This month my family and I are moving houses as finally we found our house after what feels like ages of searching that I chronicled early last year on the blog. I am immensely happy and grateful to for the first time of my life own (or rather co-own with the bank) the house where my family and I lay our heads, but I haven’t decided yet how much of our house I will share here, as this is no home decor blog!
…But here is a sneak peak as seen from the street.
Back here with my normal blogging rhythm in March.
During her parliamentary hearing, she had to use some “double speak” to be able to go through and still not alienate her fanbase. My favorite careful wording from the vetting was when she said she has “not said any word that I will promote homosexuality”. Luckily, noone asked her if she will “promote heterosexuality”! See clips from the vetting below, my favorite quote starts at 1.27.
I have met her once, at the Humanist conference late last year, and took this photo of when Nana Oye Lithur told us about a front page of (Ghana’s largest newspaper) the Daily Graphic that was a “worst case scenario” for an activist as it zeroed in on her as a supporter of something that is more than controversial in Ghana. However, as an encouragement for others with views against the norm she concluded “it wasn’t all that bad, no real bad things happened after this” and indeed she was right, it even didn’t stop her from a ministerial position just a few years later!
Although there were people against the nomination and much conspicuous debate, others also supported her and in the end she sailed through the vetting process and has now worked her first day. I am happy for Ghana. Oye Lithur is a clever woman and this is – even if no homosexual promotion will be carried out – a clear break with the homophobic past of Ghanaian political leadership.
In Monday’s newspaper, new schedules for “lightoff” or power sharing were announced (Unfortunately not yet on LightOffGH). Again? Before the election, we were told that shortages were due to a cut in the gaspipeline from Nigeria, but although that has been fixed apparently power is currently scarce and scheduled to going off every other day, all day or evening! Now, that’s is worse than ever!
The implications of this situation is devastating for growth, business and – face it – sleep in a country that keeps to a cosy 30 degrees also at night and offers a darkness full of malaria mosquitoes. Without a fan, life is difficult!
You toss and turn
Then try to lie still as to not work up a sweat
You look over at your window
The curtain hangs as still as was it made from stone
No breeze tonight
You sigh
You close your eyes and think of the beach
Wind in your hair, waves hitting the shore…
…wait, what is that sound…bzz…. a mosquito?
I am still to hear about a plan for how Ghana will get out of this energy crisis. The vision offered on the Ministry of Energy’s website seems overtly ambitious: “To enable Ghana become a net exporter of fuel and power”. What is the medium term or even short term plan?
Dear Minister of Energy (do we even have one?), will we continue to live in darkness in 2013?
I’m finally back in the warm weather! Although vacation in Sweden was great, I felt a deep contentment spread through my body already when entering the “Ghanaian gate” at Shiphol Airport. Again I was surrounded by Ghanaians, babies on backs and loud CHALE, LOOONG TIME’s. I was happy. But not for long.
In addition to yearly Visas, work permits ( yes, for spouses and children of Ghanaians too despite what is written in the law) and other fees it is really expensive to be a foreigner in Ghana.
Why, Mother Ghana, do you treat me like an unwanted child? Medo wo!
Today, I am a guest blogger about my excitement about BlogCAmp13 over at the BlogCamp13 website. This year, the theme is “content is king”. A theme I love!
In addition to musing about the theme, in the article, I gave 5 reasons to why you should attend BlogCamp13. Reason two and three are as follows:
2. To become a member of BloggingGhana. For 25 GHC/year, you get listed on our aggregator (a new one is under construction), invitations to our events and access to the most interesting network in Ghana. Our members rock!
3. Participate in the first ever Blog Awards in Ghana. To inspire content creation and showcase the excellent producers of local content, we have created an award. Nominate your favorite blog here!
Yesterday evening, I started feeling ill. My throat was dry and my body was aching. Just a little while later, my cheeks suddenly felt very hot and I found my thinking slowing down and I just knew it – I have malaria!
