The Witches of Gambaga – Trailer

Recently, I wrote a post called Do you believe in witchcraft? The feedback was many comments,maybe more than on any other post I’ve written, and one of the people who commented was writer and filmmaker Yaba Badoe. I am now passing on this beautiful and sad clip from her, see below a trailer for the film ‘The Witches of Gambaga’.

The section where she tells us about Salamatu being ” a confirmed witch” because of how a chicken dies made me think about the lose-lose method that was used to confirm witches in Sweden back in the days when we hunted women witches: you throw the suspect in a lake, if she floats she is a witch…


I will inform you when the film comes to Ghana.

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Today’s Best Email

In the name of research, I am sharing this email I just found in my inbox with you!

Subject: Do you know caves with bats?

Dear All,

If you know locations of bat caves you could help a research team in Kumasi
and earn some money, see file attached.

BAT CAVES
REWARD FOR INFORMATION
An interdisciplinary team of scientists from Ghana and Germany
have established a research program into bat ecology and human
health. We will be happy if you could provide us with information
about caves with bats in high numbers in Ghana.
A reward of GH¢30 will be provided for new information on cave
locations that we then decide we can use in our study.
We require information on:
• location
• size of cave
• whether bats use the caves and their number if known
Please contact Prof. Samuel Oppong on 0322 060 381 or 0244
535 692 or email heather.baldwin@uni-ulm.de.

Thank you for
your assistance!

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New Edition of Ghana Guide Out – Bradt 2010

The Ghana guide 5th editionBradt Guide for Ghana has come out in a new edition, August 2010. This is the most comprehensible guide to Ghana in English and – they should really pay me to say this – worth every pesewa if you are planning to trek around this green country!

Here is the backside blurb, letting us all know this fifth version was crafted in 2010:

Ghana is an ideal destination for first-time visitors to Africa; rich in little-visited national parks, forest reserves, cultural sites and scenic waterfalls, blessed with bleached white beaches and lush rain forests of the Atlantic coastline. This stand-alone guide, the only one available, caters for both the budget backpacker and the luxurious resort wallower. Including authoritative history and wildlife sections, updated accommodation and restaurant recommendations and a wealth of background and practical information, Bradt’s Ghana covers the country with unrivalled detail and knowledge. Ghana defeated Sudan 2-0 in Accra to become the first African team to reach the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. What better time to catch this friendly, English-speaking and hassle-free country as it revels on a soccer high?

Do check out

For opinions on the new guide you can read this Lonely Planet forum thread on if it is worth to buy the newest version (it is) and the Scotts/Four Villages ecstatic post on what their updated review meant for them.

To me, this guide book (I carry around a well used 4th Edition) has been invaluable and most Ghana travelers seem to agree.

What is your opinion on the Bradt Ghana guide?

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Ghana as a Tourism Destination for Swedes

Ghana slavfort SvD Eric MillerMy dad just informed me of that Swedish Newspaper SvD recently ran an article on Ghana as a tourism destination: In the shadow of the slave castle.

As the text is in Swedish only, let me tell you what Swedes who read SvD now know about Ghana:

Slave Trade

The article starts with a visit in Cape Coast castle, formerly named Carolousborg. This castle was once controlled by Sweden and its Svenska Afrikakompaniet and traded in slaves and gold, often payed for with iron and glass beads (!).

Culture and Eco tourism

The rest of the article outlines the current day tourism –  historic tourism around the castle, but also cultural tourism including handicrafts and festivals, and beach vacations with the growing concept of eco tourism.

Currency, Air Fare and Food

Finally, some facts on currency, air fare and food. Although the writer is correct to recommend Star and Club beer, Jollof rice is spelled “jallof rice” and a dinner is said to cost between 10-20 GHC! I had a great lunch for under three GHC yesterday, so let me politely disagree…

I also missed a section on modern day Ghana – hip life, fashion and flavor!

The article has beautiful pictures by Eric Miller. See picture for this post from Cape Coast, photo credit Eric Miller.

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Teaching Ethics in Africa: Giving Voice to Values

Mary C Gentile Giving Voice to valuesThis semester, Ashesi University College‘s newest class, the graduating class of 2014, will receive a gift.

