>Ghana Blogs Gone Fishing

>Today, I thought I’d add a long and interesting list of all blogs currently written in Ghana. But I found only three active ones (Teaching in Ghana is so well written and still relatively current), see the right hand side bar bwlow. I know there must be more bloggers in Ghana, where are you?

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>Blogosphere Air

>My friend Nadja has challenged me to list the blogs I read.

Give the award to up to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel so happy about blogland! Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so that they can pass it on.

I guess I read blogs in mainly three categories:

1. Friends’ Blogs – to see what they are up to/thinking about, because they write well and because I miss them. Nadja, Anna, Marta, Katrine (who’s blog now consists mainly of links to things published elsewhere), Emilie. Petra, Matthew and Joel are on a break, but I would read them if they posted.

2. Interesting Life-bloggers, I like these blogs because they write well about their lives in a way that lets me follow them. Petite Anglaise and Sweden’s foreign minister Carl Bildt fall into this category.

3.Diary Blogs – I like to read blogs by people who write like they are writing only for themselves. The best thing is if you know who they are, just a little bit. This category of blogs can be found at aquaintances’ facebook pages or by googeling. I can’t tell you who they are, since that would be admitting to have opened someone’s diary…

So there are 10 (namegiven) blogs I read and get inspired by.

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>Broad Smile

>Yesterday, Ghana Telecom came to install broadband here in my house. The whole thing was quite simple since a phoneline had been installed last week. The process was tidious though since it started in the beginning of december, but I shouldn’t complain…because now I felt so utterly good!

I couldn’t really put words to why I felt so glad, until my friend A said that with the broadband, it was like I now have a real home here in Ghana. Obviously for us twenty-somethings Internet=home. And that is exactly it! It’s homey to be able to read Dagens Nyheter or The Economist for breakfast, to check in with my bank from home and update my facebook status with stuff like “having tea and checking emails at home”. Not to mention writing this from my dinner table listening to some muzac instead from a sweaty Internet cafe.

The cost for installing Internet here is about USD 100 and then there’s a monthly fee of USD 60 for a 256 kbps speed broadband. This is equal to what many people here take home as their monthly wage. I know a guy who makes USD 80 a month for working six days a week in a supermarket, for instance. Internet access more than anything highlights the gaps between people. And countries.

Four years ago Sweden had 756 Internet users per 1000 inhabitants (isn’t that something!) compared to Ghana’s 17 per 1000, calculated with the help of gapminder. According to the OECD which continously compare global communication prices Sweden had the cheapest broadband in 2006. Later this year the same organization is hosting a meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy. When talking about development, many hope that Africa will skip the step of laying cables and go straight for the wireless, and hence maybe become a player in the future OECD has in mind. However as of now, the guy in the supermarket can barely afford going to a cafe for Internet and even rich expats like myself can’t afford wireless Internet.

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>Centipost

>I blame my poor posting lately on, ehrm, that I am between jobs and have too many fun things to do. Although, over the last two years I have been posting quite a lot, to be precise 100 times!

When I started blogging, the idea was to write about my relocation to France and the inevitable culture shocks. I started off with some inspiration from fellow bloggers and my favorite Piaf song “Non, je ne regrette rien”. The blog has since then been about travels, also since I left Paris, but furthermore about similarities and differences between places on this planet and the people I have met. Writing here has allowed me to process and refine some of my thoughts on experiences I have had. Over my 100 posts I have visited four continents and a peninsula, moved to Ghana, discovered the amazing possibilities a blog can offer, and worried about that you people out there can know a lot about me before I know anything about you… Well, that is just a risk I take, and I have plenty of evidence it has been worth it.

To conclude this jubilee post I want to thank all my readers and especially the new ones that I have met through my blog!

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>Finally rain

> Naming this blog Rain in Africa was of course a bit silly, even though it in my ears sounded good,but silly since it adds to the common misunderstanding of that “there-s-nothing-in-Africa-not-even-rain”. But then again, when the anticipated rain (Ghana normally goes in to the rain period in the beginning of April) finally fell this weekend I just felt it nevertheless was a good decision to mention the rain in the title. Because of the scent of rain. Because of its promises. And because there is acctually A LOT of rain in Africa.

Also, some other “rain” or good news: UN reports that Ghana is one of the first sub-Saharan African countries to reach the first Millenium Development Goal, halving hunger, well in time ahead of deadline which is set to 2015.

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