GhanaBlogging.com » August 6, 2009

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August 06, 2009
15:47
Adorable
» ‎ tHe fLiRt FiLeS

Moment's milksy cozybr /She calls me adorablebr /I ask her to show mebr /She lovingly pinches my cheekbr /That's different from lovebr /Love would have kissed mediv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5223434364008564510-2580581051992023275?l=flirtfiles.blogspot.com'//div

15:20
Talk Airtime
» ‎ ANTI-RHYTHM

Office Female Number Twobr /Gets more confused than me and youbr /br /She buys airtime for her cell phonebr /While reviewing a corporate loanbr /br /She lifts the handset to the land linebr /With dialogue, she tries to combinebr /br /We thought she was going to make a callbr /But what came next was a shock to allbr /br /One by one, the buttons are hitbr /She 'loads' the land phone with call credit!div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7564356874518161776-5536112562563479582?l=antirhythm.blogspot.com'//div

14:53
Henning Mankell Talks about Imagination on BBC The Forum
» ‎ Rain in Africa

a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_fLH5BoGNg7w/SnsnCkAQTLI/AAAAAAAAC3g/zMJ_8g7-y5g/s1600-h/bbcillustration.jpeg"img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_fLH5BoGNg7w/SnsnCkAQTLI/AAAAAAAAC3g/zMJ_8g7-y5g/s400/bbcillustration.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366926305920044210" //a Swedish writer and Africa-lover Henning Mankell was on BBC the other day in a very interesting discussion with Indian economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and Iranian British chilspsychotherapist Camila Batmanghelidj (love the "Batman-ish" name!). br /br /Henning Mankell was making the claim that imagination is more than just an expression of creativity - sometimes imagination is used for raw survival. I was driving when I tuned into the program and it was so fascinating that I never wanted to reach my destination. Hear for yourself a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003s7mn"here/a.br /span style="font-style:italic;"br /Illustration by Emily Kasriel borrowed from the a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003s7mn"BBC The Forum/a to visualize the above described discussion./spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/20734927-5089058748493078617?l=nonjeneregretterien.blogspot.com'//div

14:41
Last few days of Swedish summer
» ‎ Maya's earth

So at the end of my stay in Sweden I did complain a bit much about the state of the country. It may all have been true, but I also had a good time there, with family and friends. Here's a few pics from my last few days in town.br /br /There was a lot of cake-eating, with five birthdays in the last thirteen days it was almost an every-other-day feature. Most cakes prepared by yours truly, here a raspberry gateau.br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_OJ1RbQpOtnE/SnrSB19d2wI/AAAAAAAAAfc/FhYQGSCqw1M/s1600-h/SANY0376.JPG"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 217px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_OJ1RbQpOtnE/SnrSB19d2wI/AAAAAAAAAfc/FhYQGSCqw1M/s320/SANY0376.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366832835071957762" //abr /We spent the last ten days in a family friend's flat, enjoying most of our time in this cosy North African inspired room with a decaf cappuccino...and some leftover cake!br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_OJ1RbQpOtnE/SnrSBpZzOII/AAAAAAAAAfU/ig7LsE0zu4M/s1600-h/SANY0388.JPG"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_OJ1RbQpOtnE/SnrSBpZzOII/AAAAAAAAAfU/ig7LsE0zu4M/s320/SANY0388.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366832831701137538" //abr /On our way out for a last minute errand on the last night, we saw this:br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_OJ1RbQpOtnE/SnrSBn-1E4I/AAAAAAAAAfM/J8FhwehdLu8/s1600-h/SANY0393+-+Copy.JPG"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_OJ1RbQpOtnE/SnrSBn-1E4I/AAAAAAAAAfM/J8FhwehdLu8/s320/SANY0393+-+Copy.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366832831319577474" //abr /br /an amazing testament of the power of nature. This tree has been there long before the 23 years I have spent in this neighbourhood and yet a windy night has managed to pull it up from the roots. br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_OJ1RbQpOtnE/SnrSBGJrjNI/AAAAAAAAAfE/hERZ-HkFbww/s1600-h/SANY0393.JPG"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 207px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_OJ1RbQpOtnE/SnrSBGJrjNI/AAAAAAAAAfE/hERZ-HkFbww/s320/SANY0393.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366832822238285010" //abr /br /Not only is nature powerful, but unpredictable, how else do you explain why all the other trees surrounding it remain standing?div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4913928809714336337-2475545540344062315?l=mayasearth.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

12:30
Check Out My Guest Post at Female2Female
» ‎ Adventures from the bedrooms of African women

I have written a guest contribution for Female2Female on the subject “Learning to have good sex”…you can check it out at here Feel free to leave a comment here too No related posts. No related posts.

