Kajsa Hallberg Adu, Ph.D, Personal Blog
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Kodjo Akolor is a rising star in Sweden, this year on radio and as a presenter in a popular TV-program. Performing in Swedish and “African English”, I really enjoyed his politically themed stand-up you can view above, making fun of African elections, Nelson Mandela(!) and Swedish problems that needs to experience Africa
“I have a job, money, food and an apartment…and it is so extremely difficult”!
Remember where you heard about him first!
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Tomorrow it is Wednesday and I am going dancing!
A few weeks ago I decided to take a friend to the Coconut Grove Regency Hotel in Ridge in Accra on a Wednesday evening to see if the latin rhythms still was shaking the place. And if they were! I now cant remember why I ever stopped going and quickly made myself a promise to make it every week.
Local radio station CityFM are nice enough to offer this weekly Salsamania program free of charge. I try to arrive a bit early, around 7 PM to get a parking space in the neighborhood. At 7.30 there are classes on beginner and intermediate levels. I have learned some moves in the intermediate group, but it seems the purpose of the class is to get people moving rather than really transmit dance steps. Then after some 20 minutes of class we gather round the pool and start the row dancing (see pic), for instance to Mambo no 5 (which is the only one I have really mastered). This is so much fun!
Ok, people have stepped on my toes and some combinations seem impossible to ever learn. But the feeling when you get a few steps right in the big crowd of like-minded people! If I am lucky I then find some good salsa dancers for the next section of proper salsa music for proper salsa dancing. Most Ghanaians seem to have adopted something close to Cuban style, which is (lucky me!) my preference. Also, quite contrary to salsa dancing in Sweden, there are two guys to every girl, which makes it easy to pick good dance partners.
There is also really good chicken khebabs to eat and drinks to gulp down in the still warm tropical evening (strictly water for us dancers!)
After just an hour of salsa, I can’t be upset regardless of how my day has been. Sweaty and happy and sit in my car around 10 PM, driving home.
Listening to salsa, of course.
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Glass, recycled, clay, brass, silver, ceramic
Beads in Ghana is big business. In 2007, I made a web search for “beads” and “Ghana” and got 609 000 hits, today I got 655 000 hits. My love of beads which I have written about here, here and the other week here have recently been upgraded to obsession.
Most importantly, I have joined the Ghana Beads Society which convenes the first Thursday of every month at 4.30 PM at DuBois Centre in Labone, Accra. The meetings are enthused gatherings of bead nerds as myself, mostly other (female) obrunis and some (male) Ghanaian bead traders (where are the Ghanaian women who most often wear beads?). In the beginning of each meeting, wonderful beads are being sold for bargain prices, the peak of the meeting is spent learning about beads, feeling their delicate textures, getting shocked by how difficult they are to make/bring into the country and marveling at their various colors. There is also some networking and meet and greet with the founders of the GBS and other bead experts.
I have gotten to meet with bead enthusiasts and bead entrepreneurs like Kati Torda of Suntrade and Trish Graham of Ahene Pa Nkasa. It is truly inspiring how they have rediscovered Ghanaian beads and though determination and a will to learn have upgraded the traditional bead into modern use. See for instance the lovely bead work Kati Torda did for Miss Ghana 2005 here.
And I have started thinking about setting up my own bead business. If I did, I think I would be focusing on bracelets – which I love – and “over-the-top pieces” which would be overtly elaborate combination of the West African beads I have come to enjoy so much. In a few weeks, I hope to go for a “stringing” class to learn how to successfully create jewelery with the beautifully rustic and colorful beads I have already purchased over my first two years in Ghana. Then we’ll see.
I only know, this is not the last time I write about beads.
Pic borrowed (and cropped) from Kati Torda’s photostream on Flickr.
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There’s a beach just west of Accra called Kokrobite that seems so far from my everyday life of metro-boulot-dodo, but in geographical terms is not. This is where I spent this past weekend.
Kokrobite(some native English-speakers spell it Kokrobitey to underline the correct pronunciation, including the “e”) is situated one hour from Tema, 30 minutes from Accra on a good day with little traffic around Mallam junction leading out west from Accra. This backpackers hide-out is complete with cheap accommodation (can wholly recommend Bah’doosh where I stayed this time), Rastafarians, palm trees, cold beer and a beautiful and crowded beach with a glittering and wavy ocean.
Everytime I go, I bring only a pair of flip-flops, a piece of African print that can make a dress or a wrap or a towel or a headgear, a flowy white cotton top to avoid sunburn and my colorful patchwork trousers (bought in Kokrobite last year)- all of which goes with a bikini and some beads around the wrists.
My husband and I also take a long the books we never get to read. In the mornings we have breakfast in the shade reading together, something that is terribly nerdy, I know, but just screams vacation to me. Swedish celebrity blogger Alexandra Pascalidou has made beach life her everyday life in Thailand for a couple of months. It should be possible to do the same in Ghana.
Some people might have ulterior and somewhat more “smokey” reasons to come to Kokrobite, but as for me I just find it relaxing without any additives. It is like I took a plane to vacation land. But I didn’t. Did I say this place is an hour away from home?
Pic: This is how happy I feel on the beach.