It is the new practical ethics course we will be teaching this year, Giving Voice to Values, inspired by Dr. Mary C. Gentile, previously with Harvard Business School currently at Babson College .  Originally intended for MBA students, the GVV curriculum is available for free for educators.

In a nutshell Gentile in her Giving Voice to Values curriculum suggests that we all have values, the trick is how to voice them or “how to speak your mind when you know what’s right” as it is called in the book (see image).

She has through research found that the single most powerful factor making people  speak up against violations of their values is (No, not a solid upbringing nor a strong faith, but) practicing speaking up!

It is so simple when you think of it that it is absolutely brilliant!

Through learning about yourself, your personal so called enablers and disablers of speaking up –  but also the societal enablers and disablers –  through looking at complex ethical dilemmas and writing scripts on how one could address them, we are providing tools for our students to voice their values in everyday situations here in Ghana.

Last semester, a working group modified the Giving Voice to Values curriculum to the Ghanaian, undergraduate student. We wrote new cases involving “your classmate” and “your uncle” rather than “your employee” and “your CEO” and thought of values conflict situations with a Ghanaian and undergraduate twist, one for instance focusing on family ties, another on plagiarism. I did a pilot of this new program in my leadership class, had a good personal learning curve  and many interesting and eyeopening practical discussions on ethics with my students.

As Ashesi’s mission centers around educating ethical leaders (see for instance this earlier post highlighting ethics at Ashesi), I am excited to see this course being rolled out to the whole freshman class this year and happy to be a member of the initiating team.

Gentile’s book on Giving Voice to Values is just now out, but while waiting for it to be shipped to you, do read this intresting interview with Mary C. Gentile on I’ve Been Mugged-blog.

Now over to you, how do you discuss and practice ethics in your organization/family/workplace?

Pic borrowed from the Giving Voice to Values book-site.

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African Authors and Books in Gothenburg – Afrika2010

The annual Swedish book fair in Gothenburg this year has an Africa theme!

With the name Afrika2010, some 50(?) writers from 36 countries, a couple of hundred seminars and probably thousands and again thousands of book titles, the fair is opening on the 23rd September and lasting until the 26th.

“There is a strong interest in Africa right now, not at least thanks to the World Cup in South Africa in June. With the Africa focus of this year’s Book Fair, we will put the African literary scene in the lime light. Many new and already established writers and cultural workers will provide a more complex picture of this exciting continent”, says Carin Norberg, head of the Nordic Africa Institute which together with SIDA is supporting the thematic focus on Africa at the Bok&Bibliotek book fair.

Participants from Ghana includes: Akoss Ofori-Mensah (Sub-Saharan Publishers) and writers Yaba Badoe (True Murder came out last year) and  Meshack Asare (many childrens’ books including Children of the Tree).

I will very sadly not be able to make it to Afrika2010, but will be following this glorious event bringing together the African continent and its literature, likely reporting in this space. Oh, and I just saw one of my favorite artists, Dobet Gnahore is opening the fair!

The only comfort I have is that it seems Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Half of a Yellow Sun) is , just like me, too busy around this time to come to the Afrika2010 book fair in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Which African writer would have made you reschedule your plans and go to Gothenburg?

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Do You Believe in Witchcraft?

If you do and you live in Ghana, you are not alone.

According to a recent survey carried out by Gallup, three out of four (or 77%) of Ghanaians believe in Witchcraft.

Only Ivory Coast (with a staggering 95% ) and Senegal (with four out of five) have larger shares of the population suggested to be witchcraft believers. Mali, Cameroon and the DR Congo has around the same levels as Ghana. The average for Sub-Saharan Africa is around 55%. Surprisingly, to me at least, Nigeria came out under average with less than half a population believing in witches. Rwanda and Uganda being the only countries in the sample in which less than 20% answered yes to the question: Do you personally believe in witchcraft?

I just threw myself over this survey. The aspect of witchcraft is a very intriguing one for a westerner moving to Sub-Saharan Africa.

Intrestingly, the Ghanaian witch does not have a pointed black hat and a cat that talks, nor does she need a broom to fly and need not wait until Halloween before she comes out. No, the Ghanaian witch lives close to you and me and can cause harm to anyone she – or he – wants to hurt. Diseases, deaths and ill fates are often blamed on a malicious witch.