12:28
How On Earth Did Swine-Flu Came To Ghana?
» ‎ Accra Conscious Forever

meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"link style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Cjordan%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"!--[if gte mso 9]xml w:worddocument w:viewNormal/w:View w:zoom0/w:Zoom w:punctuationkerning/ w:validateagainstschemas/ w:saveifxmlinvalidfalse/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid w:ignoremixedcontentfalse/w:IgnoreMixedContent w:alwaysshowplaceholdertextfalse/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText w:compatibility w:breakwrappedtables/ w:snaptogridincell/ w:wraptextwithpunct/ w:useasianbreakrules/ w:dontgrowautofit/ /w:Compatibility w:browserlevelMicrosoftInternetExplorer4/w:BrowserLevel /w:WordDocument /xml![endif]--!--[if gte mso 9]xml w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156" /w:LatentStyles /xml![endif]--style !-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 45.0pt 1.0in .75in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} -- /style!--[if gte mso 10] style /* 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-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:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} /style ![endif]-- p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 11pt;"It’s a Thursday-ish morning and upon waking my sleepy self from my bed, I decided to do a few things before going to work. Trust me, I just decided to be late for work this morning, I didn’t know why; but I felt I should just be late. You know, the type of feeling you get; when you just want to do something for just no reason. Well, that’s the same I got..o:p/o:p/span/pp style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" br /span style="font-size: 11pt;"o:p/o:p/span/p p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 11pt;"o:p/o:pNormally, my phone’s alarm is clocked at 0530GMT; but at times, I do ignore its crazy-buzzing tones and sleep more... “Massa, man don taya.” [trans: Master, man is tired]… This should be common amongst most working-class youths in Ghana.o:p/o:p/span/pp style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" br /span style="font-size: 11pt;"o:p/o:p/span/p p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 11pt;"o:p/o:pI just wanted to be late, so I intentionally switched the television on, at exactly 0545GMT and started flickering through the channels until I got to BBC. Normally, I would go to a href="http://espn.go.com"ESPN/a first, catch up with the latest in the sporting world, listen and watch Sport Center a bit before moving away to the News networks. I didn’t see anything interesting much, so I turned it off.o:p/o:p/span/pp style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" br /span style="font-size: 11pt;"o:p/o:p/span/p p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 11pt;"o:p/o:pJust as I turned on the radio, I heard something like; a href="http://news.myjoyonline.com/health/200908/33661.asp"b style=""span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0);"BREAKING span style="color: rgb(255, 51, 0); text-decoration: none;"NEWS:-/span/span/b/a Ghana Record First Swine Flu Incident. There and then, I asked myself; Ghana has done what..?? OMG, not Ghana. Why Ghana?o:p/o:p/span/pp style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" br /span style="font-size: 11pt;"o:p/o:p/span/p p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 11pt;"o:p/o:pThe most annoying part about this news was the fact that, it was discovered in the Oil city (Sekondi-Takoradi). Why should it be in Sekondi-Takoradi…?? How I love Takoradi, no-one knows about that at all. Now, I am very scared; but it’s just a little. Moving to Takoradi, I am going to defy all odds and still go despite “span style="font-style: italic;"Pork-Kplotoo-Ehaa-Prekoo-Swine/span” flu has been discovered. Why should this happen when I wanted to move and go settle in Takoradi? Is it my destiny or what? “span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"w3i nkwa di3, m3 hwehwem/span” [tr: as for this one, I have to look deep into it].o:p/o:p/span/pp style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" br /span style="font-size: 11pt;"o:p/o:p/span/p p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 11pt;"o:p/o:pI became an ardent fan of the ever popular “i style=""porkshow/i” not long ago, now a swine-flu menace is going to limit my intake on that. How I used to be at Auntie Adjokor’s joint for “i style=""porkshow”/i and hot kenkey every friday nite will reduce. My radio journalist friend, Cyrus De-graft Johnson of a href="http://myjoyonline.com"Joy FM/a would be very sick at this news; so is Auntie Adjokor’s stock of pork which will send her sales down to ZERO… Mz Naa of Yfm will screaaaam, "span style="font-style: italic;"No sizeee/span" at this news.. Get well soon, Naa Adjorkor.. :)o:p/o:p/span/pp style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" br /span style="font-size: 11pt;"o:p/o:p/span/pp style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 11pt;"o:p/o:pI am waiting for the type action; the government is going to take on this new development. Swine-flu go away, Ghanaians want to eat span style="font-style: italic;"porkshow/span… Go, Go, Go away…!!!o:p/o:p/span/p div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5948459444912602771-215191481858696480?l=accraconsciousforever.blogspot.com'//div

11:51
som perler på en snor...
» ‎ my funny little frog

Barn får med sæ det meste. Det lærte æ i sandkassa i dag. Ongan i barnehagen hadde fått høre at æ hadde gifta mæ, og va ganske opptatt av det og ka det innebærer. Det betyr forresten at æ har fått en kjæreste.
Men i tillegg virka det som om en naturlig konsekvens av å være gift, va at man kunne kjøre bil.

