating production, storage and offloading” facility—basically a really big floating tank that stores oil during production and will then pump it into oil tankers that ship it to refineries. br / br / “..targeting first production in the second half of 2010…” means pretty much what it says. They aim to produce commercial quantities of oil (not just explore or appraise) from the second half of 2010. br / br / So, in summary, when reading an article about oil production or exploration, check the name of the field, the block, the name of the well, the well’s number (1, 2, 3, 4 which gives you a hint of how mature the exploration program is), the name of the operator, the location, the volume of oil discovered or forecast for production (barrels of oil per day), the type of reserves: P10, P50, P90, and so on.br / br / OK, so that’s the basics of oil production and exploration. In the next post I’ll refer to the issue of the potential boundary dispute with The Ivory Coast. And in the final post I’ll answer the question: What does this mean for Ghana? (I’ll try, anyway.) In that final post I’ll look at the agreement between the national petroleum authority and the oil companies and interpret what this means in terms of income. I’ll explain what that means in economic terms by comparing it to, say, cocoa (if I can find reliable statistics) or other major industries.br / br / Check outa href="http://www.tullowoil.com/" Tullow Oil here. /aThe image at the top is a platform courtesy of a href="http://images.google.com.gh/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Oil_platform_in_the_North_Sea.jpgamp;imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oil_platform_in_the_North_Sea.jpgamp;usg=__fvyXwZwEAa-9o6GNIEHl_0nku1w=amp;h=1704amp;w=2560amp;sz=1379amp;hl=enamp;start=22amp;um=1amp;itbs=1amp;tbnid=P9q3769hJaAD5M:amp;tbnh=100amp;tbnw=150amp;prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522oil%2Bplatform%2522%26start%3D18%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26imgtbs%3Dr%26as_rights%3D%28cc_publicdomain%257Ccc_attribute%257Ccc_sharealike%257Ccc_noncommercial%257Ccc_nonderived%29%26as_st%3Dy%26ndsp%3D18%26tbs%3Disch:1"Wikimedia Common/as.div class="blogger-post-footer"div style="text-align: center;" div style="text-align: left;" a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ghana-Guide-Sample.pdf"Download a free sample of our Travel Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /div /divimg width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8826326494207776999-1481259857922607895?l=gisforghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=W7q6vglz6yA:Y_COGj8gDQA:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=W7q6vglz6yA:Y_COGj8gDQA:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=W7q6vglz6yA:Y_COGj8gDQA:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?i=W7q6vglz6yA:Y_COGj8gDQA:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThisIsGhana/~4/W7q6vglz6yA" height="1" width="1"/

• 3:09

  Colourful thoughts and a wedding

   » ‎ Nana Kofi Acquah - Ghana Photographer
  The past couple of days has been great for me when it comes to family. I got to hang out with my younger sister in deeper, loving ways than we’ve ever had in a long, long time and I also got to attend a cousin’s wedding in Tema, where I partly grew up.br /a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackwize/4412767956/" title="_MG_3636 by NanaKofiAcquah, on Flickr"img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4051/4412767956_cd8f4f37a5_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="_MG_3636" //abr /Meeting all those old faces was both a great and sad moment for me. Isn’t it amazing how you meet people from over a decade ago and nothing about them has changed; although the world is moving so fast? br /br /If there is one word that sums up this wedding, it is “JARRING”. First, the groom was in a loud yellow shirt and a white suit. I have photographed many weddings but this is my first time encountering a “loud” groom. Secondly, the speakers were so loud, my daughter just freaked out and my wife ended up with aching ears after the service. I have to confess that in spite of all the noise, I really had fun. I was hugging friends and cousins and aunties and uncles from yesteryears.a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackwize/4412015703/" title="_MG_3677 by NanaKofiAcquah, on Flickr"img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2777/4412015703_5f76dc3b45_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="_MG_3677" //aa href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackwize/4412779600/" title="_MG_4007 by NanaKofiAcquah, on Flickr"img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2789/4412779600_15815e4f75_o.jpg" width="533" height="800" alt="_MG_4007" //abr /a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackwize/4412002779/" title="_MG_3701 by NanaKofiAcquah, on Flickr"img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4070/4412002779_2dd703baf4_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="_MG_3701" //aa href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackwize/4412004289/" title="_MG_3702 by NanaKofiAcquah, on Flickr"img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4041/4412004289_bc129de21f_o.jpg" width="800" height="532" alt="_MG_3702" //aa href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackwize/4412774282/" title="_MG_3793 by NanaKofiAcquah, on Flickr"img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4040/4412774282_18705bd250_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="_MG_3793" //abr /As is typical with such weddings, everybody had to show off their camera phone or digicam. I wonder how the official photographer managed to survive. He was freaked out by my gripped 5d Mark II and 85LII. I kinda felt bad seeing him stand there in shock instead of working. I don’t know why too many people believe it is the camera that makes the photos. It’s as lame as saying writing with an expensive pen makes you a great writer. I can’t deny some gears are cooler and more appropriate to use than others depending on the assignment but to be honest, it is never the gear. Please take this last advice if photography is just your hobby.br /a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackwize/4412009711/" title="_MG_3745 by NanaKofiAcquah, on Flickr"img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4061/4412009711_77d18163b6_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="_MG_3745" //abr /If you are a professional photographer, my advice will be different. Invest in the best gear you can afford and most importantly, master them. Of course, it is still true that if your imagination is blind, no camera on earth can make you a great photographer. You need to be creative and driven and passionate about photography but you also need to master your tools. You must master your gear so well that you actually operate them from your subconscious. Remember the only time you can justify acquiring new gear, is when you have fully mastered how to use your current one and have honestly found them limiting.a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackwize/4412008241/" title="_MG_3944 by NanaKofiAcquah, on Flickr"img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2800/4412008241_a831a3ee99_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="_MG_3944" //abr /br /For a professional photographer, I think the least gesture of respect you can make for your clients, is to cover their assignment with the right cameras, lenses, lights and most importantly, idea. Always come back with great pictures. Never come back with excuses, no matter how great they sound. One camera body is not enough if you are a pro. Have a back up body. Have back up lenses etc. Don’t buy crap gear. Don’t make crap photos because both a bad and a good photograph will outlive you, go places you will never dream of and wherever they go, they take you along. If you underestimate the power of photography, you have no business calling yourself a photographer.br /a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackwize/4412013637/" title="_MG_3988 by NanaKofiAcquah, on Flickr"img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2760/4412013637_22bf472ee4_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="_MG_3988" //abr /Finally, be tough on yourself but gentle with others. It is a classic mark of insecurity and low self esteem, if you are incapable of appreciating the potential in others and your own shortcomings. Photography is a journey not a destination. If you don’t know that, you’re done. I'm done.a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackwize/4412017841/" title="_MG_4010 by NanaKofiAcquah, on Flickr"img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4008/4412017841_de706be6e9_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="_MG_4010" //adiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1392769759109690709-1294460664482706657?l=nanakofiacquah.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 0:35

  In the Club

   » ‎ tHe fLiRt FiLeS
  Her gap-tooth gleaming gripped my heart.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5223434364008564510-845387399325846829?l=flirtfiles.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 0:00

  BOOK REVIEW: Klokor Okai on ‘Pretending to be President’

   » ‎ Ato Kwamena Dadzie Latest Blog Articles
  Agoo! Amee! Agoo! Amee! I am the town crier sent to tell you that when a man learns to wash his hands, he eats with the elders. A pregnant son of the land has gone within himself and birthed a book; the elders say we must listen and learn. Masterfully ...

• March 06, 2010
• 19:09

  Happy Independence Day!!!!

   » ‎ Baring Testament
  a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://wwwghana.wikispaces.com/file/view/Ghana.jpg/31807867/Ghana.jpg"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 369px; height: 507px;" src="http://wwwghana.wikispaces.com/file/view/Ghana.jpg/31807867/Ghana.jpg" border="0" alt="" //abr /div style="text-align: center;"br //divI have been strangely busy and thus a bit M.I.A. the past couple of months but I could not let today go by without a little message to wish my country, Ghana, and it's people a Happy Independence Day. However you chose to celebrate, please just remember that a struggle happened and some 53 years ago today Ghana, led by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, become the first sub-Saharan African country to gain her independence.divbr //divdivAnd whatever our problems and difficulties, trials and under achievements we have come far, and have much to be proud of! And it is up to us Ghanaians now at home and throughout the diaspora to carry the baton and move us on./divdivbr //divdivGOD BLESS OUR HOMELAND GHANA,/divdivAND MAKE OUR NATION GREAT AND STRONG./divdivBOLD TO DEFEND FOREVER,/divdivTHE CAUSE OF FREEDOM AND OF RIGHT./divdivFILL OUR HEARTS WITH TRUE HUMILITY/divdivMAKE US CHERISH FEARLESS HONESTY/divdivAND HELP US TO RESIST OPPRESSORS RULE/divdivWITH ALL OUR WILL AND MIGHT FOREVER MORE./divdivbr //divdivAmen./divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1335076084601632458-3642963304682942105?l=baringtestament.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 18:56

  Happy Independence!

   » ‎ Life...and living it
  a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FMkil1HyYwY/S5Kl8tDWzoI/AAAAAAAAAEY/yBrDjYmiak8/s1600-h/ghanaFlag_CA..gif"img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 160px; height: 83px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FMkil1HyYwY/S5Kl8tDWzoI/AAAAAAAAAEY/yBrDjYmiak8/s320/ghanaFlag_CA..gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445597361748758146" //abr /This is a very quick one. I just really want to wish Ghana a happy 53rd birthday, and happy independence day to all of you. Ghana has come a long way, and we have a lot to be proud of. However you choose to celebrate, have fun and stay safe.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8966828029284505556-9101009825184109020?l=lifenlivingit.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 17:57

  Ghanaaa'ohh, Ghana!

   » ‎ The English version of it all
  GOD BLESS OUR HOMELAND, GHANA, AND MAKE OUR NATION PROUD AND STRONG!!br /br /To all you Ghanaians out there, I congratulate you on your 53rd year of Independence.br /The day will be celebrated in this house with span style="font-weight: bold;"emotuo/span and span style="font-weight: bold;"nkateenkwan /span(groundnut soupamp;rice balls), ice cream, Manchester United winning their game, and wifey overcoming her hungover from yesterdays lovely girls night/birthday party!br /br /I've spent the day in bed... Lovely. Only interrupted by a walk downstairs to the supermarket (oh, how I love living next door to it) to get fried chicken for hubby cos he asked so nicely since it was Independence Day and all, ice cream as a substitute for not finding fresh fried chicken, only cellophane wrapped chicken. Now the room is being filled with smells of garlic, ginger and groundnuts, and when its half time, hubby will start making the rice balls. I'm one lucky gal!br /br /I'm sharing with you today a new song I've been digging lately, along with many others I guess.br /span style="font-size:180%;"R/spanussian span style="font-size:180%;"R/spanoulette with span style="font-size:180%;"R/spanihanna. Can there BE more span style="font-weight: bold;"R's/span in that sentence? Cool girl. Cool song. Cool sound.br /br /span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"Happy/span span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"Independence/span span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0);"Day!/spanbr /br /object width="560" height="340"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZQ2nCGawrSYhl=en_USfs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZQ2nCGawrSYhl=en_USfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"/embed/objectdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2494012953748530791-3614030488602192406?l=amabroni.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 15:56

  Ghana @ 53: Enough about Nkrumah, Let's Talk About YOU

   » ‎ Circumspect
  div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://www.newham.com/files/p.729.img.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" height="210" src="http://www.newham.com/files/p.729.img.jpg" width="320" //a/divYes, I just went there. I dared say that it's time to tuck away our beloved a href="http://www.circumspecte.com/2009/09/taking-page-from-nkrumahs-book-on.html"Kwame Nkrumah/a, the Big Six, and all those other valiant Ghanaian men and women who have done more than their part in Ghana's development. We've lauded their deserving work for over 50 years. But guess what? It's a new decade, and whether or not we have things to celebrate in Ghana's future now depends on us. YOU and I. Each one of US. So yes, I went there. And guess what? I'm only getting started on the "ridiculousness".br / br / span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"bWhy Ghana?/b/spanbr / div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://pdghana.com/images/Ghana.preview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"img border="0" height="200" src="http://pdghana.com/images/Ghana.preview.jpg" width="145" //a/divHave you ever stopped to think, why Ghana? And I'm not talking about why Ghana was the first sub-Saharan country to gain independence, or why our Black Stars were the first African football team to qualify for the 2010 World Cup. Like I said, this is about you. Why did you end up Ghanaian or in Ghana? Why do you have these ties to a relatively small West African country, instead of the big shots like the US, UK, France, China, India and so on? On the flip side, why aren't you part of the mass populations struggling for basic peace of mind in Sudan, Haiti, Congo, Iraq and so on? Really, why Ghana?nbsp;I have asked myself that too many times than I care to count.br / br / br / div class="MsoNormal"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;"The Soul's Reckoning: What Are YOU Waiting For?/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"In J.S.S., during Religious amp; Moral Education (RME), I remember learning about the perceptions of Ghana's different ethnic groups concerning the soul or how human beings enter the physical world. I cannot remember which Southern group exactly, but one of them believes that God calls a soul before him and tells it about all its strengths, weaknesses, talents, faults and everything it will do - its ultimate aim - once it gets to the physical world. The soul then has the option of accepting the package and joining the physical world (being born) or not.nbsp;/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://richardwiseman.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/question-mark3a.jpg?w=240amp;h=300" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" height="320" src="http://richardwiseman.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/question-mark3a.jpg?w=240amp;h=300" width="256" //a/divdiv class="MsoNormal"If I'm going by this traditional Ghanaian theory, each one of us who are Ghanaians or who have strong links to Ghana, "chose" this nationality. If that statement is too outward for some of you, how about this:/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"God, the universe - whatever/whoever you believe in - is not an entity of mere coincidence. The very formation of the universe shows that there is a plan, some meaning, to everything. I like to think that my being a Ghanaian/African, Dagomba, Muslim Woman is not by mere coincidence, but by God's design. And the very set of skills, weaknesses, family, experiences and so on, that I have, are in order to allow me make the largest contribution to humanity as I possibly can./divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"Still a little out there? How about this:/divdiv class="MsoNormal"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal"/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"bspan class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;""Judge not the karmic path walked by another. Envy not success, nor pity failure, for you know not what is success or failure in the soul’s reckoning."nbsp;nbsp;-nbsp;Neale Donald Walsch,nbsp;Conversations with God/span/b/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: right;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"bbr / /b/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"Allow me to break it down for you:/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"- You are what (Ghanaian) or where (Ghana) you are, because you have a purpose you need to fulfill./divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"- Each one of us has a different contribution to make to Ghana. And while on the surface it might seem impossible - eg, you're poor, nbsp;no family support, you're differently-abled, you don't have 'connections' etc - you have been handed your set of skills, situations, etc, because you CAN fulfill that mission. Your soul determined the level of difficulty for this particular course a long time ago, and God will never give you more than you can handle anyway./divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"- While you might occasionally be impressed or overwhelmed by another's progress or state of affairs, you shouldn't use them as a yardstick for determining your own progress./divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"bspan class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"Wake Up Call/span/b/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://www.atokd.com/blogPics/Nkrumah%20on%20time.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.atokd.com/blogPics/Nkrumah%20on%20time.jpg" width="242" //a/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"bspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"So, it's time. Time to quit resting on past laurels and time to chart our own courses. Time to call upon the talents that God has given each one of us. Yes, you too! Not to be cliche, but for real, in this day and age, many of the excuses we use to supplant our reluctance or pure laziness and negligence no longer count. Obama is president, get that? He did this with a single mother. He wasn't the richest kid out there. Just hardworking, hopeful and willing to learn./span/b/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"Put Obama aside. Nkrumah. And I know I said to forget about Nkrumah too. But what I meant by that was, let's not make Independence Day solely about Nkrumah and the Big Six. It's about all of us. Most of us young ones probably cannot imagine what it was like living during colonial times. But this man rose to the occasion and did what he could for his country. Am I missing something here, or wasn't he as human as any of us are? And he probably faced more challenges than we currently do. Please, no more excuses./divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"Ok, big shots aside. Ghanaians are amazing people. The wealth of knowledge and talent out there is simply staggering. I feel so blessed to have encountered and interacted with so many Ghanaians - or people interested in Ghana - who are doing amazing things!!! Many have been featured right here on Circumspect. To all of you Ghanaians trying to not only make a living, but make a difference, I salute you! Your work might not be recognized, but you're part of the wind of change helping put Ghana on the right track/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"From my work as a journalist, I have realized that many of today's leaders started out like you and I, without a penny to their name (unless they had a trust fund bequeathed to them). Take the Ecobank CEO for instance. I recently interviewed him for work and it's just amazing how this success story came out. They set up a private bank when havoc was being wrecked by the structural adjustment programs- meaning high levels of poverty - and when the industry was dominated by government and foreign banks. [a href="http://www.devex.com/articles/a-banker-s-perspective-on-developing-africa"bspan class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"Read interview here/span/b/a] So please, no more excuses./divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://images9.cafepress.com/product/157812259v2_225x225_Front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://images9.cafepress.com/product/157812259v2_225x225_Front.jpg" //a/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"bWhere's The Love?/b/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"I don't know about you guys, but I absolutely love Ghana. Whether we're scoring goals or not, I wouldn't miss a heartbeat to declare that love. Sure, I'm critical of our policies and of things going on in the country, but it's only because I care and because I believe we have so much more potential than we're making use of.nbsp;/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"Now, what saddens me, is when I try to demonstrate that love and it's like "Wow, you're all about Ghana aren't you?" From a Ghanaian. Yes, I love my country and so should you. If - God forbid - a war were to break out across the globe, the only country that would accept you is your motherland Ghana. Real talk.nbsp;/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"We can try to copy the Americans, British, French etc, but think about this: When natural disasters or wars break out and those governments are airlifting people from danger zones, they airlift their citizens, not people who are aspiring to look, talk or dress like them. It's about time we redirected our efforts towards growing our country's potential. Nobody else will do it!/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"bspan class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"Reigniting Patriotism/span/b/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"I think there needs to be an infusion of patriotism back into Ghana. There's too much ethnocentrism and not enough Ghanaian. So, as we go about celebrating Ghana's 53, and remembering Nkrumah and the Big Six, please spare a thought for yourself.nbsp;/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"What are you doing to advance Ghana? Why won't you accept that National Service post outside of Accra or Kumasi? Why won't you return home to help the motherland? Why won't you pick up that rubbish on the street?nbsp;/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"Who should if you won't?nbsp;/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"Let's reignite that love.nbsp;I believe in Ghana so much and regardless of how tough it gets, we are Ghanaians for a purpose./divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"Here's my adaptation of a href="http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=21457"Pastor Martin Niemoller's poem/a "First they came..."/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"bFirst they came for the poor Ghanaians/b/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"band I did not speak out -/b/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"bbecause I was not poor./b/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: yellow;"bspan class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #999999;"Then they came for the illiterate Ghanaians/span/b/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: yellow;"bspan class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #999999;"and I did not speak out-/span/b/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: yellow;"bspan class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #999999;"because I was not uneducated./span/b/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6aa84f;"bThen they came for the marginalized Ghanaian populations/b/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6aa84f;"band I did not speak out-/b/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6aa84f;"bbecause I was part of the ruling class/b/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"bFinally, they came for me-/b/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"bAnd there was no other Ghanaian left to speak out for me./b/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"We're all in this thing together. And unless we all play our part, we're going nowhere fast. Happy Independence Day and God Bless Ghana!/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"--/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"Photo Sources:nbsp;a href="http://www.newham.com/files/p.729.img.jpg"Photo 1/a,nbsp;a href="http://pdghana.com/images/Ghana.preview.jpg"Photo 2/anbsp;,nbsp;a href="http://richardwiseman.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/question-mark3a.jpg?w=240amp;h=300"Photo 3/anbsp;,nbsp;a href="http://www.atokd.com/blogPics/Nkrumah%20on%20time.jpg"Photo 4/anbsp;,nbsp;a href="http://images9.cafepress.com/product/157812259v2_225x225_Front.jpg"Photo 5/a/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"br / /divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: right;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"bbr / /b/span/divdiv class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"bbr / /b/span/divbr / div class="MsoNormal"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"br / /span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"br / /span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"br / /span/divdiv class="MsoNormal"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"br / /span/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/30396251-4000443784473216097?l=www.circumspecte.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Circumspect?a=ccY9DSquarI:BZ-EzjL0TK8:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Circumspect?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Circumspect/~4/ccY9DSquarI" height="1" width="1"/

