This time of year, millions of students across the globe start their academic year, so also on a hill in the small town of Berkuso in  Ghana for students of Ashesi University College. As I teach mostly freshmen, I think of their journey – even during parental leave days filled with baby wipes, small socks and feedings.

At this point I read Akotowaa’s funny blogpost about Ashesi coolness. She writes:

In my head, there’s like, this group of the ‘cool Ghanaians’ […] Should I start calling out names? Deborah Frempong, Paapa, Michael Annor, Jessica Boifio, Lauretta (the coolest ballet teacher in the world), Kobla (the creator of Oware 3D) etc… The list goes on. But what most – though certainly not all – of the names I have in mind have in common is Ashesi.

First theory: when you get accepted into Ashesi, they perform numerous strange juju rituals over your documents and then let you join the cult, making you automatically cool.

Second theory: the GMI (I just made that up. It stands for Ghana Military Intelligence) comes to Ashesi to ‘talk’ to all the new recruits, and deliver the top secrets of the keys to success as a Ghanaian and swear them to secrecy.

Third theory: The teachers and the way they teach the students are cool.

Of course, this is the least exciting of all the theories, but whatever. Apparently, people like to be ‘realistic’ or something weird like that. Erm…