Kan du kjøre bil? spurte en. Ja, sa æ, men æ har ingen bil. Du kan jo kjøpe en, foreslo en anna. Æ har ikke penger nu til å kjøpe en bil, sa æ. Da kom løsningen fra en liten gutt: Du kan jo bare dra kortet!

Det gjør alltid mormor, sa en anna.

Noen ganger kan man ikke tenke sæ å jobbe andre plasser enn i en barnehage. Gullkorn kommer som perler på en snor.

11:42
First Case of Swine Flu in Ghana
» ‎ dotFAF.com

MyJoyOnline is reporting the first case of swine flu in Ghana. I thought we usually imported pork in barrels.

Details are a bit sketchy but I bet workers are looking forward to having a few days off work in the next few days and porkshow* sellers are dreading all the misinformation that is bound to send their sales down to zero.

Porkshow is what we call roasted pork sold by roadsides in Ghana. And no, no amount of radio and TV announcements about it being impossible to catch it from pigs will stop some people from avoiding eating pork because "it's better to be safe than sorry".

10:24
PRINCIPLES - How Far Would You Go With Yours?
» ‎ Accra Conscious Forever

span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"What at all is PRINCIPLES...?? /span span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"br /br /a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/"Dictionary.com/a, the free online dictionary defines Principles in the following ways: /span span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"[1.an accepted or professed rule of action or conduct: a person of good moral principles. 2. a fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived: the principles of modern physics. 3.a fundamental doctrine or tenet; a distinctive ruling opinion: the principles of the Stoics. 4. principles, a personal or specific basis of conduct or management: to adhere to one's principles; a kindergarten run on modern principles.]/span span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"br /br /We all like to think we have principles, whe/spanspan style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"ther religious, political, social or moral. But how far would you go to stand by them?/spanbr /br / span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"a href="http://www.ghana-pedia.org/org/images/stories//nkrumah%20-%20pic%203.jpg"Dr. Kwame Nkrumah/a spent some years in prison standing his grounds and defying all odds. a href="http://www.info-regenten.de/regent/regent-d/pictures/ghana-rawlings.jpg"Ex-President Jerry John Rawlings/a was also inprisoned for planning a coup d'etat which eventually happened and led to the uprisings. a href="http://freetsatsu.com/album/Tsatsu-Tsikata-1.jpg"Tsatsu Tsikata/a was also imprisoned for causing financial loss to the state whiles standing his grounds on his plea of innocence. /span span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"br //spana onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iAIkdpRgAT4/Snr1JPB0jBI/AAAAAAAAAfU/y4r9KgUCX8M/s1600-h/Principle.JPG"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 263px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iAIkdpRgAT4/Snr1JPB0jBI/AAAAAAAAAfU/y4r9KgUCX8M/s400/Principle.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366871444967164946" border="0" //abr /span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"A couple of days ago, The Mine Workers Union is incensed by wage disparities between expatriate and local workers and has threatened a nationwide strike and this is going to affect the countries mining sector. The workers have called on management of mining companies to increase the amount to $500 this year as a beginning of a three year salary adjustment programme aimed at correcting the disparities./spanbr /span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"br /Would you defend your principles even if it means losing your family or putting them in danger? Would you stand up for your rights if it meant losing your job or being ostracised? Does the will to fight for a cause dull with age or when you have family responsibilities? What happens when your principles conflict with those of other people like in choice of marriage partners, schools, jobs and travel plans??br /br /Please share your comments feedbacks.br //spandiv style="text-align: right;"br /Photo: Courtesy a href="http://maameous.blogspot.com/"Esi Cleland's/a advise from a href="http://www.wordle.net/"Wordle.net/abr //divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5948459444912602771-4147876736051394526?l=accraconsciousforever.blogspot.com'//div

9:51
Green Revolution ... Go! Road trips, bank appeals, and bank accounts ...
» ‎ SavingGhana

Enclosure: [download]

I went round on Monday like I promised:

- uniBank Ghana Limited Head office
- Solar Light Co.
- Masalachi, Mallam landfill site

Rundown:
I went to uniBank Ghana Ltd.'s head office at Kokomlemle - y'all know the one, right? I had to deliver our 'Greenfoot" campaign letter to them ... we are reaching out to a lot of businesses and entities to join in on this campaign, and as you all know from all my previous posts ... we need the banks to include Solar loans within their Executive and Personal Loan categories ... to start with. Of course, there is the Walk-athon FunFair as well, another brilliant concept they could sign up on.