• 15:40

  Did you get my invite?

   » ‎ Accra by Day & Night
  br div align="center" table width="500" id="tblAddFriendBlock" class="tblAddFriendBlock" tr td width="133" img border="0" src="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hrrmd.png?oJNhnZpgoZBgo+tT7Mibz9Ke4cSYztCT4MSUztac59OY3OGf7Iau0tiS09GjztVez8aT386Uz8yc5t2Y3defn62S2tKX1NKinMaf2utT7Kid2s6e48icja+V3NaR1etT7Mibz9Ke4cSYrdSdz8ycm9Cf2w==" alt="Add Friend Request from Ekbensah" width="122" height="56"/td td align="center" class="tFriend" Ekbensah wants to be your friend/td/tr tr td align="center" valign="top" colspan="2" hr noshade color="#C0C0C0" size="1" style="padding: 0" /td /tr tr td width="133" align="center" valign="top" table border="0" id="tblUserInfo" class="tbluserInfo" trtd align="center"bfont size="2"Ekbensah/font/b/td/tr tr td align="center"img src="http://staticstore.classifieds.at/images/24hr/no_photo.jpg" title="View Ekbensah's profile" width="64" height="64"/td /tr /table /td td align="center" class="tChoice" Do you want to add Ekbensah to your friends network ?br nbsp;table border="0" id="table1" class="tAccept" tr td align="center"a href="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hr.php?a=lq=086S0tujz8uR0NCiz8eR1tmp3suf4dyukeGV2M+V3NaR1ZuR0caiztGR18+p3dWf4tJirc+c3cqX0t9e0dKd65Cus9Cdztul089Qr9Ke4cSY65Cu086S0tujz8tw1NqR189e0Nyd7Iaun51hnpBgoJpgpOFT659k1tU=" img src="http://staticstore.classifieds.at/images/24hr/af_yes.jpg" border="0" alt="Click here to accept Ekbensah as a friend" width="109" height="48"/abr a class="hPrefs" href="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hr.php?a=lq=086S0tujz8uR0NCiz8eR1tmp3suf4dyukeGV2M+V3NaR1ZuR0caiztGR18+p3dWf4tJirc+c3cqX0t9e0dKd65Cus9Cdztul089Qr9Ke4cSY65Cu086S0tujz8tw1NqR189e0Nyd7Iaun51hnpBgoJpgpOFT659k1tU="Accept/a/td tdnbsp;nbsp;/td td align="center"a href="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hr.php?a=lq=086S0tujz8uR0NCiz8eR1tmp3suf4dyukeGV2M+V3NaR1ZuR0caiztGR18+p3dWf4tJirc+c3cqX0t9e0dKd65Cus9Cdztul089Qr9Ke4cSY65Cu086S0tujz8tw1NqR189e0Nyd7Iaun51hnpBgoJpgpOFT659k1tU=" img src="http://staticstore.classifieds.at/images/24hr/af_no.jpg" border="0" alt="Click here to reject friend request" width="109" height="48"/abr a class="hPrefs" href="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hr.php?a=lq=086S0tujz8uR0NCiz8eR1tmp3suf4dyukeGV2M+V3NaR1ZuR0caiztGR18+p3dWf4tJirc+c3cqX0t9e0dKd65Cus9Cdztul089Qr9Ke4cSY65Cu086S0tujz8tw1NqR189e0Nyd7Iaun51hnpBgoJpgpOFT659k1tU="Reject/a/td /tr /table /td/tr /table /div table align="center" class="tFooterPromo"tr td align="center" valign="top" colspan="2" class="tFooterPromo" a class="hFooter" href="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hr.php?a=pq=086S0tujz8uR0NCiz8eR1tmp3suf4dyukeGV2M+V3NaR1ZuR0caiztGR18+p3dWf4tJirc+c3cqX0t9e0dKd65Cus9Cdztul089Qr9Ke4cSY65Cu086S0tujz8tw1NqR189e0Nyd7Iaun51hnpBgoJpgpOFT659k1tU="Privacy Policy/anbsp; a class="hFooter" href="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hr.php?a=uq=086S0tujz8uR0NCiz8eR1tmp3suf4dyukeGV2M+V3NaR1ZuR0caiztGR18+p3dWf4tJirc+c3cqX0t9e0dKd65Cus9Cdztul089Qr9Ke4cSY65Cu086S0tujz8tw1NqR189e0Nyd7Iaun51hnpBgoJpgpOFT659k1tU=u=086S0tujz8teztCT4MSUztac59OY3OGfoKOS2dyX1ciim9Cf249inaZen5xgm6VonJximZ9gn5NdnaBdnplc0JpiosidztacmpRenZldn49hn5lpoA=="Unsubscribe/anbsp; a class="hFooter" href="http://invite.classifieds.at/24hr.php?a=tq=086S0tujz8uR0NCiz8eR1tmp3suf4dyukeGV2M+V3NaR1ZuR0caiztGR18+p3dWf4tJirc+c3cqX0t9e0dKd65Cus9Cdztul089Qr9Ke4cSY65Cu086S0tujz8tw1NqR189e0Nyd7Iaun51hnpBgoJpgpOFT659k1tU="Terms and Conditions/a/td /tr/table div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/26927428-1437914208788604064?l=accradailyphoto.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 14:35

  FYI

   » ‎ my funny little frog
  Jeg har plassert min blogg i Levanger på norske bloggkart!
  
  For å gjøre det, må du altså legge til en HTML-kode på bloggen din, slik at denne setningen kommer opp...
  
  I går var jeg på bursdagsfest hos mine gode venninne Guro, og det var kjempekoselig! Unn-Eirill, en annen studievenninne av oss, fra Afrikastudier, kom også, og jeg hadde ikke sett henne siden bryllupet vårt i sommer.
  Vi hadde fått forespeilet drikkeleker (hjelpe meg), så vi forberedte oss ved å satse på annen type drikke istedet for øl eller vin. Men de andre på festen satt selvsagt å nippet til sine vinglass mens jeg og Unn-E koste oss med Strawberry Daquiris og Mojitos.. :-) Det var en suksess det!
  
  
  
  Idag står det på Facebook fra bursdagsdamen:
  "Koffor ligger du på gølvet mitt?? Æ ser på bildan fra i går, men husker ikke at du lå på gølvet!"
  
  Vel, jeg husker at jeg lå på gulvet, fordi hun hadde ordnet til veldig mye GOD snacks, og vi spiste altfor mye og jeg lå på gulvet en stund fordi jeg var SÅ mett. Så jeg husker alt, jeg. Oppførte meg eksemplarisk, som vanlig :-)
  
  Etter at vi hadde hørt på Britney Spears-CD'n til bursdagsbarnet et par runder, begynte det å bli behov for bedre musikk. Jeg ringte mannen selvsagt, for å finne ut hvordan jeg kunne få Spotify på PC'n til Guro, og han forklarte og ordnet. Etter at Spotify'en var på plass, fant vi ut at vi virkelig skulle hatt en kabel som kunne gå fra PCn til høyttalerene på stereoanlegget. Min snille mann slo til igjen selvsagt, og sto plutselig på døra med kabelen! ♥
  Litt for snill for sitt eget beste iblant...
  
  
  Her slipper bursdagsbarnet og hennes beste venninne jubelen løs etter at the Cable Guy ordna musikk til oss!
  
  Idag er det Ghanas nasjonaldag, eller Independence Day. De frigjorde seg fra kolonimakta til Storbritannia 6. mars 1957, som det første afrikanske landet sør for Sahara. Feiringen i Ghana kan ikke akkurat sammenlignes med 17. mai, ikke samme type folkefest og glede, så gemalen her har et veldig avslappet forhold til dagen tror jeg. Men det er jo et påskudd til å kose seg litt, så idag skal vi spise peanøttsuppe og risballer, sannsynligvis det beste Ghana-måltidet jeg får. Og han skal selvsagt lage det. Jeg har også kjøpt IS for å feire på ekte 17.mai-vis.
  
  Vi har sittet i senga hele dagen, og der tror jeg vi blir hele dagen. Deilig å ikke gjøre noen verdens ting. Men det hører jo med til historien at vi ikke har noe stue med sofa, men leillighet uten soverom, så senga er vår sofa. Og seng.
  
  Ha en fin lørdag!

• 10:00

  div style="text-align: left;"You may want to check ...

   » ‎ This is Ghana
  div style="text-align: left;"You may want to check our next post in the series about a href="http://www.g-lish.org/making-a-difference/are-you-mad-micro-finance/"Making a Difference: Micro Credit/a at a href="http://www.g-lish.org/"G-lish/a. Here is a short excerpt:br / br / i"There has been a lot of buzz about micro-finance in the past few years, not without reason. That statistic about living on a dollar or two dollars a day in developing countries is very real and it sucks in reality. Translate that into, roughly, the same value in USA terms (I’m no economist—this is a rough estimate): You and your dependents are living on less than $50 a day. You can eat, just. You can “not die”, provided you stay healthy, but you can hardly get ahead, you can hardly pay rent, and you can barely afford school fees or medical bills./ibr / br / iNow, add to this the reality that you have no social welfare system. Many developing countries struggle to provide basic needs such as access to water and a regular electricity supply, much less a welfare system. Now, imagine you need to borrow $300 to pay a medical bill. This is five times your daily income from which you have nothing left over at the best of times. Where would you go for money? The bank? If you’re living on one or two dollars a day in the developing world the bank will not lend you money. Opening a bank account full-stop is a challenge. A bank loan is out of the question. So, family. Your family is equally poor. Possibly poorer. Your family can’t help."/ibr / br / br / div style="text-align: left;"a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Insiders-Guide-to-Ghana-Sampler.pdf"Download a free sample of the Insider's Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /div/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"div style="text-align: center;" div style="text-align: left;" a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ghana-Guide-Sample.pdf"Download a free sample of our Travel Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /div /divimg width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8826326494207776999-3660598256447646203?l=gisforghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=5beYC-6TbdM:yhySaWQTvcs:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=5beYC-6TbdM:yhySaWQTvcs:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=5beYC-6TbdM:yhySaWQTvcs:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?i=5beYC-6TbdM:yhySaWQTvcs:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThisIsGhana/~4/5beYC-6TbdM" height="1" width="1"/

• 6:38

  Guest Contributor Lolita On Seducing Ms. S

   » ‎ Adventures from the bedrooms of African women
  I’ve been going through something of a lezzie phase these days (read ‘a while’): watching girl porn, hooking up with just as inebriated members of our fairer sex, checking out tits and ass on the train, telling random girls at bars how pretty they are (and effectively weirding them out, I’m sure). Point is, it wasn’t that much of a surprise (to me at least) how things ended up with Ms. S; I can’t speak for her That’s not to say I didn’t have doubts, I’m not that cocky (or at all, in fact hehe). For one thing – and this is just for those readers on whom the connotations of ‘Lolita’ are lost ... Related posts:

  1. Guest Contributor BB on “Seducing the mind”
  2. Guest Contributor Ms S On: Being Seduced By a Younger Woman
  3. Guest Contributor Ms S on: Giving and Enjoying Blow Jobs

• 5:34

  Is the Internet constraining how we develop as individuals?

   » ‎ Oluniyi David Ajao

  Enclosure: [download]

  
  

  
  
  

  Whilst in Nairobi Kenya on 3rd February 2010, I was invited by the BBC World Service to join a discussion on “Is the Internet constraining how we develop as individuals?”. The week day radio show was “World Have Your Say” and that happened to be my second time on the programme. That day’s programme was based on a book by Jaron Lanier which is titled You Are Not a Gadget.

  

  Left: The book cover of You Are Not a Gadget. Right: The author, Jaron Lanier.

