In my preparations for Ghana, I’ve been reading a variety of articles about Ghana, its people and its culture, which have all been fascinating and only heighten my excitement. Here are some of the best ones that I’ve read so far.
The Fantasy Coffins of Ghana
The finished coffins are smooth to the touch, painted in vibrant shades that shine despite the seasonal Harmattan dust coating every surface. Inside the workshop, a group of young apprentices saw grooves into a block of wood that will become a coffin in the shape of a cocoa pod. Founded in the 1950s by Seth Kane Kwei, this is thought to be the oldest coffin shop specializing inabebuu adekai: proverb boxes.
This look at one a unique fusion of arts and rituals in Ghana from Roads and Kingdoms is delightful. Akinyi Ochieng does an excellent interview with the grandson of the man who started the trend of having a fantasy coffin and covers the history of how they came to be. I particularly liked learning about the use of the coffins in artworks.
Ghana’s Eco Friendly Bamboo Bikes
This woman-run business combines two things that many of the more environmentally conscious hold up: bamboo (a fast-growing, renewable resource) and biking (a carbon-free mode of transportation). But for me, I love that she employs artists for decorating the bikes.
How Ghana’s Pro-Gay, Anti-Religion, Naked Rapper Gets Away With It
Getting naked on national television would be a risky career move for an entertainer in any country, but it was especially daring in Ghana, which a 2012 poll found to be the world’s “most religious country.” And while the stunt garnered plenty of condemnation, it also won Wanlov accolades from younger fans. In other words, Wanlov got away with it. He’s been pushing boundaries in Ghana ever since, inspiring reactions that say a lot about the West African country.
As I mentioned in my last post, about the things I was most excited to learn about and experience in Ghana, music is up there on the list. Learning about this artist was a nice way of seeing someone would is considering more underground, or at least not mainstream, and I’d like to explore this niche more.
Letter from Africa: Ghana’s fondness for creative language
Faced with a difficult situation in Ghana, our coping mechanism involves trying to make a joke out of the situation.
Thus, when we have had problems with unreliable electricity supply in the past three years, we have tried to find the funny part of groping in the dark and food going bad in fridges.
Another one of the things that I’m looking forward to in Ghana is learning a new language, and this article, about how Ghanaians have gotten creative with their language just tickles me. From “dumsor,” an invented word used to refer to power outages, getting a Wikipedia entry and crossing boarders to the name of an undercover reporter being turned into a a variety of verbs, I find all of it very charming.
Ghanaian Hustle
Sure it’s possible to make all this stuff in Ghana, but the conventional wisdom is that making stuff in Ghana is expensive, and the products are of low quality, and why bother when you can get it made, ten times quicker, and ten times cheaper, in a factory in Guangzhou?
Suame Magazine wants to be the reason why.
So much of the international media that surrounds the African continent is one that perpetuates a narrative of it being war-torn with gritty survivors who are shining examples. I really liked this story because it was really an in-depth look into something that is a big part of the Ghanaian economy, importing foreign goods, and how a collective of people are working to fight that kind of globalizations, or at least turn it into something that they can turn a profit on.
Have you read any excellent pieces of international reporting recently?
Featured image by Yepoka Yeebo, from the Ghanaian Hustle story.