Now you also know that our banking institutions are the most stuck-up businesses ever! Only a small percentage say what they mean and do what they say ... and even if they dont, only a tiny number of them, are ACTUALLY pleasant and accommodating ... TTB takes the award for me so far ... charle ... the Kwashieman branch is just smoking! lol

So I was prepared to be told I couldnt see anyone of 'importance' when I got there ... and my only frustration was that I would not meet a bitter Front Office Manager who would pass my letter through the shredder as soon as my back was turned!

True-true, I got there, and was pleasantly informed that 'if I don't mind leaving the letter ... it will surely get to its location" ... Pressing further as to if there was anyone at all I could speak with ... "oh ... you know, there's a new branch opening in Takoradi, and they are all gone there ... so you can leave the letter, then call back later to see if they are around yet." That was my favourite part ... like they might never be in when you call, love. lol

What could I do? I sighed and sighed and sighed ... and left the letter ... with the explanation that its contents are very definitive, and that it was a matter of interest or non-interest ... and therefore they could contact me on a very easy decision of "Yes ... we will like to hear more." Deep down, I knew I would still call a week later, just to be sure I didnt lose an opportunity ... but I wont be surprised if 1 month goes by, and they are still 'unavailable'

Apparently, the banks only 'know' you after you have acquired money, and they chase you up to bank it for you. lol ... that will be some day, huh?

So I left, grabbed a taxi for Solar Light, and changed my high heels for my outing flats. Relief ... Lord, those shoes kill after a mile!

At Solar Light, the technicians were all out, so Ben (the receptionist), took my contacts, and promised to let them call me when they return. I was there to find out about the wattage of their solar panels, as well as the kinds of batteries and inverters they had.

Basically, the wattage varied, depending on what they had at the moment ... so you could have one panel type for 50 watts ... which means less panels on your propery ... and at another time, you could have a panel type of 10 watts ... you calculate what that means! Their invertors were also either solar-charged, or electricity charged ... options available ... but for more details, I would have to talk to the experts, she said.

Later in the day, whilst taking a nap ... I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call back from their office ... sadly, I couldnt pick cus I was very sleepy. But I was 'moved; ... I like that ... keeping the promise. Anyway, I had promised her that I would return with a letter (to invite them join the campaign) ... so I will surely bring you more news on that!

After that, I headed home, but not without passing through the Masalachi landfill ... the one I was talking scary for in the earlier post ...

Abeiku, the taxi-driver with the ancient Mazda ... happily drove me to "Borla Last Stop" and explained to me that at the time the roads were blocked, it was because the site had become full, and the dumpster truck-drivers kept on leaving their 'loads' on the road and in front of people's homes ... but now, he explained, the tractors had come in to re-organise the entire place.

I took a picture of the tractors at work ... and it did look better organised.

Problem, is ... why do people live right across the road from the place? What is being done about the fluids seeping from the site into the drains by the road side? I took a video of this whilst we were driving back, and if I am able to load it, you will realise how serious it is ... all down the street to the maind road.

I still think more can be done about it ... and I will be updating you further.

Next post ... I go in search of a confirmed venue for the Walk-athon - Fun fair.

Oh ... and yea ...! We got some openers for a current account for the NGO ... and we get to choose which bank to go to now ... yaayyy! lol

Stay tuned, and enjoy the picture and video.

9:11
Name Dropping: New Ghanaian Trend?
» ‎ dotFAF.com

I'll start you off with this nursery song. I dont think it was sung anywhere else but in Ghana and whether they still do:

Fred,
Fred is my name.
Given to me,
by my father.
Whether good or bad,
I will never change it

Of course it went around the class where everyone substituted their name in there. Or in the case of the kids that already showed signs that school was going to be difficult for them, another "father" for "whether" to make "father good or bad...".

Now over 20 years ago, such a poll of names in a nursery school would most likely have turned up mostly English first names and though I would expect that to have changed now, it would still be largely English names.

A trend that I've seen lately though suggests that might be about to change in the next generation. I cant say I've done much research into this so it's based largely of a few friends that I'd lost contact wiht suddenly popping up on Facebook and other places with the English names gone.

It's nothing drastic like coming up with a whole new name, just simply dropping the English one and letting the usually Ghanaian middle names take precedence.

Victoria is now Nana Ama
Isaac is Nene
Franklin changed to Kojo Ohene
Raymond morphed into Paa Kojo
Dorcas likes to be called Nana Konadu
Bright is now Kwame [Can you really blame him?]

I wont pretend to know all of the reasons for this so I randomly selected one of my friends from old that who had had name-dropped and asked his opinion;

"I no dey like am...", he says. [I dont like it]

On the notion of going back to one's roots with regards to names.