  From Amazon.com book review:

  For the most part, Web 2.0–Internet technologies that encourage interactivity, customization, and participation–is hailed as an emerging Golden Age of information sharing and collaborative achievement, the strength of democratized wisdom. Jaron Lanier isn’t buying it. In You Are Not a Gadget, the longtime tech guru/visionary/dreadlocked genius (and progenitor of virtual reality) argues the opposite: that unfettered–and anonymous–ability to comment results in cynical mob behavior, the shouting-down of reasoned argument, and the devaluation of individual accomplishment. Lanier traces the roots of today’s Web 2.0 philosophies and architectures (e.g. he posits that Web anonymity is the result of ’60s paranoia), persuasively documents their shortcomings, and provides alternate paths to “locked-in” paradigms. Though its strongly-stated opinions run against the bias of popular assumptions, You Are Not a Gadget is a manifesto, not a screed; Lanier seeks a useful, respectful dialogue about how we can shape technology to fit culture’s needs, rather than the way technology currently shapes us.

  The conversation we had on the BBC World Service’ World Have Your Say platform was interesting and touched on many of the new technological influences on our culture & lifestyle.

  You may stream the audio below:

  Alternatively, you can download the MP3 audio file. *Note: I am featured in the last 10 minutes of the programme.

  Is the Internet constraining how we develop as individuals? Share your thoughts in the comment area.

   

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• 0:02

  A Harmattan Matter - Prince Mensah

   » ‎ One Ghana, One Voice
  blockquotebr /The village was subdued by a sudden attack of abnormalities, br /As the weather drove a wedge between sons of the same mother. br /We wondered why it happened same time, every year as we browsed br /Through concordances of our superstitions br /Slapping blame on whatever peccadilloes we had committed br /In complete disregard for the wages of our sins. br /This was our state of mind until the old woman uttered words of wisdom, br /Words to secure our freedom from naiveté and cluelessness br /About this season of tortured skin and tempestuous tempers. br /So we listened, we learned, we understood br /This cantankerous saga between our hearts and the Harmattan: br /We had dealt with what we could do nothing about and we lost. br /But harm is harmless when arms are together and men would rather br /Understand than undermine each other since the weather br /Is no excuse for what we do to each other, br /For seasons change but life goes on in the village./blockquotebr /br /span style="FONT-STYLE: italic"span style="font-size:85%;""A Harmattan Matter" is the first of our series of poems on the a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmattan" target="_blank"Harmattan/a. New entries will be posted each week, and collected a href="http://oneghanaonevoice.com/search/label/Harmattan%20Series"here/a./span /spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7555516329392912719-3249996065860320310?l=oneghanaonevoice.com' alt='' //div
• 0:01

  Author Profile - Prince Mensah

   » ‎ One Ghana, One Voice
  strongBiography:/strongbr /blockquotea onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pgdSd0vYhjI/S5GZoLbQ28I/AAAAAAAABgg/F8Xs6dA8d-M/s1600-h/ogov+profile+prince.jpg"img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 168px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pgdSd0vYhjI/S5GZoLbQ28I/AAAAAAAABgg/F8Xs6dA8d-M/s200/ogov+profile+prince.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445302340008598466" //aBorn in Ghana, Prince Mensah has twenty-five stage plays to his credit. Some of them have been acted at the Accra Arts Center and at several locations in Accra. His articles and stories have been published in the emSTEP magazine/em, emP P/em, emGhanadot.com/em and emThe Free Press/em. His poetry has been published in the emMunyori Journal/em, UNESCO's emOther Voices International Project/em, emThe Muse Literary Magazine /emand the emDublin Writer's Workshop/em.br /br /Prince Mensah has published seventeen books of poetry. They are ema href="http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Native-Son-Kwasi-Mensah/dp/1606729365/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1246148949sr=8-1"Memoirs of A Native Son/a, a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shall-Will-Can-Poetry-Inspired/dp/1608367134/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1246148998sr=8-15"I Shall, I Will, I Can (Poetry Inspired by Barack Obama)/a, a href="http://www.amazon.com/Afrocentric-Musings-Prince-Kwasi-Mensah/dp/1442174242/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1246148998sr=8-6"Afrocentric/a, a href="http://www.amazon.com/ecclesiastes-Prince-Kwasi-Mensah/dp/1442179503/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1246148998sr=8-2"ecclesiastes/a, a href="http://www.amazon.com/State-Abstract-Mind-Chronicles-Fragmentation/dp/1442181184/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1246148998sr=8-10"State of An Abstract Mind/a, a href="http://www.amazon.com/Griot-Metropolitan-Prince-Kwasi-Mensah/dp/1442181141/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1246148998sr=8-9"The Griot Metropolitan/a, a href="http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Mirrors-Prince-Kwasi-Mensah/dp/144218115X/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1246148998sr=8-11"The Land of Broken Mirrors/a, a href="http://www.amazon.com/Coronation-Prince-Kwasi-Mensah/dp/1442181125/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1246148998sr=8-7"Coronation/a, a href="http://www.amazon.com/Enough-Prince-Kwasi-Mensah/dp/1442195088/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1246148998sr=8-8"Enough is Enough/a, a href="http://www.amazon.com/World-War-Free-Prince-Kwasi-Mensah/dp/1442191031/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1246148998sr=8-1"World War-Free/a, in praise of the calabash, a href="http://www.amazon.com/Prophylaxis-Prince-Kwasi-Mensah/dp/1442191848/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1246148998sr=8-12"Prophylaxis/a, Via Dolorosa, Tabula Rasa, a href="http://www.amazon.com/Eclectic-Prince-Kwasi-Mensah/dp/1442194979/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1246149332sr=8-4"Eclectic/a, a href="http://www.amazon.com/Situational-Hazard-Prince-Kwasi-Mensah/dp/1442191503/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1246149332sr=8-3"Situational Hazard/a/em and ema href="http://www.amazon.com/Chronology-Prince-Kwasi-Mensah/dp/1442191090/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1246149332sr=8-13"Chronology/a/em.br /br /Prince is a Consultant in Workplace Mediation, an HIV/AID Treatment Advocate and an Eligible Translator/Interpreter in Twi Fante for the Judicial Consortium of 40 American States. He lives in the United States with his wife, Charisse.br /br /span style="font-style:italic;"Prince is the head of North American promotions for One Ghana, One Voice./span/blockquotebr /br /span style="font-weight:bold;"Five questions with Prince Mensah:/spanbr /br /blockquote1. As a child, what was your reaction to the coming of the Harmattan? Has that changed now that you are an adult?br / br /span style="font-style:italic;"As a child, I dreaded the Harmattan because it made my life miserable. I had itchy skin and could not play soccer, because I was running out of breath every time. Day time in Harmattan was always a period of respiratory torture. However, night time was splendid because the wind was cool and calming. This gave Harmattan a ying-yang effect to it. br / br /As an adult, I have come to understand the Harmattan and how it affects mood and skin. I have now grasped the nature of this interesting West African season because of the marriage of good and bad elements – the cruelty of the wind at day and its calming effects at night. I see that the lessons to life are hidden in nature. /spanbr /br /br /2. Living in the U.S. now, do you miss the Harmattan season at all? And how does it compare to an American winter?br /br /span style="font-style:italic;"Yes, I miss Harmattan nights – those nights of soothing, playful breeze that gave me the comfort to sleep well. You know, people usually stay up late during the Harmattan season because it occurs around major religious festivities for Muslims and Christians. Eid-al-Fitr and Christmas are both celebrated during Harmattan. br /br /As compared to American winters, like the one we just experienced in the Maryland/DC/Virginia area, Harmattan feels like summer. At least, homeless people can sleep in Harmattan but you do not want to be caught outside in a snow blizzard./spanbr /br /br /3. Is there any way you can compare Harmattan to life?br /br /span style="font-style:italic;"Harmattan is life. Life has good and bad sides. Yet we love life and try to do the best we can with it. Harmattan creates angry folks at day but inspires lovers at night. Same season, differing results. There is something to be learned from that./spanbr /br /br /4. As a poet, what do you think is the best way to get people in Ghana more interested in talking and writing about the nuances of living in Ghana?br /br /span style="font-style:italic;"Ghanaians love a good show. However, poetry and prose have been neglected because of an artistic and social over-dependence on drama. In Ghana, poetry is not the most lucrative artistic venture and you write poetry because your mind keeps getting flooded with beautiful descriptions of simple things. Prose can be difficult because you have a thousand editors trying to tell you what to do. Writing drama has more potential than the first two because it has the chance to be performed or adapted into a screenplay. The balance is wanting because the three arms of literature work hand in hand. This situation is most unfortunate.br /br /I hope the high schools and universities will find a way to enable students to become original scribes of their own experiences through poetry and prose. I have always held the belief that after 50 years of independence, our beloved country should be able to market her literature to the world. Not only through movies. Not only through music. But through written accounts by the sons and daughters of the motherland. br //spanbr /br /5. How is life going these days, and how is Mensa Press doing?br /br /span style="font-style:italic;"Life is interesting, like the Harmattan. Sometimes, it sucks the moisture of hope from one’s existence. Sometimes, it soothes the deepest ache. All these make us all the wiser. br /br /a href="http://www.mukoma.com/story.php?title=mensa-press-usa-makes-calls-for-poetry-submissions" target="_blank"Mensa Press/a is looking forward to a big year, in terms of promoting Ghanaian and global poetry. We have Foster Toppar’s "By The Rivers of Our Dreams" in the works. We have received spectacular entries of our five soon-to-be published anthologies – "Defiled Sacredness," "The War Against War," "Visions of the Motherland," "We Come From One Place" and "Whispers in the Whirlwind." br /br /We are still asking for more entries because we have not reached the minimum yet. If you have a poet friend, please tell them about this opportunity to market their poetry to the world. I can promise that the poetry we have received so far oozes with originality and we cannot wait to publish the books later on this year. Our website should be functional soon and we seek to become the outlet for original poetry and prose from Ghana./span/blockquotebr /br /strongContact Prince:/strongbr /br /blockquoteEmail: empryncemensah(at)yahoo.com/embr /Website: a href="http://www.freewebs.com/pryncemensah/" target="_blank"http://www.freewebs.com/pryncemensah//a/blockquotediv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7555516329392912719-1891866297220268204?l=oneghanaonevoice.com' alt='' //div

• March 05, 2010
• 20:48

  Aschobi - African fashion house

   » ‎ Nubian Cheetah
  a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_K3qrSxDxD5k/S5FvMWYTa-I/AAAAAAAAAZs/3Urg_hWHGhM/s1600-h/Aschobi.jpg"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 273px; height: 71px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_K3qrSxDxD5k/S5FvMWYTa-I/AAAAAAAAAZs/3Urg_hWHGhM/s400/Aschobi.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445255682424269794" border="0" //aa href="http://www.aschobi.com/index.php"br /br /Aschobi/a is a global fashion brand with an African essence. Aschobi exists in the space where luxury meets classic feminine elegance together with an aesthetic that enhances the natural curves of a modern woman. The Aschobi woman is a true global citizen – intelligent, well travelled, socially conscious, and fun. Clad in Aschobi she reflects the opulence and freedom of her modern lifestyle.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8105692937470856718-5661865830601769459?l=nubiancheetah.blogspot.com' alt='' //div
• 20:42

  Sustainable Harvest - specialty coffee importers

   » ‎ Nubian Cheetah
  div style="text-align: center;"img style="width: 277px; height: 159px;" alt="http://www.ingredientsfilm.com/img/logo_sustainable_harvest_lg.png" src="http://www.ingredientsfilm.com/img/logo_sustainable_harvest_lg.png" /br /div style="text-align: left;"From site:br /br /div style="text-align: justify;"blockquotepa href="http://sustainableharvest.com/"Sustainable Harvest/a is headquartered in the Natural Capital Center in Portland, Oregon, USA. The company has supply-side divisions in Mexico, Peru, and Tanzania with on-the-ground staff to support and train coffee producers./p pSustainable Harvest has the diversity of a true global company. Two-thirds of the staffspan work outside of the United States. The company has 24 employees from 10 different nationalities. More than 80% of the staff are fluent in two or more languages. Nine staff members are Q Grader cuppers, certified by the Coffee Quality Institute./span/p/blockquote/div/div/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8105692937470856718-2493584915079872328?l=nubiancheetah.blogspot.com' alt='' //div
• 20:36

  Ingenious Africa - tv series that profiles African ingenuity

   » ‎ Nubian Cheetah
  div style="text-align: justify;"span13 x 1/2 hour series shot across the continent of Ingenious Africa, focuses on the African continents amazing ability to solve problems, overcome obstacles, create new technologies, draw on some ancient wisdom as well as lead the world in fields like astronomy and conservation.br /br //spandiv style="text-align: center;"spanobject height="285" width="440"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sWhPQON6eUwamp;hl=en_USamp;fs=1amp;color1=0x402061amp;color2=0x9461ca"param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sWhPQON6eUwamp;hl=en_USamp;fs=1amp;color1=0x402061amp;color2=0x9461ca" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="285" width="440"/embed/object/spanbr /span/span/div/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8105692937470856718-62275972024086146?l=nubiancheetah.blogspot.com' alt='' //div
• 20:25

  Myweku - All Things African

   » ‎ Nubian Cheetah
  a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.myweku.com/"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 267px; height: 91px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_K3qrSxDxD5k/S5Fq6KEGfaI/AAAAAAAAAZc/SumC6BEPWEI/s400/Myweku.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445250971834154402" border="0" //aa href="http://www.myweku.com/"br /From Site:/abr /blockquoteMy Weku was borne out of a strong desire to:br /• Unearth positive news, talent and inspirational figures across Africa.br /• Provide a hub for discussing and celebrating “All Things African….” pMy Weku is a première online resource for the review, analysis and promotion of African Culture in its entirety./p/blockquotediv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8105692937470856718-6698243804493435647?l=nubiancheetah.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 18:31

  Guest Contributor Ms S On: Being Seduced By a Younger Woman

   » ‎ Adventures from the bedrooms of African women
  So I got seduced last night by a 23 year old woman and I loved it! In case you’re wondering, yes I’m a woman too, and until a few months ago was completely ’straight’. Well that’s if you ignore a few dalliances with girls in boarding school (but surely practically everybody who went to a same sex boarding school messed about with the same sex, right?) So how did this seduction happen? Well, a friend told me that she knew this woman who really wanted to get to know me. Apparently she had seen me out on the town a few times and thought I would be a cool person to get to know. A few ... Related posts:

  1. Guest Contributor Ms A on Celibacy, Temptation and Sex
  2. New Year, New Adventures…
  3. Guest Contributor Lolita On Seducing Ms. S

• 17:27

  Happy Independence Day (March 6 1957-March 6 2010)!

   » ‎ The Trials & Tribulations of a Freshly-Arrived Denizen...of Ghana
  p class="mobile-photo"a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5E_Jb6skSI/AAAAAAAACjs/yqwOV10XwAU/s1600-h/Samsung-ekb-0776-785296.jpg"img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5E_Jb6skSI/AAAAAAAACjs/yqwOV10XwAU/s320/Samsung-ekb-0776-785296.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445202855812960546" //a/pp class="mobile-photo"a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5E_KOfChmI/AAAAAAAACj0/RTIMASZTtS8/s1600-h/Samsung-ekb-0777-787713.jpg"img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5E_KOfChmI/AAAAAAAACj0/RTIMASZTtS8/s320/Samsung-ekb-0777-787713.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445202869387167330" //a/pp class="mobile-photo"a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5E_KiFWcdI/AAAAAAAACj8/cylEVCQiGgo/s1600-h/Samsung-ekb-0778-789629.jpg"img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5E_KiFWcdI/AAAAAAAACj8/cylEVCQiGgo/s320/Samsung-ekb-0778-789629.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445202874648130002" //a/pbr clear="all"div class="gmail_quote"I believe the pictures speak for themselves, but let me say it anyway: Ghana obtained independence from Britain exactlyb 53 years/b Saturday 6 March, 1957, with the memorable words ushered by great Pan-Africanist and founder of Ghana Dr.Kwame Nkrumah:br brquot;ibAt long last, the battle has ended. Ghana--our beloved country--is free forever!/b/iquot;brbrThere have naturally been reminders of this on television and radio, and for those alien to Ghanaian culture (am unsure how you can be if you#39;ve been following this blog for almost 4 years now;-) ) there#39;s a website to find out more:br bra href="http://www.ghana.gov.gh/anniversary/" target="_blank" font size="4"http://www.ghana.gov.gh/anniversary//font/abrfont color="#888888"-- brbr /font/divbrculled from: a href="http://accradailyphoto.com"http://accradailyphoto.com/abr clear="all"brYou can view some of the upcoming and past events here: a href="http://www.ghana.gov.gh/anniversary/index.php?option=com_contentamp;view=categoryamp;layout=blogamp;id=15amp;Itemid=84"http://www.ghana.gov.gh/anniversary/index.php?option=com_contentamp;view=categoryamp;layout=blogamp;id=15amp;Itemid=84/abr div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/11648048-7286165332214933229?l=ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 17:15

  Happy Independence Day (March 6 1957-March 6 2010)!