The fear of contracting malaria was the biggest obstacle for me moving here. I had heard about dying children, the importance of profylaxis from travel websites like this and could not make it fit with what my Ghanaian friend talked about as “a cold, nothing worse”. The first time I had malaria, was also the first time I was back in Sweden after almost a year in Ghana. We travelled from a 30 degree celsius tropical night to a bright and crisp winterday of about 10 degrees below zero! I thought it was pretty normal to feel cold! That time, because it took me almost a week to understand my symptoms, I was hospitalized from “severe malaria” and learned about how the parasites multiply exponentially leading to that you can get very ill quickly after you fall sick.
Fast forward five years, I have had malaria a couple of times (for instance in May 2010) surrounded by much less drama – Now I am too thinking of it not much more than of a cold, well the kind you need to take medicin for. However, although malaria is no more a serious problem to me, malaria is a serious problem to Ghana. In 2007, UNICEF estimated that every year 3,5 million Ghanaians get malaria and 20 000 children die from it, that is 25% of deaths in children under 5 years, although newer numbers suggest 33%. Sadly the cost of treatment or distance to a health facility will be the cause of non-treatment. Another interesting – and devastating – aspect of malaria is the hidden costs. UNICEF says:
• A malaria-stricken family spends an average
of over one quarter of its income on malaria
treatment, as well as paying prevention costs
and suffering loss of income.
• Malaria-afflicted families on average can only
harvest 40 per cent of the crops harvested by
healthy families.
• In endemic areas, as much as 60 per cent of
children’s schooling may be impaired as a
result of repeated bouts of malaria.
• Malaria-endemic countries are among the
worlds most impoverished. The cost of malaria
control and treatment slows economic growth
by about 1.3 per cent a year in Africa.
Initiatives such as the (American) president’s malaria initiative are trying to roll back malaria and Ghana has recently had successes in distributing mosquito nets and giving pregnant women precautionary malaria treatments (I took them, myself), but are they enough? When you see open gutters being constructed as I write this (a prime breeding ground for mosquitos) and trash everywhere (another favorite place where mosquitos breed) – it feels like we are going backwards rather than forwards.
Before I do, I must confess I stayed until the end of the program to get my hands on a copy. I love memoirs. It is something special about a “true story”. Especially when told by a successful member of the community. Reading their story is like getting a moment to converse with them. Last it was President Mahama. Today it is Kofi Annan. Who’s next? If you are thinking about doing me the honor, check out this free online creative writing course that discusses, among other things, how to write a memoir.
Did I get the book? No, it quickly sold out. I guess I am not the only one loving memoirs…
If you have read all the way here, thanks for your patience! By the way, did I tell you about when I invited Kofi Annan and his Swedish wife Nane to our wedding? No? Well, I guess that is a story for my biography!
In September, my blog was hacked into and all my pics disappeared. Still today, all photos before September 8th, 2012 are missing. That is painful! But there were good times as well. Here is my Blogging Year 2012:
In conclusion, it has been a very eventful year, both for me personally and for Ghana. Specifically, I think this is a year where social media in Ghana has really taken off and more and more people turn to the Internet for their news and communication needs. Next year, BloggingGhana will meet on how to sustain the debate we created with GhanaDecides, I will meet with TV3 to see how I can be involved in future political programming. I will of course teach, have some other projects on my mind and hope to collect data for my thesis. Recently, I met someone who presented herself as an “Academic Entrepreneur” and I humbly aspire to be just that in the next year!
Now it will be very exciting to see what the Supreme Court will do.
Will it speed up the trial process?
Will it make the evidence public?
Will it order a recount of the vote? (the Supreme Court cannot change the results, only at most order a recount).
Today was the very last day to file (officially 21 days after election results are declared, but as the 30th falls on a Sunday…) and NPP have been very sparse with information of their case. I was nervous they wouldn’t even make it! Yesterday, journalists were waiting in vain! Finally, it was the party flag bearer, his vice and the party chairman who signed the petition as a registered voter has to complain, not a party.