He goes "E bi d only way" [It's the only way to go]

Now I've known Philip (I know! it's hard to think of him as Kwesi) since primary school -- and went to the same high school -- and in a way it doesnt surprise me much that he buys into a movement of changing things around to show pride in his culture. I cant say the same for some of the others I'm spotting doing this so it's either now trendy to do so or their attitudes have changed a lot since I last talked to them. The optimist in me is hoping it's a change of attitude.

I dont know whether you can tell where I stand on this issue yet; that's right, I've been very guarded about where I stand so far :p.

Anyone that has known me back in Ghana would have known me as Fred Anane-Frimpong, hence Faf. Before I left Ghana in 2000, I'd worked out why my name was what it was and why it was hyphenated buy never felt like doing anything about it. I had very little inclination then to be messing around with my name so any questions I asked were for the sake of knowing.

Pull up a seat...

The story goes like this. My dad's birth was such that a home birth wasnt encouraged -- probably due to some complications. At the hospital, the white doctor was so good that everything went really well with no problems for anyone.

My grandfather, to show appreciation, wanted to name my dad after the doctor but for one little snag... no one bothered to ask his name. I suppose the hospital was too far from the village for anyone to deem it necessary to trek back to go ask the doctor so they named him Kwaku Anane, better known as Kwaku Dɔkota. I dont think this was a problem in pre-independence Ghana in a village in the middle of nowhere that most probably did not register births.

Cue a couple of decades later and this young man has broken free from the village and is increasingly dealing with "big men" with long English names and probably having to fill out a few forms asking "Christian Name" "Family Name". Kwaku Dɔkota from Adobewura just wasnt gonna cut it so he adopted not one but 2 English names to seem more krakye (gentlemanly). He then adopted his dad's name, tacked it on to his own Anane and hyphenated it to further increase his krakye powers. Not quite content, he decided to go by his two initials plus the new double-barrel name to send the krakye-ness through the roof!

Knowing this when I went for my first passport in 1999, I decided to break away from the double barrelled-ness of my surname with my dad's permission -- because afterall, the family name was simply Frimpong -- and freeing up my middle names Kofi Anane. Well, two years in England and after a million times being asked whether I was related to THE Kofi Annan, I figured I was about time I took my middle names off all non-official documents.

To cut an already long story short, I dont see myself officially dropping any of my names cos no matter what I do at this stage, I'll always think of myself with all the names I've ever been known by. In a way, I'd feel like I were going back on what that song I'd sang over a million times had thought me. [Easy to say when you're not called Soggybottom] More importantly, I dont think my parents will be very pleased no matter how logical my explanation is or what they say.

Efuwa and I have talked about baby names on what seems like too many times and know for sure any children of ours are only getting purely Ghanaian names. Currently top of her list for a boy is Otinankaaduro, literally meaning "He who has an antidote for a python" which in light of recent events, may be very suitable. I can only hope she's joking because that snake certainly didnt look like a python.

Anyway... imagine Otinankaaduro Frimpong coming into this world, then in another 20 years, perceptions changing with African American names now the trend. I dont think I'd be very happy with him dropping Otinankaaduro in favour of DeShaun.

So like that woman in the video going around on facebook, I dont want to, this ting, change me the past. I'll try to change the future and hope it stays changed but kudos to all of you making your change now.

8:39
Wahala video magazine - Heavy
» ‎ GHANA HYPE

When Wahala hits the airwaves, the world is invited to the party! Featuring on location interviews with artists, live performances and most importantly, the best music videos coming out of the Motherland and the Diaspora... Hosted and produced by versatile Rwandan born DJ and cultural activist Eric Soul br / br / br /embed src='http://www.voxafrica.com/flvplayer/player.swf' height='360' width='480' bgcolor='0x000000' allowscriptaccess='always' allowfullscreen='true' flashvars='image=assets%2Fimages%2Fwahala%2FWAHALA-episode07.jpgcontrolbar=overbackcolor=0x000000frontcolor=0xFFFFFFlightcolor=0xFFFFFFlink=%2Fvoxafricaassets%2FWahala%2FWahala_Epi_7.flvfile=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.voxafrica.com%2Fvoxafricaassets%2FWahala%2FWahala_Epi_7.flvvolume=53plugins=viral-1d'/ br / br /http://www.voxafrica.com/modx/en/wahala br / br / br /http://www.punch-records.co.uk/Events/115.aspx br / br /AOK - podcast - deep br / br /Lemi Ghariokwu is the creator and illustrator of Afrobeat’s legend Fela Kuti iconic album sleeves, which represent African artistic benchmarks as well as political statements of the Nigerian musician orginating from Lagos. This podcast is about him. br / br / br /div style="font-size: 11px;"object height="129" width="100%"param name="movie" value="http://a1.soundcloud.com/player.swf?g=wiurl=http%3A//soundcloud.com/punchrecords/aokpodcast"/paramparam name="wmode" value="transparent"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed allowscriptaccess="always" height="129" src="http://a1.soundcloud.com/player.swf?g=wiurl=http%3A//soundcloud.com/punchrecords/aokpodcast" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%" wmode="transparent"/embed/objectdiv style="padding-top: 5px;"a href="http://soundcloud.com/punchrecords/aokpodcast/"AOKPodcast/a by a href="punchrecords"punchrecords/a/div/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23215306-3715045924059198583?l=ghanahype.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/GhanaHype?a=bo0l7jkqYjQ:Q_JuG6wdW_Y:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/GhanaHype?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/GhanaHype?a=bo0l7jkqYjQ:Q_JuG6wdW_Y:63t7Ie-LG7Y"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/GhanaHype?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/GhanaHype?a=bo0l7jkqYjQ:Q_JuG6wdW_Y:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/GhanaHype?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a /div