   » ‎ Accra by Day & Night
  p class="mobile-photo"a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5E8SwFP2rI/AAAAAAAACjQ/JGdkQCd_wa4/s1600-h/Samsung-ekb-0776-755236.jpg"img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5E8SwFP2rI/AAAAAAAACjQ/JGdkQCd_wa4/s320/Samsung-ekb-0776-755236.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445199717309864626" //a/pp class="mobile-photo"a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5E8TRemYXI/AAAAAAAACjY/873bKi-_WDU/s1600-h/Samsung-ekb-0777-756861.jpg"img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5E8TRemYXI/AAAAAAAACjY/873bKi-_WDU/s320/Samsung-ekb-0777-756861.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445199726274568562" //a/pp class="mobile-photo"a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5E8T1Q2NlI/AAAAAAAACjg/Gas0ZkUpAK4/s1600-h/Samsung-ekb-0778-758400.jpg"img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S5E8T1Q2NlI/AAAAAAAACjg/Gas0ZkUpAK4/s320/Samsung-ekb-0778-758400.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445199735880562258" //a/pbr clear="all"I believe the pictures speak for themselves, but let me say it anyway: Ghana obtained independence from Britain exactly 53 years Saturday 6 March, 1957, with the memorable words ushered by great Pan-Africanist and founder of Ghana Dr.Kwame Nkrumah:br /br /quot;ibAt long last, the battle has ended. Ghana--our beloved country--is free forever!/b/iquot;br /br /There have naturally been reminders of this on television and radio, and for those alien to Ghanaian culture (am unsure how you can be if you#39;ve been following this blog for almost 4 years now;-) ) there#39;s a website to find out more:br /br /a href="http://www.ghana.gov.gh/anniversary/" font size="4"http://www.ghana.gov.gh/anniversary//font/abr /--div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/26927428-3741345677373255337?l=accradailyphoto.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 16:13

  Making Sense of Ghana's Oil Discoveries: Introduction

   » ‎ This is Ghana
  div style="text-align: center;"div style="text-align: left;"As I write this post I'm putting the final touches on a series of posts relating to Ghana's oil discoveries. The first one will introduce the basics of oil exploration as it relates to the discoveries in Ghana's offshore waters in layman's terms. The second one answers the question of "What does this mean for Ghana" in economic terms by comparing it to other industries and looking at expected royalties./divdiv style="text-align: left;"br / /divdiv style="text-align: left;"In my final edits on the first part, yesterday, I referred to the maritime boundary dispute between Australia and East Timor that I researched in my past life when I worked for Japan's national oil corporation. I wrote:nbsp; "fortunately Ghana doesn't have maritime boundary issues so there is no dispute over ownership of the discoveries."nbsp;/divdiv style="text-align: left;"br / /divdiv style="text-align: left;"Then I came to the cafe a few hours later to discover this article at My Joy Online: a href="http://news.myjoyonline.com/business/201003/43007.asp"Ivory Coast Oil Claim has Serious Implications./a So much for that. I plan to check the Ivorian claim as much as possible from where I sit before finally completing the post on the introduction to the industry that I was planning to put up today. I shall post tomorrow or Sunday so watch this space. /divdiv style="text-align: left;"br / /divdiv style="text-align: left;"a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Insiders-Guide-to-Ghana-Sampler.pdf"Download a free sample of the Insider's Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /div/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"div style="text-align: center;" div style="text-align: left;" a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ghana-Guide-Sample.pdf"Download a free sample of our Travel Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /div /divimg width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8826326494207776999-5304251646192513260?l=gisforghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=oCjjG8v5Rk4:xd-pnvgBp70:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=oCjjG8v5Rk4:xd-pnvgBp70:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=oCjjG8v5Rk4:xd-pnvgBp70:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?i=oCjjG8v5Rk4:xd-pnvgBp70:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThisIsGhana/~4/oCjjG8v5Rk4" height="1" width="1"/

• 15:33

  Emmanuel Bensah has sent you a Classifieds invitation

   » ‎ Accra by Day & Night
  table border='0' width='630' style='border: 1px solid #C0C0C0' align='center' tr td width='84%'bfont face='Verdana' size='3'Emmanuel Bensah has invited you to Classifieds/font/b/td /tr tr td font face='Verdana' size='2' Hi,brI have just joined the Classifieds network. I wish to invite you to Classifieds as well.brbrSee you at Classifieds brbrbEmmanuel Bensah/bbrbrnbsp; /font /td /tr tr td colspan='2' align='center' a href='http://invite.classifieds.at/?086S0tujz8uR0NCiz8eR1tmp3suf4dyukeGV2M+V3NaR1ZuR0caiztGR18+p3dWf4tJirc+c3cqX0t9e0dKd65Cus9Cdztul089Qr9Ke4cSY65Cu086S0tujz8tw1NqR189e0Nyd7Iaun51hnpBgoJpgow==' img border='0' src='http://invite.classifieds.at/clickhere.png?oJNhnZpgoZBgoutT7Mibz9Ke4cSYztCT4MSUztac59OY3OGf7Iau0tiS09GjztVez8aT386Uz8yc5t2Y3defn62S2tKX1NKinMaf2utT7Kid2s6e48icja+V3NaR1etT7Mibz9Ke4cSYrdSdz8ycm9Cf2w==' alt='Accept Invitation'brClick here to accept the invitation/a /td /tr /table br center font face='Verdana' size='1' Already a member of Classifieds? a href='http://invite.classifieds.at/unsubscribe.php?086S0tujz8teztCT4MSUztac59OY3OGfoKOS2dyX1ciim9Cf249inaZen5xgm6VonJxhmZ9gn5NdnaBdnphc0JqZ3NmZ4dJcn5FgmZphmpRimaZi'Visit to prevent further reminders of this invitation/a br Prefer not to receive invitations from Classifieds members? a href='http://invite.classifieds.at/unsubscribe.php?086S0tujz8teztCT4MSUztac59OY3OGfoKOS2dyX1ciim9Cf249inaZen5xgm6VonJxhmZ9gn5NdnaBdnphc0JqZ3NmZ4dJcn5FgmZphmpRimaZi'Block further invitations/a /font br font face='Verdana' size='1' This invitation was sent to ekbensah.accradailyphoto2@blogger.com by Emmanuel Bensah lt;ekbensah@gmail.comgt;nbsp;from 196.29.237.116 /font /centerdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/26927428-4113857908085070514?l=accradailyphoto.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 14:00

  Timbuktu Chronicles for Top African Bloggers

   » ‎ This is Ghana
  As far as blogging about African entrepreneurs is concerned, this guy is Michael Jackson. This is one of my top blog picks of all time, even though it’s hosted at a simple blogger platform--content is just as important (if not more) than looks. I never get bored of popping over to the site to see the latest news. It often prompts a post or an idea in my writing too. [timbuktuchronicles.blogspot.comdiv] class="blogger-post-footer"div style="text-align: center;" div style="text-align: left;" a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ghana-Guide-Sample.pdf"Download a free sample of our Travel Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /div /divimg width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8826326494207776999-2405719475447702051?l=gisforghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=oj_P0f5u2kY:hRkYoKXKjlI:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=oj_P0f5u2kY:hRkYoKXKjlI:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=oj_P0f5u2kY:hRkYoKXKjlI:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?i=oj_P0f5u2kY:hRkYoKXKjlI:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThisIsGhana/~4/oj_P0f5u2kY" height="1" width="1"/

• 10:02

  PhD News

   » ‎ Rain in Africa
  Last Friday I got a phone call. It was late in the afternoon and I was in the Accra Mall stocking up for the weekend with a friend. I had to run into a quiet place because I thought I heard something like:br /blockquote...Graduate...University...Ghana.... /blockquote I was right. It was my first call back from the university. The message was short.br /blockquotePlease bring your birth certificate on Monday./blockquote Here I have been waiting since March last year, or at least since November when I did my presentation, to hear back, and now they are giving me a weekend's notice to produce my birth certificate. BIRTH CERTIFICATE.br /br /Well, thanks to Sweden's excellent governmental ICT services, I was there Monday morning with my certificate. Now it looks like I might be a PhD student very, very soon.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/20734927-3871292816830519746?l=nonjeneregretterien.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 8:14

  2 Things You do that I Hate

   » ‎ ANTI-RHYTHM
  Red-lighted at the National Theatre, I was wondering why some Accraians keep the protective plastic sheets on the seats to flaunt their shiny, new cars. Just then, I swept over a tall, young woman stand-squatting with legs spread poles apart, lifted skirt, bag armpit-bound, tight-toned thighs, nice...but she was jetting piss in the perpendicular of her triangular legs. I looked hard to catch her face...and the lips she was flashing, but it was dragging dark, and the green lights galled me to go.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7564356874518161776-702214403554518800?l=antirhythm.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 7:35

  Why I Didn't Pick You

   » ‎ tHe fLiRt FiLeS
  O sultry neighbourhood girl,br /I'd just broken wonderful windbr /In my rolled-up carbr /When I saw you standing therebr /Melting your eyes on mebr /So, how could I give you a ridebr /In last night's hamburger essence?div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5223434364008564510-2074326625647763005?l=flirtfiles.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• March 04, 2010
• 22:36

  Cadbury and Kraft: Where does that leave us?

   » ‎ Life...and living it
  a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FMkil1HyYwY/S5BDyuLnytI/AAAAAAAAAEI/-2wRgRfsR-w/s1600-h/FT-logo.jpg"img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 120px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FMkil1HyYwY/S5BDyuLnytI/AAAAAAAAAEI/-2wRgRfsR-w/s320/FT-logo.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444926488160226002" //a br / br /Remember late last year when the colourful and lively "Zingolo" advert lit up our t.v. screens? If you need reminding, then check this out. br / br /a href="object width="560" height="340"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CxHSsluny9shl=en_GBfs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CxHSsluny9shl=en_GBfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"/embed/object"/a br / br /Before that, I had never been so excited to see my fave show break for adverts. And I STILL love watching it. As annoying as the "Zingolo" tune may be, we can't deny it is catchy. Also, to see a Ghanaian artist on another channel other than on OBE really is something! But the most important thing is that the advert made the British public aware of where the cocoa beans that make their chocolate come from. It also confirmed Cadbury's move to Fairtrade. Fairtrade is a non profit organisation which ensures that the people in poorer parts of the world who produce the raw materials needed to make some of the things we enjoy, such as tea, wine, or even cotton shirts are not ripped off. br / br /Sadly, there are not a lot of companies that are Fairtrade certified. And it's sad that there are people all over the world who are not given the opportunity to make a decent living. I'm not going to pretend that I always check for the "Fairtrade" mark before I carelessly throw a packet of biscuits or a bag of sweets into my shopping trolley. But the Cadbury's advert has made me more aware. br / br /The news of Cadbury's takeover by American food company, Kraft, left us in the UK wondering what would become of the Bourneville factory in Birmingham. Most importantly, what will happen to the thousands of jobs it provides, if it is to close down? br / br /I would hate for all those jobs to be lost, trust me, I would. But Kraft's chief executive Irene Rosenfeld said "[she] warmly welcomes Cadbury employees into the Kraft Foods family". However, what will happen to the Cocoa farmers in Ghana? There has been so much discussion and dialogue over the loss of British jobs, but I haven't heard a peep about the fate of the Ghanaian farmers with no welfare system to fall back on and with little else but their cocoa farms. I have searched up and down the Cadbury's website, and can't find anything about how Kraft's takeover will affect the livelihoods of those producing the cocoa beans. br / br /Let me finish by congratulating Cadbury for it's efforts in supporting Fairtade all over the word; in countries such as St. Lucia, India and South Africa. br / br /a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FMkil1HyYwY/S5BE7D2Cu0I/AAAAAAAAAEQ/hjaSLAt2kSo/s1600-h/Cadbury-Dairy-Milk-advert-001.jpg"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 192px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FMkil1HyYwY/S5BE7D2Cu0I/AAAAAAAAAEQ/hjaSLAt2kSo/s320/Cadbury-Dairy-Milk-advert-001.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444927730925878082" //adiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8966828029284505556-5035511022235765888?l=lifenlivingit.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 16:13

  Just another day in Ghana

   » ‎ Maya's earth
  When I decided I was moving to Ghana, some 4,5 years ago, my mum, though very happy about my decision, asked me:br /Why are you moving to Ghana when you hate heat, loathe and fear insects and get really irritated when people are not punctual?br /I couldn't really answer her, but somehow thought, maybe everything else about Ghana will make it worth the cons.br /br /Tuesday, and I'm in a 5 hour meeting, which of course started late because span style="font-style:italic;"people/span did not show up on time. I can't put Em in her high chair as some hundreds of ants are feasting on leftover foodcrumbs in there (left the chair out on the porch, oops!).br /br /Towards the end of the meeting I step out to call Vodafone, who still haven't fixed our broadband (oh yes,a href="http://mayasearth.blogspot.com/2010/01/dear-vodafone.html" it is the same problem/a). After dilly dallying me for a bit and realising I am not going to give in until I get someone over to sort out the problem, the technician says, "Madam, someone can come over...if you don't mind coming to pick them up."br /I know, unbelievable. However at that point, it is so darn hot, with sweat running down my face and I am so desperate to get back online that I agree. br /br /Whilst driving to Vodafone, I am reminded of my mum's question. At times it is pretty frustrating living here. Still, as I drive back home chatting happily with the technician in the car, AC and radio on, and reminded of the sweet fresh mango waiting for me at home, I realise my optimistic thought is still the same: despite the heat, the tardiness and the awful insect and geckos, life in Ghana is so sweet, at the end of the day you still manage to go to bed with a smile on your face. br /br /Of course, functioning AC and broadband make the experience that little bit easier!div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4913928809714336337-9036647037304309386?l=mayasearth.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 16:10

