Swedish TV today showed how to carry a baby with a cloth. I also used this method when my children were babies, but later adopted the Ghanaian technology and even made a YouTube video of how to carry a baby Ghana style.
Sunday Reads 8 Nov
I had a week in the sick bed so did plenty of reading. Maybe most importantly, I found “Bad Feminist” by Roxane Gay and read those essays with a wide grin. But I also read:
- The Decay of Twitter by Robinson Meyer. I think I like to read stuff like this that makes it sound important what happens to a social media network.
- Entire editorial staff of Elsevier journal Lingua resigns over high price, lack of open access by Glyn Moody. Interesting development in the world of academia.
- Beasts of No Nation and the child soldier movie genre by Dr. Noah Tsika. A great critique of a film many are talking about including the very important fact of the media shadow Netflix (but also iTunes film, Spotify etc) shed on West Africa.
- For Slow Scholarship: A Feminist Politics of Resistance through Collective Action in the Neoliberal University. Loved this!
“Our concern is not the difficulty juggling the standard academic triad of research, teaching, and service; we recognize not only that different institutions prioritize these differently, but that they need not be mutually exclusive. Rather, our concern involves the ever-increasing demands of academic life: the acceleration of time in which we are expected to do more and more. The “more” includes big tasks, such as teaching larger classes, competing for dwindling publicly funded grants that also bring operating money to our universities, or sitting on innumerable university administrative committees. It also includes the constant stream of smaller requests demanding timely responses, such as quarterly updates to funding agencies, annual institutional review exercises, and pressure on us as knowledge workers to stay on constant alert through the demands of social media.”
Inspired by personal role models, Ory Okolloh Mwangi and Chris Blattman, I want to share articles I read with my followers on a somehow regular basis. I hope to make Sunday Reads a weekly feature to be shared here and on Twitter!
Freedom is Corruption?
Every week in Ghana, the headlines spew out new incredulous accusations of corruption. It is millions of Ghana cedis disappearing, or millions of Ghana cedis disappearing BUT found out and STILL NOT being payed back, inflated contracts being awarded, and after the painful truth about the Ghanaian justice system, this week we got it black on white even educational institutions are not following procedure. On top of this mess – that on some level also is positive as the rot is being reported on – I find it shocking that with each new topic, people around me say “but of course, this is how it has been since when I was a young…”
How does one cope on a personal level with all of this?
I have to say: I don’t know. I think do not cope very well! I get so angry and disturbed I cannot focus on much else on many days. I tweet, blog, and rant. I make plans to leave, I take deep breaths, and I laugh about it all. I try to balance the impressions.
I say to myself: Ghana is a country that does not meddle so much with citizens lives, I can more or less build what ever I want anywhere, drive at whatever speed I prefer on whatever side of the road, do whatever I like whether a street party or a business venture. But then again, this freedom is not as fun as it sounds. Even to a Swede coming from a cold, almost excessively state controlled environment. Mostly, this freedom seems it is just a freedom to be corrupt? To walk on others to get ahead? To overcharge and connive? To say “but madam, who will catch you?”* To destroy and walk off?
In the Ghanaian blogging community we have discussed when a tipping point will come for Ghana, if at all. Is it more likely with each big reveal? Or is it less? I get royally annoyed with those around me who say things like “well, this is Ghana” or “lets pray over it” or “It will never change” or “getting annoyed doesn’t solve anything”. But sometimes, I also understand. It all seems so big and nebulous, like a monster we have to learn to live with.
Ghana’s leading investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, recently urged journalists to do more with the freedom we have here in Ghana:
“I think that when you look at the press freedom index Ghana scores very high. Ghana is not a place where you speak and somebody will clamp down on your rights. But now the issue is not about the rights but rather what we the journalists ought to do with that right.”
It is somehow so ironic that we all admire Anas, troop in our thousands to watch his reveals, but then that is it. People are not inspired to join the lone man’s struggle with the dragon?
Recently, someone told me a story of how a relative was in trouble with the law and payed something to a person at the municipal court to walk free. The twist to the story was that person in power accepting a bribe to drop the case now holds a higher position in the national government. We all look on, we all know, but who acts?
*Migration officer in uniform told me this when I was not given a three-year residence permit without the right to work.
This post is part of my new series of more personal posts to be posted on Fridays, Personal Friday.
Speaker at the ASME 2015
I have been invited to speak at the Vodafone African SME Summit 2015. The summit takes place 5-7 November, 2015 and has the theme; “Dreaming Africa”.