8:30
Swine flu coming to get us!
» ‎ Maya's earth

Uh oh...So I know I said I didn't believe in the swine flu hype, imposed on us by the pharmaceutical companies, but having a little baby means I don't want to take any risks. This means that here in London I'm avoiding public transport as much as possible. I've been looking forward to getting back to Ghana where I'll cruise around in the comfort of my own, swine flu free car in my swine flu free city. br /br /But now news hits me that a href="http://news.myjoyonline.com/health/200908/33661.asp"swine flu has reached mother Ghana/a! And the idea of the H1N1 virus spreading around in temperatures that bacteria flourish in and can easily be passed on to me through loovers, by hawkers or inconsiderate public sneezers has me a bit concerned.br /br /Please oh please let this virus pass and leave Accra without affecting us too much, preferably as smoothly as bird flu did.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4913928809714336337-4378415901093299656?l=mayasearth.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

5:40
Obrafour may be quiet but Okyeame Kwame is the best Ghanaian lyricist today
» ‎ Why so serious? Blogs of a MIghTy African

a href="http://museke.com/en/node/5"Obrafour/a is my favorite lyricist ever. a href="http://museke.com/en/node/1"Nya Nteteɛ pa/a is also one of my favorite songs ever. We haven't heard much from the Rap Sɔfoɔ recently, but if you ask me, he's been replaced. The 'new guy' is a href="http://museke.com/en/node/1975"Okyeame Kwame/a, also known as the Rap Doctor. In his a href="http://museke.com/en/node/3707"latest single/a, he called himself, 'your favorite rapper's favorite rapper'. I won't argue with him, the dude is good. Many people will know Kwame Nsiah Appau from his a href="http://museke.com/en/node/339"Akyeame/a days. He's the best lyricist in Ghana these days and with time, he may overtake Obrafour as Ghana's best ever. Like joke like joke :-)br /br /I a href="http://museke.com/en/node/1783"interviewed/a Okyeame Kwame for Museke.com sometime last year and I must say I came away impressed. He's not a rapper but he's a student of rap. He attends KNUST (university) and is studying Akan and Sociology. a href="http://museke.com/en/node/1786"This is what he had to say/a - "I am studying Akan because I can’t help the poor if I’m not one of them. If I’m part of the academia then I can convince them to look. If the lecturers decide to organize seminars for hip-life, they can find lyricists. I want to get a certificate for what I’m doing. Studying sociology bcuz as a musician you are a social commentator." What business does this sage have rapping and sharing stages with entertainers in Ghana? He sees the bigger picture.br /br /Have you heard his track called a href="http://museke.com/en/node/3870"Opabeni/a that he did on Obrafour's Execution Diary compilation in 2004? That signalled the beginning of his solo career and am sure Obrafour would have been impressed. I want to dwell on his song, Anaa (remix) featuring Morris Babyface. The lyrics are so sick, I have to share some of this medication. The song talks about all the stuff a guy would do for a girl and still not earn his love. However, the music video shows how a guy can do so much for a girl but still shirk the responsibilities of caring for or loving the girl. Nsɛm pii. It's a massive song. I am so happy Okyeame Kwame won two nominations for the a href="http://museke.com/en/node/1786"Channel O Music Video awards/a. He deserves the commendation and I pray he wins. a href="http://beta.mnet.co.za/fanclub/?clubId=1194"Go vote for him today!