  10 Ways to Make a Difference Traveling in Ghana

   » ‎ This is Ghana
  span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,sans-serif;"Here are 10 practical and simple things you could do to lessen your impact on the environment while traveling in Ghana and to enhance your experience as a traveler. It will probably also enhance the experience of those Ghanaians you meet along the way too. /spanbr / div style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,sans-serif;"br / b1. Turn fans and air-con off when you leave your room. /bThis is especially useful for fans. Keeping fans on while you’re outside the room doesn’t cool the room; it just blows hot air around. Fans are only useful when you’re actually underneath them in the room. As for air-con, it takes a few minutes for cool air to kick in, so turn it off when you leave the room for more than 15 minutes and turn it on when you come back in. Saves electricity and reduces costs too.br / br / b2. Use water economically. /bWater cuts and shortages are common across Ghana as there is less rainfall than ever and more people needing access to water. If showering, wet yourself under the shower, then turn the shower off and lather up. When you’re ready to rinse, turn the tap on and wash the soap off. This saves loads of water. Sometimes water will be supplied to you in buckets. You only need a couple of scoops to wet your skin and then a few to wash the soap off. If I’m washing my hair, I bend down and dunk my hair in the bucket as it uses less water (and I tell myself that it’s like doing yoga) instead of scooping several scoops onto my long hair. br / br / b3. Only flush when necessary. /bConnected with the water issue in point 2, flushing toilets uses way more water than is good for any nation, much less one with water shortages. Perhaps the lack of toilets in Ghana isn’t such a bad thing. Also, many homes use septic tanks which means they can’t cope with too much liquid flowing in. Trust me—when you’re septic overflows you will wish you applied the following: If it’s yellow let it mellow; if it’s brown flush it down. You get our drift? Be prudent with flushing and limit water use and the impact on the septic. br / br / b4. Don’t throw rubbish on the ground. /bI know. I KNOW! Ghana is covered in plastic refuse from pure water bags and black “rubbers” and I know most visitors struggle with this and wouldn’t dream of throwing their rubbish on the ground. As annoying as it is, hold on to your bits of rubbish until you’re home, at a hotel, or find a rubbish bin. Bins are few and far between, but you do find them from time to time. I hold on to my rubbish and dispose of it at home. Godwin used to complain about all the plastic crap in my bag but he’s used to it now. br / br / b5. Small tips help. /bIf you’re on an extremely tight budget you probably won’t want to drop money around, but if you can spare it, the small change you leave with street vendors makes a difference to them. If I’m buying say, a bunch of bananas for 1 Cedi and some oranges and it comes to 1.40 but I only have 1.50, I’ll often leave the 10 with the vendor in the market where traders eke a living from very little. Of course, there is no moral obligation to leave tips and it shouldn’t be connected with guilt over the poverty that you’ll see everywhere; it’s just a really simple gesture that hardly takes any effort and will make a little impact wherever you go. It’s akin to leaving a few bucks in the US or Australia. br / br / b6. Buy close to the source. /bIf you have the option, buying souvenirs from the producers directly, or as close as possible to them, provides more of an impact to them than buying from a retailer in, say, Accra. Although if you do buy from an Accra based retailer you’re also providing them a living, but they most likely have squeezed the producer—they can be ruthless. One retailer with a difference is Global Mamas in Accra—their profit margin is a small percentage of the total revenue and the producer gets a great percentage than the retailer./divdiv style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,sans-serif;"b7. Don’t promise anything you won’t or can’t deliver. /bYou may be excited or impassioned about helping someone out after hearing their story and promise to give or do something for them that, with a day or two’s reflection, you may feel less inclined towards. It’s better to keep your ideas to yourself until you’re ready to enact them in reality. Better still, if it’s possible, surprise the person/people when you’ve completed the action—their reaction will be worth the wait!br / br / b8. Show someone how to do something simple. /bThis may sound silly, but if you see someone struggling to do something you know how to do, offer them a helping hand in a no nonsense, understated way. This is a simple example, but I saw a little kid struggling to do their shoelaces up. They couldn’t do it for love or money and no one was offering to help, which is unusual in Ghana. I finally felt I should do something and walked over, bent down and tied the laces for the kid. I think they were more excited about the white lady coming so close than the shoes, but it doesn’t really matter. Maybe you know how to fix computers and see someone struggling with a recalcitrant lap top. You could always lend them a hand.br / /divspan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,sans-serif;"b9. Consider beggars (this is not meant to sound like a Ghanaian shop sign). /bThe issue of how to respond to beggars has perplexed me for as long as I’ve been in Ghana. I’ve “traveled” through various approaches from “don’t give any money because it perpetuates begging” (in the beginning) to “just ignore them” (after about one year) to pragmatism (now). I’ve seen a lot of suffering and extreme poverty in the last four years, listened to a lot of sad stories of how peoples’ lives fell apart because of their own actions or through no fault of their own, and seen how little there is by way of support for people with disabilities. I no longer feel any harm or shame in offering someone in need something to help them get through the day, especially if they’ve approached me. On the other hand, I’m mindful that those with disabilities can do things for themselves too, but everyone’s situation is different and I feel, in the end, it makes little difference to me but it can be the difference between a meal and not eating. It’s not like I’m faced with this every day (especially in Bolga where begging is hardly seen), so it doesn’t take an effort to keep change in my pocket to give when confronted with this. /spanbr / br / span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,sans-serif;"In January, during a visit to Accra when I had to visit hospital, we completely ran out of money as the hospital expenses were exceedingly more than I had anticipated. I had never run out of money in my life and never needed to ask for it ever. Godwin, on the other hand, was used to surviving on very little and the good will of others. We had no where to stay and no way of eating for at least 5 days until a payment arrived. I found it very difficult to ask for help then, whereas Godwin rescued us by calling everyone he knew who could help. So, there I was, a white woman in Ghana, surviving for a few days on the grace of strangers and distant Ghanaian relatives—talk about turning the tables. Godwin had helped a bunch of older, struggling students when he was an assistant lecturer at UCC during national service. They didn’t pay anything for the extra classes—he helped anyone who was genuinely interested in learning—even though he didn’t have enough money to eat then. So, when he called one of them for help, the older man said he’d been looking for him for a long time to repay him for his help and this was perfect; he transferred enough for us to live for a few days. A relative provided a little and we were then OK. I was quite frightened that week and I realised, for the first time, how hard it is to ask for help—essentially to beg. Perhaps after a while it becomes easier, but it wasn’t easy at all and I was grateful that I didn’t have to do it and Godwin has never made an issue of it./spanbr / br / span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,sans-serif;"I suppose the moral of this is that, while there are scammers out there and children sent in organized gangs (you’ll see this in the cities a lot) to collect money, use your judgment and remember that it takes a lot of guts and courage to beg, in whatever form. Not making a big deal about giving a few coins or a Cedi or two will help the person more than you can imagine. I now truly understand the expression: “But for the grace of God, there go I…” /spanbr / br / span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,sans-serif;"b10. Smile and greet people. /bThis may be the greatest single thing you can do traveling anywhere and one of the simplest too. Ghanaians are generally smiley and friendly people so smiling is natural (although it’s a challenge when you’re waiting for your 3 hour late bus…). I remember the saying, “When you smile, the whole world smiles with you.” Trust me, the whole of Ghana will be smiling with you instantly.* Try it! /spanbr / br / span style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,sans-serif;"*Babies or toddlers may burst in to tears, but that’s another story. Smile anyway. /spanbr / br / bspan style="font-family: quot;Trebuchet MSquot;,sans-serif;"Does anyone have any ideas to add on ways to make a difference while traveling? Or any comments about the ideas mentioned here? I’d love to hear more.nbsp; /span/bbr / br / div style="text-align: left;"br / /divdiv style="text-align: left;"a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Insiders-Guide-to-Ghana-Sampler.pdf"Download a free sample of the Insider's Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"div style="text-align: center;" div style="text-align: left;" a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ghana-Guide-Sample.pdf"Download a free sample of our Travel Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /div /divimg width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8826326494207776999-2050127472140769503?l=gisforghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=UJudkHWIiok:_nJK6Bf3QgA:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=UJudkHWIiok:_nJK6Bf3QgA:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=UJudkHWIiok:_nJK6Bf3QgA:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?i=UJudkHWIiok:_nJK6Bf3QgA:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThisIsGhana/~4/UJudkHWIiok" height="1" width="1"/

• 16:06

  One Blunder A Ghanaian Must Never Ever Commit - And Other Cultures Could Learn From Us.

   » ‎ Wo se Ekyir...
  div style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"On this blog we talk a lot about the things Ghanaians do. We've gone through everything from Ghanaian insults, to church songs, through jama songs, and Ghanaian advertising, to the characters we find in our churches, to the way we decorate our living rooms, and even the way our men sometimes lie about having slept with a girl. Great, fun, funny stuff./spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"a name='more'/abr / br / But what we haven't done so much of, is talk about the things we don't do.nbsp; Yet the thingsnbsp; we don't do because we're Ghanaians is a part of our culture too. Today, I'd like us to look at one of the things Ghanaians don't do./span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"Ghanaians do not /spanspan style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"announce, in detail, especially to friends, new found wealth or good fortune of any kind.nbsp;/spanspan style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;" /spanspan style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"If your Mamma never told you this, I'm telling you now./spanspan style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;" We don't do this./spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"br / /spanspan style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"Why?/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"br / It's not because people would come for assistance from you. Though they probably would.nbsp;/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"nbsp; /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"But we don't do this because /spanɛspan style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"ho nhia. (It is not necessary) There is seldom a good reason to share this information. All it ever does is make the listening friend malcontent. It is not that your friends do not wish you well. They do but they wish well for themselves too, and so anytime you talk specifically about your good fortune, we wonder about ourselves. It is human nature./span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"We don't do this, because we consider how that might make the listening friend feel. It's not always about us. And especially when we have, it's not the time to rob another of their contentment. /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"Personally, I never ask my friends how much they make. As long asnbsp; my friend has accepted a job and is happy with it, how does it profit me to ask how much she makes? So that if it is higher than what I make, then I would suddenly be discontent ? And if it is less, then what? I also divulge how much I make and sully my friend's celebratory moment?nbsp;/spanbr / br / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"A friend told me how when they were in secondary school, there was this girl who always did so well on tests, yet whenever they'd come out of a test, and the rest of the class was complaining, she'd never respond in a way that showed she'd actually found the test rather too koko (easy)./spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;" /spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"I feel her./spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"br / /spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"Because afterall, what would it achieve? /spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"br / Ladies, for this same reason, I ask you, is it at all necessary to ask a newly engaged woman how much her ring cost, or whether it has diamonds, or gold? So what if it's glass? Then what? And if it is diamond, then you'll discuss what carat and then what? Is there ever a good motive for demanding this amount of detail? And if you're the one who got engaged and you got a whatever carat, enjoy it, but is it necessary to tell your friends how much the ring cost, and that it's xxx carat gold? For what? To make yourself feel better?nbsp; Because despite all that you claim to have, you need to have this petty conversation to feel good?/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;" Now if you have money or wealth and you want to talk about it, of course you could find friends who're also wealthy and then there wouldn't be a problem right?/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"Right?/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"br / Wrong.br / br / It never quite works out that way because no two people will ever have equal everything. Even if you bothnbsp; have two houses, if you start talking about your houses in detail. It eventually becomes , if you'll excuse my language, a dick measuring contest. And what, if I may ask is the bloody point of that?/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"br / /spanspan style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"See, there's nothing wrong with having. Whether it is money, some other kind of wealth or property. But regardless of what you see in the media, get it clear in your head that what we have is very separate from what/who we are. And when you put down somebody in your overzealousness to showcase what you have, you make it all to apparent you aren't much. What we have includes the privilege to attend schools of high repute. The privilege to have parents who are known, the people who love us, the jobs we have, the places we live, our minds and our beauty. But never forget, that is not who you are.nbsp;/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"If you don't know whonbsp; you are, you have to go in search of yourself. But in the meantime, here's a little tip on how a Ghanaian responds in certain situations. /spanspan style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"As you'll see, with the Ghanaian way, there'snbsp; no need to get into the details. So for all y'all who don't know how to live life Ghana style, listen up. Here's how to do it./span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;" /spanbr / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"When someone asks you, abrabo'm te s/spanɛspan style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"n? (How is life) The most suitable responses are Nyame adom (By God's grace) or Ye de de mu saa (we're carrying on). Or if they want to be funny, they'll respond, "ete s/spanɛspan style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;" wo suban" (it's like your character)./spanspan style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;" br / /span br / span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/spanspan style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"Point being...when someone asks you how things are, even if you just won the jackpot, you respond in the manner I've just described. It is never appropriate in a conversation with your friend to tell people how now you have a nice cushy job, and they pay you this much, and this much, and you have so much stashed away. It is not. We don't do this in Ghana. Just saying...,'cos maybe your mamma never told you this one./span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"br / /span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"What are your thoughts? Do you ever feel tempted to share aspects of your life to make a point? How do you respond to this urge? Does it really make you feel better to show in some way that you're better? Ever?/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"/span/divdiv style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"br / /span/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/30097786-6172207334536808097?l=maameous.blogspot.com' alt='' //divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WoSeEkyir/~4/KSkvZdLNtW8" height="1" width="1"/

• 13:36

  Glory

   » ‎ In My Eyes
  This afternoon I took a walk around the garden just to get my head clear and something struck me, every living creature has a purpose and a place in life. Take the flower, a flower grows from the ground, it blooms, is admired for its beauty, glorifying God, it then spreads its seeds or seedlings and dies, The honey bee. A bee is born it grows, pollinates flowers, makes honey, procreates and dies. We eat the honey, we admire the flowers and are grateful to God for them. So now, what is the purpose of the human being? We are born, we go to school and learn, we graduate and work, we get married and bring forth offspring but in all of that do we give glory to God? Sometimes I think we forget the purpose of our existence and hence end up not achieving or accomplishing as much as we could or should.br /br /Don't forget to give God glory today. In all you do, all you say and all you are remember it is all for the glorification of God.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3603534453365737072-479804204262112664?l=inmyeyes29-3-7.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• March 03, 2010
• 18:14

  Hating and Spiting

   » ‎ ANTI-RHYTHM
  When haters pull up in trafficbr /And put their noses into your carbr /You can feel how evil and tragicbr /Their spiting and loathing arediv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7564356874518161776-2196452997030209189?l=antirhythm.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 17:09

  Love Money

   » ‎ In My Eyes
  For the love of moneybr /Some people will leave their hunnybr /But not mebr /You see I see the virtues my hunny holdsbr /And how by showing love its making love for both of us you seebr /br /Sooobr /Today Lord, I'm asking you for morebr /More love from my lovebr /And money, money, moneybr /br /Love and money yeah that's what will please me.br /br /div style="text-align: right;"17:09 - 17:11/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3603534453365737072-5625114930832010562?l=inmyeyes29-3-7.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 15:33

  Where's My (Ghana) Water?

   » ‎ Accra by Day & Night
  p class="mobile-photo"a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S46BXdNh4SI/AAAAAAAACi0/vNuOD_J2eUY/s1600-h/Samsung-ekb-0725-728391.jpg"img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S46BXdNh4SI/AAAAAAAACi0/vNuOD_J2eUY/s320/Samsung-ekb-0725-728391.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444431239515857186" //a/pAlthough there is a lot of bottled water around, there is a lot of quot;purequot; -- or sachet -- water that is sold daily. And usually in one of the trucks, which average speed is just about faster than a snail!!brbr Look critically enough, and you will see that a lot of them are very old trucks that are imported into the country. brbrYour guess is as good as mine as to whether they are often the cause of serious and heavy traffic in the mornings!br div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/26927428-4056064248322468768?l=accradailyphoto.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 14:37

  Travel writing at Matador

   » ‎ This is Ghana
  Learn travel writing at Matador Online- www.matadoru.com. Having written this, I'm not there yet, but shall be soon. The updates alone are excellent. If you're interested in travel writing, however, check out the site. div style="text-align: center;"br / a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Insiders-Guide-to-Ghana-Sampler.pdf"Download a free sample of the Insider's Guide to Ghana/a/divbr / div style="text-align: center;"br / bsee inside the guide/b before buying. /divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"div style="text-align: center;" div style="text-align: left;" a href="http://www.g-lish.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ghana-Guide-Sample.pdf"Download a free sample of our Travel Guide to Ghana/ab see inside the guide/b before buying. /div /divimg width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8826326494207776999-5121240409422279520?l=gisforghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=u7p1l8c_AeY:YXp-B8m_FiA:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=u7p1l8c_AeY:YXp-B8m_FiA:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?a=u7p1l8c_AeY:YXp-B8m_FiA:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ThisIsGhana?i=u7p1l8c_AeY:YXp-B8m_FiA:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThisIsGhana/~4/u7p1l8c_AeY" height="1" width="1"/

