Kajsa Hallberg Adu, Ph.D, Personal Blog
I must say I dig magazine Arise’s list of changemakers in Ghana. It is refreshingly young (“sub-35”) and I have heard all the names before, albeit not gathered like this.
On the list you find musician Wanlov the Kubolor, techie inventor Bright Simmons, journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas and my good friend feminist activist Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah.
Read the details here.
I believe are many more changemakers in this category, who would you like to add?
A new issue of the Dust Magazine is out! (you might remember I hailed the Dust Magazine last time it came out) And this time, yours truly is a contributor!
Other GhanaBlogging
members contributing to this issue are Esi Cleland/What your momma never told you about business, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah /Adventures from the bedrooms of African women and of course Kobby Graham is the editor of Dust Magazine.
The issue also has a beautiful cover photo of Ghanaian musician Ebo Taylor by Tobias Freytag/FAD and several amazing photo collages by facebook celeb Adisa Abeba (a Tema resident like myself!) – all in all, both pictures and texts well worth your time.
Of course, this time around I am slightly biased…
Today, I am interviewed by Linda Annan, editor of American-Ghanaian Obaasema Magazine, in the international online blogging/citizen media community Global Voices.
Global Voices is an amazing site that pulls together stories from blogs all over the world, with a focus on the areas we do not hear from every day. The community is largely volunteer-driven and is co-founded by celebrity blogger “My Heart’s in Accra”/Ethan Zuckerman.
Here is an excerpt from my interview:
How and why did you get into blogging? And why Ghanablogging?
In 2006 I was living in Paris and started blogging to keep in touch with family and friends and write about my impressions of my new life. At the time, some Swedish friends had blogs at home. I have always loved to write and thought it was a brilliant forum, but couldn’t really find my own tone or topic. However, when I knew I was going to move to Paris, I found myself reading blogs, not books, about Parisian life. I think that spurred the decision to start blogging myself.
In Paris, I was invited to a blog meet-up, hosted by blogger Petite Anglais (who later got a book deal out of her blog). It was great to meet with other bloggers and it turned out two of them worked within the same big organization as me at the time!
So in 2007, when I moved to Ghana I continued blogging and was always on the lookout for Ghanaian blogs. When I had found enough of them, I organized the first meet-up with a friend. It was in July 2008, and eight bloggers came. We decided on the name GhanaBlogging as we wanted the action in the name. We are all doers.
What are you referring to when you say you love the shift from online presence to real life meetings?
When people think of blogging, they think about a lonely person in front of a computer, when in reality it really is a network! Blogging comes with belonging somewhere, blogging is an activity that has strengthened my relationship to Ghana. So yes, my blog is online, but many real life meetings have come out of it!
When was the last time you went to an art museum at an airport?
For me, it was in August. I wrote a snapshot article for Swedish newsletter Spana! from my experience Rijksmuseum at Schiphol Airport in Holland.
With Google Translate (and some translating services on my own) it goes something like this:
AMSTERDAM: Between two flights I haste to Terminal D at Amsterdam International Airport Schiphol. Passing VIP lounges and chocolate disks you can find a branch of the Dutch Rijksmuseum. Here some 20 works are displayed, mostly paintings from the era of Dutch great painting. Three visitors of all ages – and a suitcase – are scattered in the room and below we can see the excitement travelers.
Dutch Lisa is standing viewing a portrait.
– I always take my time to go by here. Anyway now the money is finished!
She laughs and holds up a shopping bag.Despite a gift shop which is at least as large as the exhibition space, the Rijksmuseum at Schiphol provides a unique opportunity not to consume during the waiting time at the airport. With its very existence the museum site challenges the space – are airports really public places when they most closely resemble shopping palaces?
Lisa with the bag is also critical.
– The selection is too narrow. At the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, there is so much more.Apparently, the Rijksmuseum thought the same thing, for later this year will open a new, larger museum at Schiphol airport.
Find the article in original in the Spana! September edition (click on Netherlands).
Surprisingly, there was an article on Ghana too in the newsletter, but not by me but by fellow Ghanablogging member Osabutey Anny – translated into Swedish! I must say this network is going places…
Some time ago, I read a poem by a Swedish blogger who had just taken the most recent word searches leading to her blog and created poetry out of those words. Below is my attempt. I hereby challenge seven fellow bloggers to do the same and then challenge seven others! MayaMame, AntiRhythm, Nina Ruthström, Wayan, Chris Blattman, Adventures From The Bedrooms of African Women and Accra Books and Things.
mike kajsa
documentary about sponsoring education
learn twi audio
digital anthropologist job search
“dobet gnahore”
moving back to ghana blog
blogs in sweden
nordic africa conference
what does a ghana drivers license look like?
ghana driver licence image
universities in ghana
ashesi campus berekuso
lady gaga
redness and itchy from red ant bite image
valcano non ha
learn twi audio
living in africa
wanlov the kubolor
how to kill red ants in palm trees
Alain de Botton, “recent writer-in-residence at Heathrow airport” (sic!) and also the writer of a wonderful little book On Love that had an impression on me, now dreams up a world without planes, of course relating to the volcanic disruptions of air traffic.
Everything would, of course, go very slowly. It would take two days to reach Rome, a month before one finally sailed exultantly into Sydney harbour. And yet there would be benefits tied up in this languor.
Those who had known the age of planes would recall the confusion they had felt upon arriving in Mumbai or Rio, Auckland or Montego Bay, only hours after leaving home, their slight sickness and bewilderment lending credence to the old Arabic saying that the soul invariably travels at the speed of a camel.
I urge you to read the whole BBC column by de Botton. It somehow has a soothingly effect on my nerves when I think about how the volcanic ash cloud may steal my summer in Sweden away from me…
Thanks to GeorgiaP for the tip!
Drawing borrowed from Kathy.
University World News picked up my blog story from last week about Ashesi’s honour system. See here.