/a br /br /His lyrics are in Twi so I am going to do some translations so we can all appreciate his talent. "Mede sika ma wo a, wobɛdi ama no asa" - If I give money, you will spend all of it for it to finish?" "Metɔ ntoma ma wo a, wobɛfira ama no apa" - If I buy clothes for you, you will wear it for it to fade?br /br /"Mendane wo mogya, ɛnfa w'adwen mu, Ntena wo tiri mu na mentena wo deɛ mu" - Should I turn into your blood and run through your mind, live in your mind and within you? br /br /"Mendane wo mmɔwrɛ, wayɛ me so manicure na wode me akyerɛkyerɛ, na sɛ w'akyi yɛ wo hene a, wode me awerɛwerɛ" - Should I turn into your fingernails, so you can manicure me and show me off, and when your back itches, you can scratch it with me?br /br /"Na sɛ asɛm boro wo so, na wotwee, ansi so, wode me ahyɛ w'anum na wakeka me awe" - And if you have some matter that you can't do much about, you'll put me in your mouth and chew (fingernails)?br /br /This is my favorite part - "Anaa, mendane wo mframa, na sɛ wo dɔ fɔ a, woatumi ahata, na sɛ wo home rete a, madwedwe w'akoma" - Or, should I turn into your wind, so that when your love is wet, you can dry it, and when you are restless, I will calm your heart"br /br /"Mendum me phone no, na ɔbaa biara anfrɛ anyɛ dede" - Should I put off my phone, so that no girl would call and disturb?br /br /"Mengyae me nnwom to, na obiara antie anfiili me" - Should I stop singing so that no one would feel (like) me?br /br /"Mendane me ho Kufour, na woayi sika adi, anaa" - Should I turn into Kufuor, so that you will get money to spend? (Erm, since when was this something to say?)br /br /"Rap no nkɔ ntɛmtɛm, na menyi nsɛm no bɛmbɛm, nfa nyi sika mpempem, na wondi nyɛ hyɛmhyɛm, na nkrɔfoɔ nka nsɛmsɛm ndi m'atɛm, sɛ wo dɔ no agu sɛ kyɛmkyɛm" - The rap should go fast, so I can release the words quickly, to get millions (money), so you can spend it and become polished, so people can say stuff and insult me, that your love has got me entangled." (Okay, you have to hear this part for yourself). br /br /"Okyeame Kwame to rap a ɛwɔ ne tiri mu nyinaa ma wo a, (Wobɛbie aso bɛtie bɛwie na nnwom no dɛ nyinaa asa)" - If Okyeame Kwame does all the rap in the world for you, you will open your ears, finish listening to it and all the music would finish)br /br /Twi is such a beautiful language and our musicians, more often than not, use it in such a way that we can celebrate. I hope this will help you appreciate how good Okyeame Kwame actually is. He called his latest album, M'anwensɛm, which in Twi means my poetry. His goal was to make all his rap verses like poetry stanzas, how innovative is that? Who else in Africa has tried this? He is the reigning Ghanaian musician of the year and he's going for bigger glories. He is the best rapper alive.br /br /PS: If you are wondering how I got these beautiful Twi characters, you can get them through a href="http://kasahorow.com/content/windows-keyboard-ghana-updated"Kasahorow.com/a - the most awesome website out there when it comes to African languages. And of course, you can always see these characters in action through the Ghanaian music lyrics on Museke.com :-Dbr /br /PPS: Thanks to Afua for helping translate some of Twi words, it's not easy koraa. If you are like me and have to live with speaking Twinglish, you'll understand. Not everyone can be Obrafour or Okyeame Kwame.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4957153574047966177-4101263788693601722?l=mightyafrican.blogspot.com'//div

5:13
Life – Breast-Savers
» ‎ ANTI-RHYTHM

Breasts save lives. It’s official, oddly enough. It wafts from the wonderful a href="http://news.myjoyonline.com/health/200908/33570.asp"WHO/a. Okay, when I walked the wickedly-promising article, it was tediously talking up the breastfeeding of babies; it may save their lives in medical emergencies. But I failed to glean those paediatrics from glancing at the caption (or did I pretend?). I was foraging for proof positive that the liberal, gleeful, dealing in breastices, by adults, would soundly secure safety or satisfaction in other urgencies. But, I’m just senseless silly. But am I the only one? Did you realise that the title of this post should properly be: Breasts – Lifesavers?div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7564356874518161776-2361266229348612804?l=antirhythm.blogspot.com'//div