I will be speaking from the BloggingGhana/Social Media perspective in the panel called “Changing the conversation on Africa’s media front” on Thursday 5 Nov, 2.05-2.45pm My co-panelists are Bernard Avle, CitiFm and Teophilus Yartey, Graphic Business.
Other speakers are Emmanuel Gamor of Impact Accra Hub, Nana Akosua Hanson of YFM, and Frederick Deegbe, Heel The World Shoes and many more!
I will share my slides here after my presentation.
Hope to see you there!
Waithood in Ghana
Researcher Alcinda Hondwana has discussed “waithood”, a prolonged period of suspension between childhood and adulthood. Hondwana used Tunisia as her point of departure, but since the concept was launched it has been debated if it is useful also for other localities?
BBC came to Ghana to carry out interviews with youth experiencing “waithood” and my student Kwabena Ankrah was one of them!
It is a serious problem when the potential of youth is not harnessed. However, in the program it is suggested that 95% of Ghanaian youth are not happy in Ghana, that the stability of our democracy is threatened by corruption, and that youth aspirations are unattainable…In my research on student migration aspirations, I have tried to nuance the discourse by focusing on a particular group, university students. They are also Ghanaian youth, and have a more positive outlook, and its a group that is steadily growing!
Ankrah typically for a university student, sees opportunity in the many problems: “People get businesses because there are problems! If there are no problems, there are no businesses!”
Listen to the program that takes you to the Centre for Migration Studies, the slum that is known as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the dream of education and possibly migration…
Sunday Reads 1 Nov
- Is there just too much content online? Reward if you read ’til the end of this article on the We Are Social blog.
- Why academics and students should take blogging seriously. Nothing real new: it always shocks me academics are not more present online, but supported with facts in charts! What is better?
- Blogging platform Medium wins in Amazon / NYT spat. Blogging trumphs old media!
- Wangari Maathai was not a good woman. A great piece on being an activist, a female and an Kenyan.
- Sweden and the 6-hour-work-day. Because then you also have energy for your private life, which makes you a better worker. Well, when put that way…
Inspired by personal role models, Ory Okolloh Mwangi and Chris Blattman, I want to share articles I read with my followers on a somehow regular basis. I hope to make Sunday Reads a weekly feature to be shared here and on Twitter!
Sunday Reads Oct 25
- I liked this suggestion in the sometimes very polarised debate on the affordability and openness of academic publications: Use your author’s rights to make articles freely available by Jorgen Carling.
- Issues that have been overlooked in West African politics: Buhari needs to find new funding methods to improve Nigeria’s health care by
- Seven parallels between Ivory Coast and Tanzania by Africa Research Institute – both went to the polls today. All seven points are also relevant to Ghana.
- ‘Energy Africa’ Launch, speech by Kofi Annan. This important issue that will make or break the region, great infographic in there as well!
- On Atheism and Superiority, by Ijeoma Oluo. I really liked this piece on the humility that is needed to not render atheism a faith on its own!
Inspired by personal role models, Ory Okolloh Mwangi and Chris Blattman, I want to share articles I read with my followers on a somehow regular basis. I hope to make Sunday Reads a weekly feature to be shared here and on Twitter!
My Love of Numerology or #233moments
I am not sure how it started, but it feels like I have always had a love for numerology or finding meaning in numbers. For instance, it makes me happy to see the time is 12.34 (AM or PM does not matter).
Further, I feel good about facts like:
- The date having an interesting sequence like the 11th of December did a few years ago, 11.12.13.
- The city Tema (where I live) lies smack on the Greewich Meridian and hence on longitude 0.0…the centre of the world. A good place to live for a numerologist!
- I am born on the 7th in a month – as 7 is an age-old magical number (like 3, 13, and 21).
- I graduated from high school the year 2000.
In Ghana, as most of readers of this blog will know, the weekday of which you were born is important and many Ghanaians have a first name relating to it. This also gives rise to beautiful parallels:
- My husband is the third Kweku or Wednesday born on his father’s side. Hence his father and grandfather are both Kweku as well.
- Our first daughter was born on a Thursday, just like the first born daughter of my husbands grandfather (Kweku the 1st), and inherited her name, Nana Aba Adua.
- The same daughter had two different nannies, both born on a Thursday, just like her! My second daughter is born on a Monday and when she was born, our previous nanny had quit and we had to find a new one. Only after she was hired, I realised she is also born on a Monday.