Hopefully, this examination of the election will close what ever loop holes is still out there and strengthen the Ghanaian democracy. However, likely, the investigation will take a bit of time and the president elect, John Dramani Mahama will still be sworn in as planned on Jan 7th.
What then happens if a recount is ordered by the supreme court and it indeed confirms the election results add up to a different result?
In collaboration with STACC, my blogging group BloggingGhana led by Daixy has this holiday arranged for blood donations. It all started with Daixy reading about the acute lack of blood at the Korle Bu Hospital blood bank (Ghana’s biggest hospital, located downtown Accra). Being the doer she is, Daixy decided to put her NGO and social media skills together and before we could all say “blood drive”, four dates were set and online we started inviting friends to participate and donate blood.
Today was the third day, and I went to donate blood for the very first time. I was a little nervous. However, failing to convince anyone to join me, I realised many people were either scared of donating (obviously more scared than me!) or misinformed about the process, so when I went I made a deliberate effort of capturing it all.
So here you go, Kajsa gives blood:
Summary: Really, it wasn’t bad at all and took just an hour out of my day and then the actual blood giving was only 10 minutes!
The Gory Details (with pictures):
1:06 PM Arrived at Noguchi Institute where blood donation personnel had set up shop for the day. Daixy greeted me and tweeted to the world, I had arrived. I also said hi to the head and PR person for STACC and weighed in.
Clockwise: Noguchi, STACC personel, scale and Daixy.
1.09 PM Greeted bloggers who had just donated. One of them had fainted after donating, likely because she did not eat well before donating. Also, she just came into the country from the cold north and the heat might have affected her. I had eaten lunch about half-an-hour before coming.
Friends, Form and Bag to fill!
1.15 PM Filled a health declaration form and giggled as I truthfully declared I had NOT undergone circumcision over the last 12 months.
1.19 PM Was pricked in my thumb to check the HB or blood sugar level of my blood. If its under 12, one cannot donate. This pain was I think the worse, but alas, I have done it many times as they test your blood sugar repeatedly when you are pregnant.
Testing HB value.
1.25 PM My blood pressure was checked and it was OK.
Having my blood pressure checked.
1.27 PM I laid down on a bed and nurse put a needle in my arm. Yes, it did hurt a little, but for like 1 second. I promise! After that it feels uncomfortable, but not even close to any pain. The needle was first led to some small tubes, for testing my blood, and then to the bag as shown above. Relaxing on a bed was nice!
I was asked to open and close my hand to “pump” blood out. After a few minutes my hand got cold and then a lil’bit numb.
After about 10 minutes the blood did not flow too much and the nurse decided it was enough. I recon I had donated about 400 ml.
The intense bit. That wasn’t even very intense.
1.38 PM The nurse pulled the needle out and put a ball of cotton on the sand grain sized wound and folded my arm over it. This did not hurt at all. She put a plaster on and I sat up and after a minute walked out the door.
1.45 PM I was given some Milo and crackers and sat there chatting to Daixy about the continuation of this quickly thrown together project.
1.50 PM I walked out, feeling just fine. Went to the bank and drove home. Left from the blood donation is only a plaster on my arm that I now take off – ouch – and these pictures I shared with you!
Milo, Relaxing, Friends and All in all, THUMBS UP!
We are now thinking of how to get many more of you excited about donating blood! Next up is a Valentine’s Day Blood Drive and then maybe one in June on Blood Donor Day – but we want to make it like a party or a fun day out with fresh juice, socialising and many more donors!
Let’s fill the blood banks in Ghana. It is a job for you and me, people who cares and who thinks none should have to die because blood banks are empty.
Some facts:
Don’t drink alcohol 24 h before and after donating blood.
A healthy woman can donate blood 3 times per year, a man 4 times.
25% of maternal deaths in Africa are attributed to a lack of blood for transfusion.