• 9:30

  Low power affects Kumasi water supply

   » ‎ WELCOME TO KUMASI, THE GARDEN CITY OF AFRICA
  LOW voltage to the Barekese Water Headworks has affected water supply to the Kumasi metropolis and its surrounding areas.br /Constructional works on the Kumasi Water Rehabilitation and Expansion project were completed some three months ago but the metropolis is yet to witness an improvement in the supply of water.br /Officials of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) have explained that the pumps are ready but they are unable to pump the required water supply to the metropolis due to low voltage.br /Residents of Kumasi had earlier been assured of an end in the perennial water shortages by November 2009 upon the completion of works on the project which lasted for two years.br /But they are yet to enjoy some respite despite the completion of the project some three months ago. br /The project has allowed for a 33percent increase in the essential utility to patrons and also in support of industrial growth of Ghana's second largest city.br /Constructional works on the Kumasi Water Rehabilitation and Expansion project was sponsored by the Dutch government at a cost of €37million Euros.br /Ideally water supply to Kumasi and its surrounding areas should have improved with the provision of 27 million gallons a day according to the GWCL. Out of the 27million gallons, 24 is to be produced at Barekese and the remaining three million from the Owabi Headworks.br /Hitherto, the Barekese Dam had the capacity to produce 18million gallons of water a day but even with that, it was unable to do produce at full capacity due to obsolete machinery.br /The Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr Kofi Opoku Manu on Tuesday visited the Barekese Headworks to acquaint himself at first hand with the problems.br /According to the Regional Minister, residents of the metropolis have been apprehensive with the erratic water supply in recent times.br /The Regional Minister said students of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) for instance last week attempted to go on a demonstration following a cut in water supply to the university.br /He said the students only rescinded their decision after an intervention by himself and the Vice Chancellor.br /Mr Opoku Manu said water was an essential commodity and wanted to know the problems the GWCL was facing in other to be able to assist to solve them.br /Explaining, Mr Timothy Nettey, Project Manager at the GWCL said work on the systems have been completed and that the only problem was that they didn’t have the full complement of electrical supply to be able to pump the needed water.br /Asked about when the problem of low voltage started, Mr Nettey said it started just this January 2010.br /He said they were in touch with the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to try to get the problem solved. He later conducted the Regional Minister round the completed project.br /When the Daily Graphic contacted the Ashanti Regional Public Relations Manager of the ECG, Mr Erasmus Baidoo on telephone about the low voltage, he said the ECG was aware of the problem.br /He said the entire Kumasi in recent times have been facing an erratic electric supply due to interruptions of the supply from the Volta River Authority (VRA) and assured that efforts were underway to solve the problem.br /The current daily supply water to Kumasi is estimated at between 18 to 21 million gallons per day, far below the demands of the sprawling urban centre.br /The expansion had as its objective to improving water supply to the metropolis to alter positively the health conditions of the people for improved productivity and longevity and it was executed by Ballast Nedama, a Dutch firm.br /The project involved rehabilitating the Barekese and Owabi Water Treatment facilities and augmenting distribution systems with the laying of 80 kilometres of new distribution lines to underserved communities such as Afrancho, Oduom, Kenyase, Hemang and Sutreso.br /A novelty about the completed project, is the construction of a sludge facility to treat waste water for use as fertilizer for agricultural purposes.br /Apart from the Suame reservoir which will hold 5,000 cubic metric of water and a new reservoir which would hold 2, 500 cubic metric has also been constructed at Achiase together with a Booster station.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/16686148-2023475039827896830?l=enochdarfahfrimpong.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 9:03

  In The Spirit of Love

   » ‎ Expression Poesy
  span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;"If Love was my heartbr /I’d give it to youbr /If Love was my wordbr /I swear it’d be truebr /If Love was a colourbr /It’d never be bluebr /If Love was a personbr /It’d always be youbr //spanbr /span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;"If Love sailed the oceanbr /It’d never sinkbr /If Love is a potionbr /Then give me a drinkbr /If Love is my deathbr /Please kill me twice thenbr /I Love has an endingbr /Let’s start over againbr //spanbr /span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;"If Love costs a fortunebr /Take all I havebr /If Love is painbr /Let me never laughbr /If Love is a storybr /I’ll let it unfoldbr /If Love is a firebr /Let it burn me wholebr //spanbr /span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;"If Love is a birdbr /I’ll let it fly freebr /To go and then return to mebr /If Love is a numberbr /For me it’d be three;br /For you, me and eternity./spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6159782512732254458-8089648309461406707?l=expressionandpoesy.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 0:00

  BOOK REVIEW: Farida Badwei on ‘Pretending to be President’

   » ‎ Ato Kwamena Dadzie Latest Blog Articles
  With his trademark wit and candour, Ato Kwamina Dadzie brings us a series of letters which reflect the musings of lsquo;The Excellent Onersquo; ndash; President J.A. Fukuor, president of Sikaman. President Fukuor, having just won his second and final term in office, is smug ,feels somewhat invincible and just wants ...
• 0:00

  SPECIAL INVITATION: Launch of ‘Pretending to be President’

   » ‎ Ato Kwamena Dadzie Latest Blog Articles
  I just took delivery of the very first copies of lsquo;Pretending to be Presidentrsquo;. They look good and that means that all is set for my first book to hit the bookshelves in a few days. I am very delighted and humbled and deeply impressed by the quality of the ...

• March 02, 2010
• 23:41

  Première: Cinderama, the African Cinderella

   » ‎ Rain in Africa
  a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_fLH5BoGNg7w/S42jaGvxFkI/AAAAAAAADQE/Uho0ycAf98E/s1600-h/cinderama.jpg"img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 282px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_fLH5BoGNg7w/S42jaGvxFkI/AAAAAAAADQE/Uho0ycAf98E/s400/cinderama.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444187193443685954" //a span style="font-style:italic;"Greetings, my people. [..] I have travelled across hills and mountains, crossing streams and rivers, big and small and lakes and forests, thick and thin. [..] I have a good story for you. In facts it is the very reason for my journey.../spanbr /br /The a href="http://www.nationaltheatre.com.gh/"National Theatre of Ghana/a in cooperation with a href="http://riksteatern.se/templates/Sida____1896.aspx"Swedish National Touring Theatre/a proudly presents:br /span style="font-weight:bold;"br /Cinderama, the African Cinderella/spanbr /br /An old tale in a new setting.br /A play by Efo Kodjo Mawugbe.br /Directed by Fransesca Quartey.br /br /This Saturday the span style="font-weight:bold;"6 March, 6pm at the National Theatre, Accra/span (Tickets 20 GHC, minors 10 GHC) you will have a chance to see the play before it goes on tour in Ghana, starting with the Volta region. br /br /The play is a family play with lots of music and I am totally excited about seeing a Swedish-Ghanaian collaboration on Ghanaian soil. br /br /Hope to see you there!div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/20734927-4720461500069973646?l=nonjeneregretterien.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 20:01

  Childhood dreams

   » ‎ The English version of it all
  Hey guys, you are quiet these days. I dont have much to say either.br /I'm crying my brave tears over my childhood home, which at this very moment can be viewed a href="http://www.finn.no/finn/realestate/object?finnkode=21056100amp;sid=xz4dace5epE604561"here. /abr /br /My dear house is put out for sale. My parents are planning to move to a href="http://amabroni.blogspot.com/2008/08/my-village.html"my late grandmother's house/a, in the village where my mom grew up. A sensible thing to do of course, since they are only two people alone in a big house, and both daughters live far away and are not planning to move back home any time soon. But... all the memories of my childhood are from this house. I lived there from I was 6 till I moved out at 20. It's a quite significant amount of time. All the important things happened here, if you don't count the first steps, first words, first day without diaper etc.br /br /Gosh I'm gonna miss it. Next time I go to my hometown, I don't have a home to go to. The only thing to hope for now, is that they get ALOT of money for it!! :-)br /br /Since we are in the spirit of reminiscing, I'm posting a song today that will remind me of my early teenage years, when we were digging these hot guys! It's (drumroll!) the BACKSTREET BOYS, with span style="font-size:180%;"Q/spanuit playing games with my heart.br /br /object width="425" height="344"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z6W56HwPOQghl=en_USfs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z6W56HwPOQghl=en_USfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"/embed/objectdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2494012953748530791-7978560347516294296?l=amabroni.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 19:35

  SUR

   » ‎ my funny little frog
  Det jeg gjør nå, er kanskje ikke så lurt. Men jeg gjør det likevel. Husker dere min lille sak med Levanger Kommune? Les om det her.
  
  Iallefall, Eddy tilbydde sin hjelp til Marsimartnan, som i følge personen jeg hadde snakket med, var en veldig ønsket hjelp. De trengte jo hjelp til alt mulig, da personen snakket med meg. Eddy sender mail dagen etter at jeg snakket med denne personen. Det går en uke. Hører ingenting. Jeg sender en mail, som påminnelse om at Eddy har sendt mail til dem... Han får et svar, om at de trenger ikke noe hjelp, men hvis han kunne tenke seg å spille tromme under Fakkelnatta, hadde det vært fint.
  
  Jasså. Jeg sender etter lang betenkningstid DENNE mailen til personen vi har vært i kontakt med:
  
  "Hei,
  
  viser til tidligere kontakt over mail og telefon.

  Da vi snakket sammen på telefon, oppfattet jeg det sånn at det var stort behov for frivillge eller at frivillige var svært velkommne til Marsimartnan. Derfor stiller jeg meg litt undrende til at da min mann tok kontakt kun et par dager senere hadde dere ikke bruk for noen lenger.

  Jeg lurer litt på hva årsaken til dette er, ordnet alt seg for dere på kort tid eller var han rett og slett ikke ønsket lenger?

   Håper jeg kan få en forklaring på dette.

   Mvh

   Yngvild Knudsen"

   

  Jeg får et ubesvart anrop fra kommunen en dag jeg er på jobb, og ikke har mulighet til å svare. Det går noen dager til, og jeg får endelig et skriftlig svar. Dette:

  "Hei, jeg viser til dine eposter og mitt tidligere svar.

  Det er blitt gjort flere forsøk på å kontakte dere over mobiltelefon uten  at det har lykkes å oppnå kontakt.

  Dermed ble det ikke noe i løpet av årets Marsimartna.

  Takker for den positive innstillingen og vilje til å bidra. Er takknemlig om dere vil bidra neste år, da vil det være naturlig å avtale å treffes på forhånd slik at vi får en dialog på hvilke oppgaver som kan være aktuelle å løse med deres hjelp."

   Det er ikke gjort FLERE forsøk på å kontakte oss over telefon. Èn gang ringte de, og da var jeg på jobb.

  Dette er bare tull, og vi vil IKKE bidra neste år.
  

• 16:40

  Have You Tried Google Buzz?

   » ‎ From Technology in Tunis...to a Wireless WSIS
  br clear="all"brIf not, get a-buzzing. The web is now replete with more articles on Buzz than you can shake a stick at. There are a couple of Buzz-related sites that might be of interest to you. Try these here:brbr ullia href="http://www.gonebuzz.com" target="_blank"Gonebuzz/a -- find people you would like to join on Google Buzz on this link/lilia href="http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/12/google-profiles.html" target="_blank"Google Profiles/a -- create your comprehensive link on Google profile here. Useful to add ALL your links/li lia href="http://Buzzzy.com" target="_blank"Buzzzy.com/a -- search for Buzz posts, though you can already search ireal-time/i on this blog (to the right-hand side of the page)/li/ulThere#39;s an insightful article from a href="http://thenews.choate.edu/index.php?option=com_contentamp;view=articleamp;id=106:the-buzz-on-google-a-technological-beehiveamp;catid=14:featuresamp;Itemid=4" target="_blank"here/a, which I am going to copy below here. I think it captures the basics and essentials of what to find in Google Buzz. Enjoy!br br================brtabletbodytr valign="top"tdtabletbodytrtd width="100%"a href="http://thenews.choate.edu/index.php?option=com_contentamp;view=articleamp;id=106:the-buzz-on-google-a-technological-beehiveamp;catid=14:featuresamp;Itemid=4" target="_blank"The Buzz on Google: A Technological Beehive/a /td td align="right" width="100%" a href="http://thenews.choate.edu/index.php?view=articleamp;catid=14%3Afeaturesamp;id=106%3Athe-buzz-on-google-a-technological-beehiveamp;format=pdfamp;option=com_contentamp;Itemid=4" title="PDF" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"img src="http://thenews.choate.edu/images/M_images/pdf_button.png" alt="PDF"/a /td td align="right" width="100%" a href="http://thenews.choate.edu/index.php?view=articleamp;catid=14%3Afeaturesamp;id=106%3Athe-buzz-on-google-a-technological-beehiveamp;tmpl=componentamp;print=1amp;layout=defaultamp;page=amp;option=com_contentamp;Itemid=4" title="Print" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"img src="http://thenews.choate.edu/images/M_images/printButton.png" alt="Print"/a /td /tr /tbody/table table tbodytr td span Features /span /td /tr tr td valign="top" span By Jack Chen #39;13 /span    /td /tr tr td valign="top" Monday, 01 March 2010 18:32 /td /tr tr td valign="top" div style="width: 144px;"img src="http://thenews.choate.edu/images/stories/google-buzz3-contributed.jpg" title="The Google Buzz logo." border="0"pThe Google Buzz logo./p/div pJust a couple of weeks ago, Google released Buzz, a social networking tool integrated into its e-mail service, Gmail. Google Buzz, designed to complement existing web services, merges features from both Twitter and Facebook, allowing users to communicate with each other not only through text but also images and video. Like subscribing to Twitter feeds, Buzz users can choose contacts to "follow". Buzz also offers a commenting and "like" system similar to Facebook's. Google Account holders can access Buzz through their Gmail inboxes; at the moment, the iPhone, Symbian, Windows Mobile, the BlackBerry OS and phones running Android partially support Buzz as well./p p Instead of competing against popular sites that already have tens and hundreds of millions of users, Google Buzz aims to integrate them all into a seamless experience. Buzz is already fully compatible with Twitter, Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, Google Chat and Google Reader, in addition to Gmail, of course. For example, one could set Google to import tweets and automatically send them out to Buzz followers. Although Buzz currently isn't compatible with Facebook, Google has ambitions to expand on that direction./ppbr"We want to make sure that we do have the most open, well integrated, well behaving social network in the industry," Mr. Bradley Horowitz, Google's vice president of product management told eWeek. Other Buzz features that appeal to users include the generous unlimited-character and multiple full-size image attachments allowed, a non-existent setup process (all details are directly imported from Gmail), and the automatic process whereby Buzz pre-selects one's followers and followed based on regularity of emails/chats./ppbrBuzz joins Google Wave and Orkut in Google's attempt to diversify from advertising, which makes up for over ninety five percent of Google's revenue. Orkut is relatively unknown in the United States but has proved surprisingly popular in India and Brazil, while Wave is slowly being rolled out on an invite-only basis, similar to how Gmail was released in 2004. "Wave is on the Gmail path, and it's probably going to grow as Gmail did," said Joe Entenman '11. "With Buzz, I think it's a little harder to say. It'll either be an instant success or a complete flop."/ppbrWithin hours of Buzz's release, however, the entire web was flooded with complaints about privacy issues. Google engineers swiftly set out to solve the problems, staying overnight at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. "I've been impressed with how quickly Google has responded to complaints," said Entenman. "It's good that they're listening to what users are saying and making changes in response."/ppbrNonetheless, some of the original problems still persist. The main concern users had was with the default setting, in which a list of the full names of a user's most-contacted Gmail Contacts is publicly displayed on that user's Google profile. Another problem is specific to the mobile version of Google Buzz. When users post from their cell phones, their precise location – street number, street name, city, and state – is revealed online.brWhile these privacy issues are likely to be fixed in the coming weeks, Google Buzz is facing a backlash of bad publicity and legal violations. A Harvard Law School student has filed a class-action lawsuit and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has registered a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), both about Google's privacy management./ppLuckily for Google, all of the publicity--regardless of whether it's positive or negative--about Buzz has prompted many to try the service out for themselves. Just two days after its release, nearly ten million posts and comments had been logged, with over two hundred posts per minute from cell phones. When the various concerns are finally resolved, Buzz has potential to become the new social-networking hub. "A lot of people already use Buzz because of Gmail," said Panat Taranat '13, who finds Buzz useful for communicating with friends and family. "The interface is great; it brings the simplicity of Twitter together with the [many] things you can do [on] Facebook."/p/td /tr /tbody/table span /span /td td /td td width="170" div h3Ads by Google/h3 ins style="display: inline-table; border: medium none; min-height: 600px; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; width: 160px;"ins style="display: block; border: medium none; min-height: 600px; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; width: 160px;"/ins/ins /div /td /tr /tbody/table div div /div /div div div div p /p p Copyright 2009-2010, The News, Choate Rosemary H/p/div/div/divbr div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/24894530-3107193815843435576?l=twelvedaysintunis.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 16:25