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I woke up on Monday to find a kiosk outside our wall, just next to the carport. A blue stall, common for selling Ghanaian fast foods had just appeared over night. Instantly, I felt a bit pissed off: this unauthorized tiny building had been erected right in my reverse turn radius, making getting out in the morning with my car much more difficult.
-Good morning! You must try my waakye!
The lady preparing and selling the fast food looks at me with a bright smile offering me some Ghanaian brown rice cooked with beans, waakye. I smile back. Maybe it is not all that bad having fast food available 10 meters from my front door.
Recipy for waakye here.
In the pic, people in line at another food stand.
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We go to a restaurant close to work to have some lunch. I order a salad. And then look around the big open space. And see following mural.
Saddam, Blair, Bin Laden and W. Bush are enjoying a meal together! Interestingly they are all eating Ghanaian dishes. Saddam eats banku and dried fish, Blair fried rice, Bin Laden dips his hand into fufu with goat soup and Bush plantain with kontomire stew. Maybe a top-level meeting like this could have solved some issues? At least it would’ve spread the word about the delicious Ghanaian cuisine.
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In the quite chaotic Ghanaian traffic there are a number of things that brighten my day. These days we tend to mostly complain about the many car crashes, the traffic jams, people failing to adhere to traffic rules and regulations or the regulators of the traffic flows being outright silly.
As a counter balancing act I here will list my favorite elements of the Ghanaian traffic, you are welcome to add to it!
1. People are friendly and will let you in to any queue, no matter how slowly it moves, if you give a sign like twitching your headlights or raising your eyebrows.
2. Funny vehicles like the pearly white Mercedes with the Registration “JESUS 1” (Oh Lord, won’t you buy me…), the itsy-bitsy small truck that is loaded with chocolate (Think Ompa-Lompas) or the hot pink pick-up (Barbie’s car!).
3. If you make a mistake, there is room for it, because mistakes happen all the time…
4. When reversing out from a tight spot there is always someone there to direct you.
3. FAVORITE The random messages displayed in the back windows of the public transport Tro-tro’s, like the one in the picture above, “THEY ACT AS LOVERS”.
What do you make of that?
Im clueless. Is it an accusation? A biblical message? A warning to the public? A general statement being true in different situations?
Thinking about this I have a happier and even a bit thankful drive to work.
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The heading means “I feel lucky” in Ghana’s biggest local language Twi. And that is just how I felt stumbling across Google Twi Kasa – Google in Twi!
I mean, it isn’t strange, its the first language of 40 percent of Ghanaians, which translates into some 10 million people. For some perspective that’s more people than the whole Swedish population!
In the official statistics Internet users in Ghana are still few, but on the street in Accra and other bigger cities there are many Internet cafes (most successful is this one), information technology courses are popular and social networking sites for Ghanaians keep springing up. Some hope Ghana will follow in India’s footsteps and become an IT-economy. Well, then this is a definite first step.
Pic generated with this site.
>For your information, Da Vinci has been released. Apparantly, he was “bush crab” (according to my know-it-all husband) and consequently let loose in the bush not far from our house. Good luck to you, dear Da Vinci!
>Our crab is now called Da Vinci. And yeah, we have high expectations on his future achievements.
>The other day when my husband was entering our house in the evening he saw something running sideways next to his foot… 
…it turned out to be a 15 cm (6 inches) long crab with big claws!
Since we live a 10 minute drive from the seaside, it probably didn’t walk to our neigborhood, but more likely escaped from someone who had bought it to make soup. The local specialty Palmnut soup is not quite the same without whole, fresh crabs, hence they are bought alive.
The – in my eyes enormous – crab has now been adopted as our pet and lives in a cold box in our kitchen feeding off toast and tomato. However, it doesn’t have a name yet. What do you think we should name it?
In conclusion, there is not only rain in Africa, but also plenty of seafood!
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So there are also so upsides to the life of being sambo (for you non-Swedes that is the excellent Swedish term for a status more formal than xfriend, more sexy than cohabitant and as almost as common – and legally binding – as married, at least in Sweden. The term can also be used to describe the actual person-you-live-together-with, as in “my sambo made dinner”). Anyway, the sunshine I am talking about is that it turns out my sambo is an excellent driver’s instructor! I never made it to a driver’s license back in Sweden, always had too many other things to do. Since I came to Ghana my sambo has encouraged me to learn how to drive, “look if I can do it you can too!” and gradually I have started to look at Ghanaian traffic not as a honking mess, but as a flow I could take part of.
So, this Sunday after breakfast in bed (love Sundays!) I tell him, let’s go practice driving. We go to this big field, red dirt and some car tires to practice steering through. A few other cars driven by people with highly concentrated faces slowly circle around. I think me and mom once went to a similar place in my hometown, but I can’t remember if I even managed to start the car. I feel nervous as we change seats. Then it happens, a calm voice clearly explains what to do and before I know it I am confidently moving forward. He looks amazingly calm where he sits next to a complete fresh driver, says “concentrate on the gears, I have the mirrors” and “you’re doing fine, you can speed up”. And I am giving gas, steering, changing gears, braking and, yes, I am driving.