In Ghana, the absolutely worst thing you can call anyone is “a witch” (well, apart from stupid, but that is a different blog post). Read this post by Nana Kofi Acquah on a street quarrel. I have also heard people talk about meeting witches, witches casting curses and occasionally lifting them, see for instance this recent account by fellow blogger AntiRhythm on a curse over a lost mobile phone.

Also, the newspapers report regularly about witches flying here and there. Last time I remember reading about witches in the news it was a witch from the Volta region who had mysteriously found himself landing on a house roof in Ashaiman, close to Tema where I live. A few years ago, reports on a witch conference taking place in Kumasi, Ghana spurred on newspaper Daily Guide to suggest the following:

The numerous road accidents, boat disasters, floods in the north, gas explosions in Kumasi and collapse of buildings that the country has witnessed in recent months may not be for nothing.

A global meeting of witches, currently underway in Ghana, is targeting thousands of lives through fatal road and other accidents.

So the accidents on our roads and floods in the north are due do a 2007 conference of witches? Let me tell you that these have not really subsided after the conference was over and done with…

On a more serious note, in Ghana there are sadly a need (?) for enclosed areas for witches or “witch camps”, predominately for women who have been named witches by their community. For more info on this, read this account about life in Gambaga Witch Camp or this insightful and frightening article about What Makes a Woman a Witch? by writer Yaba Badoe.  Recently the plight of those women have been recognized, for instance by SOSYWEN and Stop Witch Trials.

The GALLUP survey also suggest that witchcraft believers live worse lives than those who do not believe. Of course, that seems plausible but possibly with a spurious or false relationship, with education for instance being the real explanatory factor. But when I look at the presented numbers, I wouldn’t say that there is really much of a difference in percieved living standards between witchcraft believers and non-believers.

Those who believe in witchcraft rate their lives at a 4.3 on average, while those who do not believe or don’t have an opinion rate their lives higher on the scale, at 4.8 on average.

Is it very marginal, or am I not getting it right?

Anyway, this survey gives me scientific proof of something I already knew: that  most people in Ghana do believe in witches.

So, do you? And why?

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View from Ghana: Education

This post is part of Ghanablogging‘s monthly theme post “a view out of Ghana” – this month we write on education.

In school we have other names

School uniform, school bag and white socks in black shoes
Ama and myself
and many others
(but in school we have other names)

Lining up in front of  ‘new block’ (although it doesn’t look new)
On the red dirt football field
Standing still
(Longing for eating a bo’flot during the morning break)
(Thinking in Fante but) answering “yes, sah”
when asked if I swept the headmistress’ office

First period is Social science
(I have memorized the definition of marriage)
Sun is hot
Standing still
(schh Ama)
Keeping quiet

(Is this Education?)

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On Killing Red Ants

Here is a confession. Yesterday, I went on a rampage. I killed thousands of ants.

It all started the day before when I was bitten by a red ant (also called “yam ant” or “fire ant“) as I was hanging laundry. The red ants bite hard and leave an itching swelling that later turns into a small, painful blister that stays with you for days. Anyways, so this red ant bites me twice on the toe next to the big toe and it hurts like a bee sting. I immediately decide on revenge.

So after taking the clothes down (mind you in wellington boots), I look for the ant colony and BINGO – I see some sandy mounds in the lawn with holes where red ants run in and out.

I take a hoe and proceed to work.

As I dig thousands of ants well out, some start climbing the hoe, others my boots. I have anticipated this and shake them off. I continue to dig and do not stop when I start to find white eggs and winged queens.

I dig and I dig and when I feel like I have come to the bottom of their colony, I spread out the soil/ant chaos thinly and go for the water hose.

Many thoughts cross my mind. I think of the ants unfortunate choice of settlement.  I think of how I never want to be bitten again. I look for eggs and queens and step on them. Hard. I feel like a mean King Kong. I am impressed with the ants who tirelessly try to organize themselves throughout what must be one of the worst mornings in their life. Noone stops in panic or gives up! I spray water with force onto the  fleeing ants. I think of more effective ways of killing them. Salt? Poison? Neem tree? I remember to stomp my feet. I hear by heart beating fast and feel weirdly upbeat about my killing rampage.

When I have filled the hole of what was once a proud red ant colony with water, sprayed as many ants as possible into the muddy waters and stepped on everything with wings, I withdraw.

I am now, with anticipation, awaiting their next move.

Pic from Wikipedia.

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