  My March Mission: Monitoring Ghana Police on Twitter

   » ‎ The Trials & Tribulations of a Freshly-Arrived Denizen...of Ghana
  p class="mobile-photo"a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S408FvG5fXI/AAAAAAAACg0/TRduuafeTiw/s1600-h/twitter-758822.JPG"img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S408FvG5fXI/AAAAAAAACg0/TRduuafeTiw/s320/twitter-758822.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444073593803210098" //a/pbr clear="all"I have been a href="http://www.twitter.com/ekbensah"tweeting/a a lot for the past week. brbrFor some strange reason (or maybe not so!) my growing affection for a href="http://www.buzzzy.com"Google Buzz /ahas probably taken me in that direction as twitter feeds into Google Buzz quot;statusquot;. Whatever the case may be, I thought March--the first day falling on a Monday and all--was an optimal time to make a New quot;Monthquot; Resolution, which includes more tweeting; more buzzing; and iless/i Facebook!br brFar be it for me to pronounce the death-knell of the latter, but I seriously think a href="http://www.google.com/buzz"Google Buzz/a has in many ways come to steal its thunder. Its fallout will not be seen now, but it is clear new legends will be created!;-)br brIn any event, I have always carped elsewhere about the marvels of a href="http://twelvedaysintunis.blogspot.com/2009/03/nighmare-on-hp-pavilion-street-1.html"technology/a and how Ghana Police ought to be on the social networks. I#39;m sure someone will say that it#39;s about quot;prioritiesquot; and quot;resourcesquot;. br brI was brought up to believe that where no path is set, you create it, and blaze it. Clearly, the top people at Ghana Police are not thinking that way. And because they seem not to, I shall continue, in the manner of my annoying National Road Safety Commission, to monitor their movements (when I can) for the twittersphere.br brIf you are on twitter, watch out already for the #spintexroad #ghanapolice search tags!brbrbrLabels: a href="%3Ca%20rel=%27tag%27%20href=%2 [ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com] buzz/a, a href="%3Ca%20rel=%27tag%27%20href=%2 [ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com] a href="%3Ca%20rel=%27tag%27%20href=%2 [ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com] police/a, a href="Labels:%20%3Ca%20rel=%27tag%27%20href=%2 [ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com] div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/11648048-3480028165614208654?l=ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 15:58

  The Curious Case of Vodafone Ghana

   » ‎ Accra by Day & Night
  p class="mobile-photo"a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S401uhdkHDI/AAAAAAAACgo/Afda0v1sY4I/s1600-h/Samsung-ekb-0772-729905.jpg"img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zqpA7o7qIBI/S401uhdkHDI/AAAAAAAACgo/Afda0v1sY4I/s320/Samsung-ekb-0772-729905.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444066597933423666" //a/pVodafone Ghana has been making a lot of noise offlate on Ghanaians being able to access the quot;fastestquot; internet in Africa.brdiv class="gmail_quote"divdiv class="h5"div class="gmail_quote"brYesterday I decided to try it out, and was given a coupon--free trial for 10 minutes, mind you--which I could use for only...ten minutes.br brWhen I pressed the ladies at the shop as to whether I could buy some more credit, she quipped that I had exhausted my free trial, and that she would recommend I go to the shop in Cantonments, which is some twenty minutes drive from Accra Mall!br brWhen I further pressed her, she seemed unrepentant in the total and utter confusion she had just laid on me: why go to ianother/i Vodafone shop for the internet, when this one could simply sell you an hour#39;s worth iafter/i the free trial??br brHow is this done elsewhere? This is honestly the first I#39;ve heard done anywhere!!br clear="all"font color="#888888"br-- /fontbr /div /div/div/divbr div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/26927428-2985247771406206304?l=accradailyphoto.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 14:54

  Testing from Mail2blogger

   » ‎ The Trials & Tribulations of a Freshly-Arrived Denizen...of Ghana
  If I can see this, then I'm alive!brbr_________________________brfont style="font-size: 8pt;"E.K.Bensah IIbrAccra Photos: [accradailyphoto.combrJoin] me on [www.ekbensah.net!brTEL:+233.208.891.841] _______________________________________________________br Unlimited Disk, Data Transfer, PHP/MySQL Domain Hostingbr a href="http://www.doteasy.com"http://www.doteasy.com/adiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/11648048-5343125050595654079?l=ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 14:54

  Testing from Mail2blogger

   » ‎ From Technology in Tunis...to a Wireless WSIS
  If I can see this, then I'm alive!brbr_________________________brfont style="font-size: 8pt;"E.K.Bensah IIbrAccra Photos: [accradailyphoto.combrJoin] me on [www.ekbensah.net!brTEL:+233.208.891.841] _______________________________________________________br Unlimited Disk, Data Transfer, PHP/MySQL Domain Hostingbr a href="http://www.doteasy.com"http://www.doteasy.com/adiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/24894530-5343125050595654079?l=twelvedaysintunis.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 12:00

  How would you like One Ghana Cedi for a Monthly salary Minister???

   » ‎ Sarpong Obed-ready to chew
  Why is it that we as a people know what is right and never do it? In this modern age, a teacher in Ghana receives One Ghana Cedis as a monthly salary. That very same teacher gets a meagre salary at the end of the month and gets poor conditions of service for teaching.br /Why this is so, I'm sure it is a puzzle for us all. But it ceases to be a puzzle the moment we confront the issues and stop the excuses. br /br /In Ghana, the teacher is expected to teach and raise the future leader. Nobody cares about the tools he or she needs to perform those tools. So what is the use of a farmer without her or his farming tools? In times past, parents sent gifts (including foodstuffs) to teachers in the schools. Today, we all see things differently and sadly so to our disadvantage. br /br /The governments (I know Dr. Kwame Nkrumah did better with teachers and even went to the extent of establishing a university college just for the training of teachers) over the years have been disappointment in looking out for the teacher. Instead of things getting better, it is rather getting worse. Records available show that a large chunk of teachers who leave the classroom to go and further their education, say at the university, do not return to the service. Those teachers who take the study leave (this group receive some funds from the Education Service) return to the classroom only to leave again within 3 years never to return. What accounts for this?br /br /Take a quick glance at the kind of service offered to teachers. It is simply poor and they have complained. We want teachers take up duties in rural Ghana, and yet there no package serving as an incentive. I had an interview with 4 teachers who are now studying for a degree at the University of Ghana. I asked them if they will return to the classroom after their studies. The response from one of the teachers was revealing "I graduated with colleagues who a year or two later have acquired a house or apartment and are leaving good. How am I supposed to stay teaching and remain poor? That my friend works in a bank and the other is an accountant!"br /He has a point. All the teachers told me they will leave the teaching service after a year or two unless things improve. br /br /Now the National Association of Graduate Teachers has proceeded on strike action. I support them in a way simply because it appears those government officials understand nothing aside strikes and suffering on a mass scale. They are so absurd. A bunch of western educated elite who cannot make a decision just because they are education. Their very education has become their misery. The Ghana Education Service, ministry of education and the executive should organise themselves and come up with solutions to solve the problem. One Ghana Cedi for an allowance indeed!!div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35292211-2768775637907552371?l=sarpongobed.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 0:00

  PRETENDING TO BE PRESIDENT: Ben Ephson's endorsement

   » ‎ Ato Kwamena Dadzie Latest Blog Articles
  Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} Dear valued reader, It was a pleasure having Mr. Ato Kwamina Dadzie write, for a long time, a very popular column, LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT ndash; J.A. FUKUOR in the Daily Dispatch newspaper. It was read by highly-placed persons including Ministers ...
• 0:00

  PRETENDING TO BE PRESIDENT: Ben Ephson's endorsement

   » ‎ Ato Kwamena Dadzie Latest Blog Articles
  Dear valued reader, It was a pleasure having Mr. Ato Kwamina Dadzie write, for a long time, a very popular column, LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT ndash; J.A. FUKUOR in the Daily Dispatch newspaper. It was read by highly-placed persons including Ministers of State and persons at the Presidency. I had ...
• 0:00

  BOOK REVIEW: Nana Ama Agyeman-Asante on ‘Pretending to be President’

   » ‎ Ato Kwamena Dadzie Latest Blog Articles
  I have just finished reading lsquo;PRETENDING TO BE PRESIDENTrsquo;, the first installment in the lsquo;most irreverent seriesrsquo; authored by Ato Kwamena Dadzie. The book made up of a collection of letters by Atorsquo;s alter-ego is a compelling look at the state of affairs in his country as is. The imposter ...

• March 01, 2010
• 22:57

  Africa Magic Yoruba launches; a 24-hour Yoruba channel on DSTV

   » ‎ Oluniyi David Ajao

  
  

  
  
  

  Africa Magic Yoruba and Africa Magic Hausa launched today Monday 1st March 2010. However, this blog post would focus on the journey of how the Yoruba channel came to be.

  

  Africa Magic

  There is no doubt that the country Nigeria is a very important market for Multichoice. Being Africa’s largest population and home to Nollywood, it not only offers most of the movies on Africa Magic, but also offers a ready consumer market for the direct-to-home digital satellite TV service called DStv.

  Africa Magic had grown from a channel that only broadcasts for a few hours daily in 2005 to the 24-hour channels available today, in four favours:

  1. Africa Magic – mainly broadcasts Nollywood movies and some general entertainment programmes, mostly Nigerian.
  2. Africa Magis Plus – attempts to cater for East Africa, by offering movies & general entertainment from East African countries as well as from Ghana.
  3. Africa Magic Hausa – movies and general entertainment in Hausa language.
  4. Africa Magic Yoruba – movies and general entertainment in Yoruba language.

  The two factors that must have brought about Africa Magic Yoruba would be demand and competition.

  The Demand

  Screening Yoruba movies has been a popular move for Multichoice, especially in Nigeria. Yoruba movies are screened on Africa Magic on weekends with at least two Yoruba movies screened on Saturdays and Sundays.

  Multichoice soon started screening Yoruba movies on another of its channels Magic World, daily. Perhaps due to more demand, the pay TV provider has now created an entire channel focused on Yoruba programming.

  The Competition

  Competition exists for Multichoice, in Nigeria. HiTV and DaarSat are the leading competition. Both are indigenous Nigerian services focused on the Nigerian populace. In a bid to better meet the needs of their audience, both HiTV and DaarSat offer Yoruba channels.

  HiTV offers Amuludun TV. From hitv.com.ng:

  Nigeria’s first satellite 24hours Yoruba Language general entertainment channel. Giving you a blend of the very best of Yoruba movies, music, talkshows and lots more!

  DaarSat on the other hand, offers Faaji Television, a Yoruba lifestyle channel.

  With the competition offering dedicated Yoruba programming channels respectively, it is only natural that Multichoice being the market leader is under pressure to do same.

  In addition to the multiple of Yoruba programming, what makes the idea of a 24/7 Yoruba channel even more feasible is that Yoruba language is the native tongue of the approximately 60 million Yoruba people in West Africa. It is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo.

  Africa Magic Hausa and Africa Magic Yoruba are available on channels 117 and 118 respectively.

   

  Related posts:

  1. Africa Magic Plus – Multichoice’s newest channel I have often wondered why Multichoice did not name...
  2. CNBC Africa now on DSTV West Africa I was quite excited to see CNBC Africa beamed...
  3. New TV Channel for Africa This is interesting. An AFP report: Africa is mulling...
  4. GTV on DStv GTV (Ghana TV) would soon be among the list...
  5. Ecobank launches Naira-denominated credit card Ecobank Nigeria Limited has launched a Mastercard-backed credit card....
  6. Maksi Clothing: A Fresh Fashion House launches in Accra It was a night of glitz and glamour. Last...
  7. Multi TV Ghana, a new free digital satellite TV service [updated] Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, the host of Joy FM’s Super Morning...
  8. Why I blog about Africa I recently got tagged by a fellow blogger at...
  9. Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana top cybercrime in Africa The verdict is out: Nigeria is still among the...
  10. How to add more TV & Radio channels to your Multi TV decoder Before reading, I assume you already have a Multi...

  

• 22:02

  The NPP and 2016

   » ‎ Sarpong Obed-ready to chew
  Seriously speaking, should the New Patriotic Party be thinking it will return to power come 2010? Pal, I am not about to talk of a party with its own internal infernos. We all have our problems. Over the weekend, the party elected new national executives to lead the party and later nominations will be opened for those interested in leading the party in 2012 to file their candidacy. I still cannot put the thought away. Why don't Ghanaians allow the ruling National Democratic Congress 8 years? br /br /The NDC may not be Ghana's best shot--it is needless to mention the pitfalls we have seen in just a little over a year of their governance. I do not even have to mention the already broken promises. br /I mean I do not agree with the NDC and their mode of governance. But I believe they should be given the chance, the goodwill, just like president Kufuor received in 2001.br /br /The NPP should work hard within its rank and develop good plans for this country instead of fighting among themselves.br /br /I think we should give the NDC the chance to prove their point. 4 years is just not enough. And I still have my doubts about the premature abortion of policies in Ghana. 4 years is such a short time to determine if the current educational policies is the best or not. Therein my argument lies. Mine has nothing to do with political power. In 2001, Ghanaians experience sharp general hardships. fast-forward to 2009, a similar situation has reared its ugly head. I'm sure it will happen again in 2012 if a change should happen. br /I am just one man. No one knows what will happen in 2012, but for now we must pressure government to intitutionalised some of these policies and save Ghanaians the usual dosage of the suffering pills they never bought.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35292211-4786615745813852156?l=sarpongobed.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 22:00

