As I prepare to depart for the Persian Gulf, my thoughts are of...Africa? Visiting colleagues from Ghana in Canada, retrieving my Ghanaian music collection, and watching 'Blood Diamonds' has set a tone, I think. Blood Diamonds had some insightful one-liners and introduced the audience to a lot of issues about white people in Africa. But it is still a film intended for a Hollywood audience, and many sacrifices had to me made to cater to the objective of making the film accessible.
My experience in Ghana was nothing like the film's depiction of Sierre Leone -- even when under military dictatorship, Ghana was quite peaceful, and Ghana has been a model democracy for the last 8 years. Though tribalism occurs in Ghana just like everywhere else in Africa, the dominance of the Ashanti, the limited role of colonialism in Ghana at playing tribes against each other [that statement is very debateable], and the cultural priority of having a good time first [though this seems to be a pan-West African cultural trait], seems to have kept Ghanaians loving each other over the last 50 years of independence, unlike most of their neighbours.
Some clips I found on YouTube that help illustrate some of my experiences in Ghana...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st13lz8EmAUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi_sxqlwRNY
Kumasi's Kejetia station/market. Kumasi's the capital of the Ashanti Kingdom, and Ghana's second largest city, but much older than Accra and therefore actual feels like a city rather than an extended village.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FZj2hoI1f4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyRumEg2_og
These clips belong in my "Cultural Lesson: Taking public transit" post. The first is a shot of being on a tro-tro stuck in traffic, I'm assuming as a result of a car accident. Hawkers quickly fill every crevasse with goods to be sold -- their entrepreneurial spirit never fails to amaze me. Very similar to the experience of waiting for the tro-tro to fill, or of any tro-tro station in Ghana for that matter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bCeBCy0Bm4
A typical Sunday at church. Sometimes these events would go until 4am -- piercing voices over amplifiers and speakers set 5 notches louder than they [or my ears] could stand. Outfits 5 notches too bright for my eyes, and food 5 times too spicy to be enjoyable. But GOD DO I MISS IT!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s07oBh007Jw
Very typical of streets in Accra. The kiosks on the side of the road selling phone units, the concrete 'drinking spots', the drains/open sewers lining the roads, about one third of the buildings being under construction [it seems to take at least 10 years to finish a building] and dust, dust, dust. Though there's a serious lack of laughing in this video -- a key feature of Ghanaian life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBgQO5-VN6Q
Aaah, Accra's busy Kaneshie Market, right next to Accra's largest tro-tro station, Circle. This place was Cheryl [a fellow CIDA intern in Accra]'s idea of hell. Very lively, very claustrophobic.
http://www.ghana50.gov.gh/
The official website of Ghana@50 - the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence. Includes a video of Kwame Nkrumah's famous speech "The battle has ended. And Ghana, your beloved country is free forever". Still looking for the Ghana@50 theme song though...
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