A problem with this love of parallelism, is when it does not occur and the deep discomfort it brings. For instance, when we were getting married, the date 29th March, 2008 was decided on for a number of practical reasons. Twenty-nine-zero-three-two-thousand-and-eight. It was so random. So non-special. It had no parallelism. I just did not “feel” the date! Almost considering rescheduling for a “better” date, suddenly my mother-in-law pulled me aside. She told me that the 29th of March, 1967 was the day of her first date together with my husband’s father! The parallelism had been found! I never reconsidered the date again.
When our second child was born on the SAME DATE as our first born, as an avid numerologist I was ecstatic! The birthday, is also a beautiful number as the 21st of the 7th month! It is hard to explain, but in my numerology brain that makes it feel like it was somehow meant to be. On top, the water broke at 2.33 in the morning, I’m not joking, the quintessential #233moment (hashtag created by Ato Ulzen-Appiah for all things Ghana). Our second child’s birth was almost on the hour exactly three years later from the first. On top, my first born is born 30 years after I was born, and my second born, 30 years after my younger and closest sister.
Maybe it is a human thing, this looking for meaning and symmetry in a chaotic world. While I enjoy numbers looking neat and organised around me, at the same time, I can of course see that so many other things were not beautiful, numerical coincidences, but have worked out anyways. I do not officially subscribe to any numerology faith, I am definitely an atheist. But coincidences, numbers and parallelism do have an impact on my emotions.
Recently, I realized I have never really discussed this with anyone. Do you think the same way? Or do I seem mad to you?
This post is part of my new series of more personal posts to be posted on Fridays, Personal Friday.
Sunday Reads Oct 18th
- By an interesting coincidence Blog Action Day 2015 with the theme #RaiseYourVoice to campaign for silenced bloggers also saw Ethiopian Zone9Bloggers (link to my blogpost on them)freed. I read Reporter’s Without Boarder’s article.
- Google’s Broken Promise: The End of “Don’t Be Evil” Google becomes a part of Alphabet and some principles are lost!
- Ghana saw a celebrity/royal marriage and while all eyes was on TV-presenter wife, blogger Naa Oyoo took a grip on the King who married Gifty Anti.
- The Hunter Still Tells the Story of the Lion, suggested ShafiCosman and concluded the playing field is more levelled than ever with lions who possess
Internet powers… - Migration researcher De Haas (supported by efficient visual by Carling) on the problem with European migration policy: Don’t blame the smugglers: the real migration industry.
Inspired by personal role models, Ory Okolloh Mwangi and Chris Blattman (happy 8 years of blogging!), I want to share articles I read with my followers on a somehow regular basis. I hope to make Sunday Reads a weekly feature to be shared here and on Twitter!
BLOG ACTION DAY #BAD15: #RaiseYourVoice Against Online Injustices
Late last year, I went to Ethiopia. I had a wonderful stay and learned about the Ethiopian food and coffee culture and made lovely friends. Ethiopia left me with memories for life. But I also knew, going there, that bloggers who had criticised the government had been thrown in jail.
The nine bloggers and journalists were members of Zone9, an organization that I imagine have similarities to the organization I started in Ghana with a friend, BloggingGhana. Read more about their case on the Advox site Global Voices set up for the campaign to #FreeZone9Bloggers. Despite only being in the country for a few days, the knowledge of that I was in a country where they jailed bloggers for criticising the government had an eerie and immediate impact on me.
FEAR
The damage of jailing bloggers is twofold, the personal damage to those individuals and the much larger example it sets. On my first day in Ethiopia, my hotel told me they had Internet issues, and I did not push for a resolution. When Internet arrived on day 2, I thought hard about what I tweeted and instagrammed from Ethiopia. I posted only photos and no words about my stay there. I made sure to not mention to anyone I was a blogger as I did not know how much of bad connotations that might have. I felt fear in my gut. It is a sad thing, to limit your thoughts, your creativity, and your imagination. I was just a visitor for a few days. I can’t help but think what that fear would do to a country over time. Would people discuss political developments? Criticise people in power when service delivery is poor? Would people think creatively or would they, just like I did, censor themselves?
ACCESS TO INTERNET
A different aspect of #RaiseYourVoice is access to Internet that is limited in many places all over the world, both for political reasons, lack of (electricity and data) infrastructure, and/or simply the cost. According to the UN broadband commission more than half of the world’s population is offline. Ethiopia a case in point with only 1,9% Internet penetration, compared to Ghana’s 20,1% and Africa average of 26,5%. For the world its over 40% (numbers from InternetWorldStats.com). As a blogger in Africa, I am constantly reminded, that having access to the same tools as I have (broadband and laptop) is for the lucky few. Then last week, Google announced plans of laying fibre in Ghana and Uganda in Project Link and Facebook launched a project beaming Internet to Africa by satellite. Is that not great news? Rather, in my view it is quite worrying. In an era go knowledge, the important issue of access to Internet in Africa is taken over by multinationals with their own agenda and already strong grips on the Internet globally.