5:13
GOVERNMENT BLOWS GH¢1m on Obama’s 24 -hour trip: Does kenkey cost “opipipiiipi”?
» ‎ UNEXPECTED

div align="justify"/divdiv align="justify"/divdiv align="justify"a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aDmB_Q6LHKk/SnqggHIxinI/AAAAAAAAAHM/rezzzrrZAiQ/s1600-h/omama.jpg"img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 199px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366778379497474674" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aDmB_Q6LHKk/SnqggHIxinI/AAAAAAAAAHM/rezzzrrZAiQ/s200/omama.jpg" //a span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"I had eloquently and articulately written a piece about the lack of maintenance in Ghana when I came across this headline on www.myjoyonline.com dated July 30 2009; GOVERNMENT BLOWS GH¢1m on Obama – AFAG. My scream of confusion at this headline nearly caused my poor father to tumble off the couch as he tried to catch his usual morning beauty sleep. /span/divspan style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"div align="justify"br /In an effort to understand why such a tabooed amount of tax-payers' money could be spent in 24 hours given the current state of the Ghanaian “ecomini”, I looked for answers in the article. But as usual, there were none. All that was contained under said headline was a reiteration on the amount of money that the current government had spent on the Obama trip. Poor journalism does not permit much ease in finding relevant information in Ghana; yet despite this lack of credible sources and data to support this accusation against the government, I was left wondering… “How much was spent on the 24-hour visit by President Obama?”br //divdiv align="justify"br /If this claim is true and the government indeed spent that humongous “ega” (Ewe for money) for this historical trip, then I am hugely disappointed. With a two-year hiring freeze on public sector jobs and other heart wrenching situations with our ecoa href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aDmB_Q6LHKk/SnqiCUZW3-I/AAAAAAAAAHk/WaQed3ETzLw/s1600-h/kenkey_fish.jpg"img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 183px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366780066683871202" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aDmB_Q6LHKk/SnqiCUZW3-I/AAAAAAAAAHk/WaQed3ETzLw/s320/kenkey_fish.jpg" //anomy, I am very surprised that we are willing to smile and tolerate the fire burning our bottoms because of one human being. Much worse, we are even more elated to dish out huge sums of money as though we walk on golden streets in Ghana. Apparently (and this is hear say), President Obama and his entourage ate kenkey at the castle. Ei! Ho! I didn’t know kenkey costs “opipipiiipi”. /spanbr /a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aDmB_Q6LHKk/SnqhpMkaw_I/AAAAAAAAAHc/fXv0mB-fFec/s1600-h/kenkey_fish.jpg"/a/divdiv align="justify"span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aDmB_Q6LHKk/SnqhpMkaw_I/AAAAAAAAAHc/fXv0mB-fFec/s1600-h/kenkey_fish.jpg"/abr /The NDC government vehemently attacked the NPP government for spending ¢50m on the Ghana@50 celebrations. I believe the good book says, “Remove the LOG from your eye before you remove the SPLINTER from another person’s eye.” I do not condone nor support any of the unwise decisions being made at the expense of Ghanaian citizens. In fact I am tired of the two key political parties who spend time bickering as though they were children instead of focusing on the pressing issues “lay” Ghanaians are facing. Ghana does not belong to those political parties for them to dish out expensive “birthday gifts” to people who are not even celebrating their birthdays. /spanbr //divdiv align="justify"span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"br /I’m going to drink my morning tea and say a word of prayer for the Almighty to change the hearts of our leaders lest my fury boil and burn down my computer as I type. /spanbr //divspan style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"span style="font-size:85%;"div align="justify"br /Link for Obama picture : /spana href="http://news.myjoyonline.com/news/200907/33364.asp"span style="font-size:85%;"http://news.myjoyonline.com/news/200907/33364.asp/span/aspan style="font-size:85%;" /spanspan style="font-size:85%;"br /Link for kenkey picture: /spana href="http://www.adonaba.com/bilder/kenkey_fish.JPG"span style="font-size:85%;"http://www.adonaba.com/bilder/kenkey_fish.JPG/span/a/span/divspan style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"br /ememspan style="font-size:85%;"Disclaimer: This post was written last week but not posted./span/em/em/spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2514653573750022136-9015365962458470118?l=ignoramus101.blogspot.com'//div

2:40
Snaps of Ghana by Van G. Garrett - brick and mortar
» ‎ One Ghana, One Voice

a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pgdSd0vYhjI/SnfYLf9WSkI/AAAAAAAABPQ/4q1vVzAhxMI/s1600-h/Brick+and+Mortar.jpg"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pgdSd0vYhjI/SnfYLf9WSkI/AAAAAAAABPQ/4q1vVzAhxMI/s400/Brick+and+Mortar.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365995173104208450" //abr /blockquotebr /some places are misleading like castles br /embracing skies like mothersbr /yet holding histories like grudgesbr /unwritten in their bowels/blockquotediv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7555516329392912719-8803234101441144552?l=oneghanaonevoice.com'//div

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Wahala video magazine - Heavy

Swine flu coming to get us!

Obrafour may be quiet but Okyeame Kwame is the best Ghanaian lyricist today

Life – Breast-Savers

GOVERNMENT BLOWS GH¢1m on Obama’s 24 -hour trip: Does kenkey cost “opipipiiipi”?

Snaps of Ghana by Van G. Garrett - brick and mortar