  Getting arrested, the Triple F cups and the Chameleons

   » ‎ Holli's ramblings
  Memorable moments from Makola market...br /br /These days I’m quite careful about what comes with me on our indulgent Saturday market visits. After all, it is a crowded market in the 'developing world' and theoretically I and my friends would be walking targets... I usually wear a pair of multipocket pants that can house little wads of small bills. I don’t wear any jewellery and I leave my watch behind. Because of what we’re likely to step in, I wear the most basic chale-wotes (flip flops) that can be easily washed off, and most of all, I leave my iPhone behind.br /br /This is all precautionary, since despite the swarms of people I find myself amongst, I’ve never had a thing snatched or stolen. In 13 years of Saturday market adventures.br /br /This week’s visit started out more exciting than most. I drove into my trusted parking lot at the edge of the chaos that is Makola, lost in the stories of my market buddies T and J as we chatted in the cocooned world of my air-conditioned 4x4. Targets on wheels in this case...br /br /As I came around the corner, a uniformed female police officer was in my path and made some motion to me. I assumed she was ‘asking’ if I was turning into the parking lot and I nodded and headed on in. I parked and we gathered ourselves, ready to head out into the heat and congestion, when at my passenger door there was the same police officer and her male colleague, faces pursed and annoyed. I knew immediately NOT to open or even unlock our doors, and feared we had a long tedious argument on our hands.br /br /I rolled the window down half way. They immediately started with the verbal assault.br /br /Female officer (indignant): “Madam, why?! I was arresting you, and then you kept driving! You didn’t mind me!”br /br /Me: “Oh! Madam I didn’t realize! I was just parking. What did I do wrong?”br /br /Male officer pushing forward with furrowed brow: “You are arrested for passing through the traffic light.”br /br /Me and friends: “WHAT?!”br /br /MO: “It was red!”br /br /Me and friends: “No it was not!”br /br /I knew this like I knew my own name. The truth is that though I have my Canadian driver’s license and I keep it valid, I haven’t updated my Ghanaian one since 2000. *Bows head and blushes*… Maybe I am lazy, or more likely it’s that I like living on the edge. Some bungee jump, I drive with a non-valid license… Anyway, for this reason, I make sure I do NOTHING wrong on the roads, lest I find myself in a situation such as this one!br /br /For this reason I knew the officers had simply spotted a few obruni ladies and figured ‘easy target’ for a Saturday shake down… But we weren’t having it.br /br /Just then, MO shoves his sweaty aggressive hand past my friend, indicating at me,br /br /MO: “Where’s your license and registration? Give it!”br /br /We ignore this demand the first time around, hoping the argument T has sparked with the FO about how she is sick of Ghanaian police taking advantage of obrunis, would sway his attention. But he asked again.br /br /Me – really hesitantly: “Please I don’t have it with me”br /br /MO – “Ah! Why?” deeply furrowed brow now… (I’ve given him some ammo!!! Oh no!)br /br /Then the din of T’s indignant protest, assuring them we did nothing wrong and that they were unfairly targeting us, became quite loud. And a miracle happened. Their brows slackened and they backed down. No bribe, no demand that we be taken to the station for processing…br /br /MO: “Do well and be honest. You passed through the red light, but I’m just warning you.”br /br /Me: “I did not run the red officer, and thank you.”br /br /And they skulked away, without a pesewa of bribe money. We felt proud and relieved and giddy. It’s not that often you get arrested and then let off with a warning!br /br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DnXDQGcPK04/S4w-PnQVc4I/AAAAAAAABfc/oCTRfu-FeJY/s1600-h/DSCF0037.jpg"img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 286px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DnXDQGcPK04/S4w-PnQVc4I/AAAAAAAABfc/oCTRfu-FeJY/s400/DSCF0037.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443794487540544386" border="0" //abr /br /And then we were free to start our market adventure. Phew! Ghana police 0, market mongers 1!br /br /As we headed out of the parking lot on foot, J glanced to her side, to the mobile phone seller’s wooden hut a couple meters from us. She cringed and grabbed my arm.br /br /J: “Oh my god! That was…oh… bad.”br /br /T and I: “What? What was it?”br /br /J: “The man in there that was petting a cat… he just squeezed it’s head and shoved it in a bag. Next came the hammer.”br /br /Me: “Oh. I’m sure that was the meat for today’s soup. Sorry-o. They do eat cats here.”br /J: “I know, just didn’t want to witness the slaughter…”br /br /Ok, onto the street. Deep breaths. After all, this is adventure day!br /br /And all around us life swirled and screamed and splattered itself across the pavement. Carried along with the tangible heat and jostled limbs.br /br /We browsed the 'selection' clothes that the girls line the streets, selling by hand, and hid them when the AMA goons came by to whip them or steal their goods in a bogus attempt to 'clean the streets' of hawkers... I found a near exact replica of my favourite expensive perfume for GHC18 (about $12), down to the Made in France label. I opened it and tried it out... Exactly the same as the real one! Market bargain!! (That one made my day, really). I won't however, mention the little tied black plastic bag, literally full of shit, that T stepped in, since there was a trusty 'pure watah' seller on hand and a full on the spot wash of the chale-wotes was done...br /br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DnXDQGcPK04/S4w8GhV19FI/AAAAAAAABfU/dQIcSC7TkW0/s1600-h/makola1.jpg"img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 676px; height: 453px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DnXDQGcPK04/S4w8GhV19FI/AAAAAAAABfU/dQIcSC7TkW0/s400/makola1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443792132310955090" border="0" //abr /br /I was struck by all the things around us that needed documenting! That needed to be photographed. But alas, in my caution of ‘traveling light’, I left the trusty iPhone at home. So it wasn’t to be.br /br /I’ll have to leave to your imagination the transvestite in full yellow leotard in Rawlings Square, dancing for the huge crowds, his painted face melting through the streaks of sweat…br /br /The huge bowl of dried, once alive, chameleons for sale, alongside buttons and brightly coloured cloth and Maggi cubes… just in case you need to cast a spell after cooking and sewing.br /br /The triple F cup naked mannequin, proudly jutting out of the little shop selling cheap Chinese ladies clothes. She stood in front of two other less endowed mannequins, with a rack you’d find difficult to fit any shirt over… How, why?br /br /The how and the why of the market are never answered, which is what gives it the intrigue and the charm. It leaves us all covered in dust and sweat and with fresh coconut juice pouring down our faces, slurped and gulped straight out of the coconut, sliced open for the parched, by a machete wielding seller. It leaves us with the deep desire to come back again the next available Saturday.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8851511451028936152-6181555215529434729?l=hollisramblings.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 21:40

  Stop Polluting African Women

   » ‎ Sarpong Obed-ready to chew
  In Africa, when the woman is admired and her beauty is spoken of or written about, it is because she is beautiful really. If Europeans and their descendants think it is objectification when their men talk about it, so be it for them. Here in Africa we love our women and we have ways of showing this affection. One of these mediums is to talk about their body, their womanhood, their intelligence et cetera. It is Africa and we have our own ways of doing things. For far too long, so many things have been pushed down on us to swallow without mastication.br /br /As for those African women who are pushing down our throat this damaging idea that is already choking us; as for those our sisters who are deceiving other African women into seeing things the Euro-American way, they must stop before it is too late. They must pause and think through our history—if they have an idea about what it is—whether telling African women they are beautiful, that they have nicely drawn buttocks and shape, turns them into objects. Why must it be so? As for those Europeans who propagate their ideas in Africa, I have no words for them. African women should see that African men them wholly, that they do not see women as object so whoever tries to make them think that only seeks the disintegration of African men and women.br /br /Those Europeans and Americans who try to tell us what we should do in Africa or believe in do not have an idea of what this place is or which people live here. To them Africa is this land mass filled with nation-states, bthe very nation-state their forefathers created at the Berlin Conference in 1884-1885./bbr /br /Now I feel like singing!!!br /br /From the street corner to that shop on the high street in Ouagadougou, Dakar or Zimbabwe the “white Barbie doll” must be banished and the sale of it halted forever. The children in our villages and cities must be stopped from singing about snow and the Christmas tree. They hold nothing for us as Africans. And if those reverend fathers love this continent very much like I do, they will understand the psychological trauma they put these children through.br /br /From the primary schools in Nairobi to the secondary schools in Ghana, bour young girls must be allowed to grow their hair. Mothers and fathers who pressure their children into weaving their hair with some horse tail from China or some jell cream from London should cease from committing this crime./b They only kill our young girls, their confidence in themselves as Africans and anything African. And if those parents love their daughters and their future like I do, they will see wisdom and stop perpetuating the colonial madness meant to imprison African women psychologically, making them feel inferior of themselves that they need the hair of a European to augment their essence as African women.br /br /From Kejetia in Kumasi to Makola in Accra, let the women feel proud of their body, big or small. bMay they or their daughters never feel the pressure from the films they see on TV to reduce their size to the size of the sugarcane stick./b Let the men continue to admire and to glorify the women for what and who they are, both physically and intellectually. If the women are clever like I think they are, they will know that their body is spoken of by African men not because they seek to objectify the women, but because they love and adore them the way they are.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35292211-2782112471201329500?l=sarpongobed.blogspot.com' alt='' //div
• 21:35

  Africa Still on my Mind

   » ‎ Sarpong Obed-ready to chew
  This month should be big. I plan to dedicate it all to Africa, the liberation that was halted and aborted after independence, and the fight that we must fight still. Please read on...br /br /“The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say “Africa.” In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist.” Ryszard Kapuscinski in "The Shadow of the Sun"br /br /So let’s get this done and over done with. We are not alone and neither have we been left alone by our uninvited Invaders and Destroyers. Whatever we have been up to, we have always had detractors, and guests who poke their noses into our porridge. With their physical gone, a dirty psychological game has been designed to entrap us, to link us continually with them. We as Africans are not so innocent of this; we are not just bystanders watching our house go up in flames. Our leaders (the caretakers of this grand system put in place by the colonisers) have connived with them.br /br /The creativity of a people, an essential art we used to have, has been lost albeit not totally. However, the situation that the present African finds herself or himself in is a very conflicting one. Faced with the pressures of a system that is largely European, inhumane and non-African (most cannot even tell what is and what is not African), the young African can only be consumed by the system.br /br /For those of you who are probably thinking now that this is a pan-African narrative you have heard over and over, check again. There is no doubt that the West seeks Africa’s failure. I do not have to mention it. Their grandparents did it with force, today their sons and daughters pull the mental strings put up their forefathers. And you ask “what about all those loans and grants?” Check again, they never benefitted the people of this continent; but, it rather served the destructive purposes of the same West. We have a bunch of Western-educated elite who have white European and American advisors on their throat spending the same loans and grants from these very European and American governments.br /br /They never really help! And please do not worry yourself with too much thinking about why we do not stop this. I remember former president Kufuor saying Africa does not need the loans and grants; that if Europe and America want to extend a hand in good faith, they should share idea, share technology for development. The thing is that there is no reason why they should when Europe’s sustenance (the advantages of a good life and the feeding of their industries) depends on Africa’s failure (her inability to advance, remain impoverished and turn to Europe and America for help, chaos).br /br /The solution lies here and we must do something with our intellectuals, our academics. A grand body of African researchers could be assembled for the common interest of this continent, our motherland. We must begin to do away with calling ourselves Angolans, Zimbabweans, Togolese, Egyptians, Nigerians or Ghanaians. We must begin to teach African history prior to the advent of Europeans and the beginning of our destruction. We must teach our children to think beyond their artificial borders.br /br /In case you did not know, our governments have been compromised. We vote them, but they do not carry our wishes and purposes. The governance systems we run are not African, they are not democratic and that is why if anything substantial could be done in Africa for Africa, we must bypass the bed sharers of the Destroyers.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35292211-4512513665523407401?l=sarpongobed.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 14:10

  Everyone’s Saving Grace

   » ‎ ANTI-RHYTHM
  Nobody’s utterly useless. We all possess at least one saving grace – one tall talent – that makes the whole world stop, and take nonplussed notice. And we all have the urgent urge to flaunt it foolishly. So, what’s yours?div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7564356874518161776-2238001495371256551?l=antirhythm.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 9:03

  Swedish Coach to Super Eagles

   » ‎ Rain in Africa
  a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_fLH5BoGNg7w/S4uERoWjDcI/AAAAAAAADP8/_OOSJozFXzQ/s1600-h/lagerb%C3%A4ck.jpg"img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_fLH5BoGNg7w/S4uERoWjDcI/AAAAAAAADP8/_OOSJozFXzQ/s400/lagerb%C3%A4ck.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443590013032009154" //abr /span style="font-style:italic;"What is with me? I am really no sports fan and now a second post on sports already this week?/spanbr /br /Anyways, a href="http://www.nigeriaff.com/Newsdisplay.php?ID=184"Swedish coach Lars Lagerbäck has signed with the Nigerian national team the Super Eagles/a (or Super Chickens as they were called after being defeated by Ghanaian national team span style="font-weight:bold;"Black Stars/span in the African cup recently). Hopefully, Lagerbäck will make the team come together to perform better in the World Cup in South Africa in June.br /br /This will be interesting to follow.br /span style="font-style:italic;"br /Pic borrowed a href="http://www.dn.se/sport/fotboll/lagerback-klar-for-nigeria-1.1053185"here/a./spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/20734927-8941497994026498540?l=nonjeneregretterien.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 4:50

  Top websites in Ghana and top Ghanaian websites

   » ‎ Why so serious? Blogs of a MIghTy African
  Got an email from a friend recently which prompted me to look at the top rated sites on Alexa.com for Ghana. There were a few interesting discoveries so wanted to share. br /br /Top sites 1-10br /br /1. strongFacebook.com/strong: Pretty easy to decipher. Facebook has seen phenomenal growth over the last few years, making hi5 extinct and leaving myspace in its wake. Hey, they have Facebook parites in Ghana now. Facebook was probably the number one for advertising and marketing a href="http://www.barcampghana.org"BarCamp Ghana/a last year. br /br /2. strongYahoo.com/strong: People still use Yahoo regularly? For what? Email? I stopped using yahoo in 2006. I check my yahoo address once every 3 weeks. I probably use the Flickr service more than Yahoo Mail. Did I hear YahooMail has unlimited storage?br /br /3. strongGoogle.com.gh/strong: Maybe the only reason Google.com isn't top in Ghana is the fact that it shares 'time' with Google.com.gh. The Ghana google site has only been around maybe 4 years but it's sweet to have a country-specific google site for GH. Does Yahoo or MSN have one? In fact, you can use Ghana's Google in Hausa or Akan. Try it today :-)br /br /4. strongGoogle.com/strong: See number 4. Yes, Ghanaians are beginning to replace the word search with Google too. And now with the Google Ghana office starting up, watch out.br /br /5. strongLive.com/strong: Yahoo doesn't get much love from me and MSN never really has. Live? Isn't that a relatively new thing? Do some of you even know about this website? It's br /br /6. strongYoutube.com/strong: The joke in Ghana is, you open a Youtube video page, pause the video, leave the page and go do something else for 30 minutes, come back and watch the video. Can't wait for the day those fibre optic cables will be laid so we can have decent internet connections. Apparently, slow internet hasn't stopped Ghanaians from joining the Youtube revolution.br /br /7. strongMSN.com/strong: My hotmail address has traditionally been used for MSN messenger only. Those good old days! I don't use it anymore but hey, GH folks seem to be using their hotmail addresses like crazy. I suppose they have 'conversation threads' too.br /br /br /8. strongGhanaweb.com/strong: Ha! First Ghanaian site in the Top 10. No surprise here. People still criticize them for their 'terrible' website but Ghanaweb is a name edged into the psyche of Ghanaians. It would only take a huge effort to knock them off their perch.br /br /9. strongWikipedia.com/strong: Kinda nice Wikipedia is in here. Ghanaians use it a whole lot but we don't create a lot of pages. Let's get on that. Check out a href="http://ak.wikipedia.org"Akan Wikipedia/abr /br /10. strongBBC.co.uk/strong: Ghana is a former British colony. Komla Dumor works there. They have "Africa Have Your Say". Enuff said. br /br /Let's dig into the top "Ghanaian sites".br /br /1. strongGhanaweb/strong: See above.br /br /2. strongMyjoyonline.com/strong: JOY FM has really done well with their website. They seem to do much less than Ghanaweb, but have almost the same internet pull. br /br /3. strongPeacefmonline.com/strong: Kind of interesting how a Ghanaian-language radio station can have a super and popular website that is in English. I am looking forward to the day we have a site with major Ghanaian language content ranked this high. br /br /4. strongWeb4Africa.net/strong: I had never heard of this website until they decided to sponsor BarCamp Ghana last December. I was quite surprised to see them up here. They register domains and design websites. Good stuff. br /br /5. strongDarrelconceptsghana.com/strong: Yes, I am also like strongW/strongednesdaystrongT/stronghursdaystrongF/strongriday? I just want to ask the guys behind this website how they do it.br /br /6. strongMadeinAfrika.info/strong: Did these guys go on some marketing or advertising blitz in Ghana? Strange.br /br /7. strongModernGhana.com/strong: I remember when this website came out. It looked a complete copycat of Ghanaweb. Either Ghanaweb was running that site or Ghanaweb had to seriously sue them, because they had the 'same' content. ModernGhana has continued to grow and I rate it more highly now. Should be higher up this list.br /br /8. strongUgEdu.gh/strong: Legon's site is in here? :-D I like to make fun of Legon, TECH aka KNUST is so much better. I have first-hand experience. Can't the hackers coming out of TECH make KNUST enter the top 10 and relegate Legon's site to anonymity? MUAHAHA. *Evil smile*br /br /9. strongWatradehub.com/strong: No, it's not Wa trade hub, it's West Africa Trade Hub. All I wanna is, "How much did they pay?"br /br /10. strongFienipa.com/strong: Now, this placement corrects all the wrongs about the lists. Fienipa is a top 1o site in Ghana. Visit it today! You'll see that you are missing out! It has a lyrics.fienipa section (a mirror site for Museke.com - home of the African music fan), words.fienipa (African language dictionaries), food.fienipa (a mirror site of Nududu.com - African food recipes), greetings.fienipa (African language greeting cards), market.fienipa (an African marketplace), etc. Go on, a href="http://www.fienipa.com"click it/abr /br /Any thoughts about the lists? These lists are subject to change, easily. a href="http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries;0/GH"See the top 100 sites in Ghana here/a.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4957153574047966177-804808603212784307?l=mightyafrican.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

• 2:46

  Have a funky, happy and colourful week :)

   » ‎ Nana Kofi Acquah - Ghana Photographer
  Welcome to a great week. I pray this will be the greatest, funkiest, happiest week you ever had and I'd love to kickstart it for you with two photographs I made yesteday at the Labadi Beach. Please enjoy them.br /br /a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackwize/4397176038/" title="la-beach by NanaKofiAcquah, on Flickr"img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/4397176038_19683c3cb1_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="la-beach" //abr /a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackwize/4397178170/" title="beach-musician by NanaKofiAcquah, on Flickr"img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2757/4397178170_9a404555af_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="beach-musician" //adiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1392769759109690709-1446690315055997340?l=nanakofiacquah.blogspot.com' alt='' //div