SHARING OF INFORMATION
Internet is a game changer as it has the ability to bring the people of the world closer. Sharing information, once created, is next to free. When I finish writing this blogpost, how many will read it? Maybe one person (Hi Dad!), but it might also be 100 or 1000 or even 10 000. The cost is the same to me to spread my views. On the other end of the sharing, this means a university student in Ghana potentially can have the same access to written knowledge as a student anywhere else! We can all be up to date with latest scientific findings. 10 years ago, this was science fiction!
WHAT WE CAN DO
There are no easy solutions, but governments all over the world should be persuaded (by us!) to step away from fear and have faith in the power of freedom, on and offline. Individually, we have to take inspiration from the Zone9-bloggers and speak up. However, we also need better access to the Internet for the masses. I think we should think about who owns this infrastructure. It will cost, but yield returns, because when we can think freely, communicate freely, share information freely, we can also create better solutions to our problems.
At BloggingGhana I often repeat: Every time you go online, don’t just consume. Produce too. Share your life and views with the world. Create more stories!
SOME TIPS FOR #RAISINGYOURVOICE:
- Post a photo on a social network showing something that maybe has no representation online, it could be a street, a practise, or a portrait and a brief interview with someone.
- Show someone who do not have access to Internet what it is all about. Use your or their phone, or go into an Internet cafe.
- Craft a Facebook-update to challenge oppressive views.
- Spread the word on Alliance for Affordable Internet and their data.
- Join Global Voices as a Volunteer Writer, Translator, or Partner.
- Write a blog post where you #RaiseYourVoice to fill the void when another blogger has been silenced by fear or lack of access.
This post is part of the Blog Action Day 2015, with the theme #RaiseYourVoice.
My earlier Blog Action Posts can be found here: 2008 on Poverty, 2009 on Climate Change, 2010 on Water, and 2012 on the Power of We.
My Week: Typically and Specifically
A typical week: Mondays and Wednesdays are teaching days. This semester I teach Ashesi’s introduction to academic writing and presentation: Written and Oral Communication. I leave home early, arrive to campus just after 9 AM, I see students and prep before class, eat an early lunch, teach between 11.50 AM and 3 PM and then have office hours with students in need of help, meet colleagues, and do grading.
Tuesdays often end up as recuperation after the long and winding Monday, but I also use them to catch up on longer term planning and check mail on this day. Thursdays are my grading and reading days and Fridays are my meeting days, sometimes on, some times off campus.
On Saturdays, I take my daughter to drama class and myself attend yoga. Sundays are mostly spent around the house and garden with family.
Specifically, this coming week: I know we have a birthday party in the weekend, there is also an interesting concert. On Friday, there is a faculty meeting on campus on Friday, which means I will be on campus three days this week (tomorrow Monday depending on the well being of my child with malaria!) My main project outside of work is BloggingGhana and working with the GhanaDecides team to find money for next year’s project. That means proposal writing and meetings, likely both, this week!
When your child is sick with malaria
The blog posts you had in mind to write is the last thing on your mind. I mean, in tropical Africa on the one hand, it is just another day with play at home, plenty fluids, and ice cream in the afternoon – not so much different from a weekend without play dates.
On the other hand, it is a time where I deeply connect with parents in this region who feel a hot forehead and it means more than a few days of recuperation at home. I think of families who live much further from a clinic than we do, cannot travel there in the comfort of their own air conditioned car, and do not simply hand over their health insurance to the nursing station before seeing the doctor.
My body aches for the parents who maybe have to go door to door, knocking, to look for the money needed for transport and care of their little one, increasingly weaker by the minute. In Ghana, malaria is endemic and has affected history and continues to shape contemporary life. It kills, and according to WHO Ghana reported more than 2500 malaria deaths in 2014, but it also cast its net wide as more than 1.5 million people were reported ill with malaria over the same time. That means, malaria is seen as nothing more than a bad cold. “Take your meds and rest”.
Now my malaria-ridden kid (or maybe it is not malaria, the test came back negative, but the zealous doctor still wanted to do the treatment) is sleeping here next to me and I feel mostly calm and grateful. When she wakes up, I will give her more paracetamol. I have food in my fridge and money in my bag. I have the doctor’s cell phone number if her condition is not better by tomorrow.
Can you tell I am still worried?
This post is the second in my new series of more personal posts to be posted on Fridays, Personal Fridays. Although, I have to admit today is Saturday.