Global Voices posts

We have a new site www.g-lish.org where you can read all articles from This is Ghana in a much more organised fashion. Read Global Voices posts there.

I'm contributing to Global Voices, a brilliant new media site that, in its own words, "aggregates, curates, and amplifies the global conversation online – shining light on places and people other media often ignore." Check out the coverage on Iran.

Incidentally, one of the GV founders, Mr Ethan Zuckerman, is the excellent author of My Heart's in Accra.

I'll link my posts as they are published. Here was the first one, summarised:

"Bloggers around the world speculate about President Obama's choice to visit
Ghana first in sub-Saharan Africa. Across the continent Africans have been
asking, “Why Ghana?” Many commentators are suggesting that the choice to visit
Ghana first is an explicit endorsement of the nation's recent peaceful elections
and that the USA values peace and democracy above personal affiliations and more powerful nations."

Rainy season bounty

We have a new site www.g-lish.org where you can read all articles from This is Ghana in a much more organised fashion. Read Rainy season bounty there.

Gotta love the rainy season: verdant fields sprouting maize, temperatures dropping below 30, and goats tied up so they don't jump over the wall and eat my veggie patch and everyone else's crops. The mud huts are typical of this region. Those are out the back of our place. Round for women, square for men. The danger is that too much rain can soften the mud bricks so that the buildings collapse. Everyone is busily mending weak structures (bit late, but Ghana time...). I helped smooth the wall of an old Auntie's dwelling recently. It was one of my best experiences in Ghana. Her part was beautifully smooth, mine was kind of lumpy. They use especially polished quartz stones to smooth the mud that is hand mixed and slapped up. The connection was great.

This looks almost black and white but it was at dusk, just after the storm.

Navrongo Cathedral

We have a new site www.g-lish.org where you can read all articles from This is Ghana in a much more organised fashion. Read Navrongo Cathedral there.

I took this in Navrongo, Upper East Region, Ghana. The church is completely built of mud bricks. I found a little history about it here :

"It's origins date back to April 23, 1906 when Fathers Morin and Chollet and
Brother Eugene arrived at the English military quarters of Navarro (Navrongo) in
Northern Gold Coast (Ghana) with the intention of establishing a Catholic
mission station there under the name of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows."

This building is opposite. Almost looks Australian.

A proper Pucking mess

We have a new site www.g-lish.org where you can read all articles from This is Ghana in a much more organised fashion. Read A proper Pucking mess there.

Plans delay again

dreams, those apparitions, tease

intentions fizzle.

“He” flitters away

(he’s an evil little Puck)

just as you press SHIFT.

Suffocates your will,

as smoke smothers oxygen,

choking you to death.

A Macbeth, if you

like, murderer of dreams, “he”,

the “King of Rot Land”.
Development is

futile if you’re in bed with

this bully Brutus.

“He” disappoints time

and again, this reckless, this

feckless fellow, “he”.

Keeping you under

his thumb; good population

Bound, prostate, sedate.

Your father would guard

against this Iago like

your grandfather; poised behind

the chimney, shotgun ready

taking aim when "he" appears.
But when “he” cocks his

pistol, you “byte” another

bullet…[pixilate].

Why submit to this

fiendish fellow? The friend of

complacency, of

sated bureaucracy, of

apathy and poor planning?

Unaccountable

this power tripping Caesar

Aba! Abaaze?
Who is this fiend, “he”?

If the reality were

Oh so poetic…

Electricity

Company of Ghana is

who is this “He”. Coming to

a power grid near you—“No

time soon oh! This Ghana, ah!”

Leery of it all

“Nothing can come of nothing"

and so banish us

to the powerless state where

our hopes hover, ever

forward never, so

it seems, destined to wallow

and rot tomorrow.

Pray, don’t slit your throat.

Only dead people give up

when power corrupts.
If only I could

take solace in my own words.

Unfinished…

Life in the Fast Lane

We have a new site www.g-lish.org where you can read all articles from This is Ghana in a much more organised fashion. Read Life in the Fast Lane there.

"Life in the fast lane"

The gentleman sitting on his haunches on the right says it all.
Poor old goats on the roof; they're always getting a bum deal.
By the way, this is a trotro-a bit bigger than usual.

Before sunset: After the "saa"

We have a new site www.g-lish.org where you can read all articles from This is Ghana in a much more organised fashion Before sunset: After the "saa" there.

So, "saa" finally fell and this beautiful sky greeted us in the evening. This is just outside Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region. Everything is turning green. It's lovely.

Blogging for a cause: Global Voices advocacy

We have a new site www.g-lish.org where you can read all articles from This is Ghana in a much more organised fashion. Read Blogging for a cause: Global Voices advocacy there.


This post is to support Global Voices Advocacy, a non-profit organization and sister project of Global Voices Online. Global Voices Advocacy advocates on behalf of the rights of bloggers and journalists around the world. It is often the first major source to break stories (such as LinkedIn’s recent block of Syrian users or the arrest of Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan) since it has on-the-ground resources in various countries internationally. It is worth supporting!

This blog post is part of Zemanta's "Blogging For a Cause" campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.