Category: Africa

a young man in a marching band playing the trumpet and looking at the camera

Winneba’s Brass Band Festival

September 20, 2016

Music is seemingly everywhere in Ghana. It’s rare to have a truly quiet moment outside of normal sleeping hours, and even normal sleeping hours don’t always stop the tunes from wafting through the neighborhood. There is a proud history and tradition of music in Ghana, particularly the homegrown genre of highlife, which is a fusion of 1950s jazz, swing and brass bands and traditional Ghanaian drumming, beats and guitar styles. But highlife wouldn’t exist without the influence of brass bands.

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a man wearing traditional clothing and holding large feathers

Celebrating Afahye in Cape Coast

September 13, 2016

It was dark and the evening was in full swing. Traffic was simply not moving anywhere, forwards or backwards, and there were competing sound systems every 10 meters or so. People crowded throughout the streets, hands grasping sausages on sticks or bottles of beer, shouting to friends, jockeying to get a good position to watch some dancers or dancing themselves. Not only was it Friday, it was the night before the climax of the Afahye (uh-fah-SHAY) Festival in Cape Coast

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A transparent picture of a boy on a canoe overlaid with #Stop Slavery Ghana

Combatting Modern Slavery in Ghana

August 12, 2016

A couple months ago, the US State Department released the 2016 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report and it was not good news for Ghana. For the second year in a row, Ghana was placed on the Tier 2 Watch List, which means that if the government does not make significant anti-trafficking efforts, next year Ghana must be downgraded to Tier 3, losing around $600 million of aid from the United States.

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the back of a red sedan style car, the kantanka gyewohodi

Kantanka: Ghana’s First Car Company

July 29, 2016

The international image of Africa is often one of extremes: extreme poverty, extreme conflicts, extreme animals. But these stories overlook some of the more nuanced versions of things happening here, particularly the tech and innovations coming from Africans for Africans. With that in mind, I’d like to introduce you to the Kantanka manufacturing company.

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a view from above a seated woman with large pots around her as she makes konkonte

4 Staple Starches of Ghanaian Cuisine

July 22, 2016

One thing that most cultures have is a staple food — something that is eaten with every meal. In many Asian countries, including Thailand, it’s rice. In Ghana, there are a couple of different versions of the staple, but they are all essentially a pounded starch mixed with a bit of water to make a kind of dough that is then dipped or dunked in soups and sauces or pinched with fish and meat.

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A gold colored statue of Kwame Nkrumah with his arm raised pointing forward

All About Ghana’s Republic Day

July 1, 2016

This weekend is a three-day weekend, and not because of July 4th, America’s Independence Day. Here in Ghana, today is Republic Day, which is separate and different from Ghana’s Independence Day (March 6).

On this day, in 1960, Kwame Nkrumah was inaugurated as the first president of the first independent Black African nation. But it took some time to get to that point.

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a man in a red military jacked and a woman in a white wedding dress walking down the aisle

Getting Married on Ghana Time: a Ghanaian Wedding

April 12, 2016

“Ten a.m. And actually at ten, not Ghana time,” Pomaa said. “Because it is at the Catholic church and they are on time.”

Pomaa’s brother was getting married in Accra and she had invited us to attend, and I was very excited to go. It was time to nail down the details, in order to arrange everything.

“It’s at the Catholic church by the post office, Martyrs of Uganda, and it will be a joint wedding with his best friend. And he is a military man, so I think that maybe it might even be early,” she continued. “The colors of the wedding are red, gold and white. Can wear whatever, but Ghanaians try to match the colors. I’m going to be wearing red and white.”

After figuring out some of the travel details with my roommate and predecessor, all that was left was for Saturday to arrive.

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a close up of jollof rice, rice cooked with tomato and thus with a reddish color

West Africa’s Famous Dish, Jollof Rice: a Recipe

April 8, 2016

Last weekend, two of my new co-workers came over to the house, which I currently share with the woman who I am replacing, and the four of us took part in a time-honored, cross-cultural tradition of sharing food and recipes.

We taught each other how to make a couple of dishes that we enjoyed from our respective cultures and I got to know a couple of the people that I will be working with in a more informal setting, which was really nice.

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