Tag: history

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 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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the sun set over the ocean with tide pools in the foreground

Vieques: An Island Getaway on your Island Getaway

February 19, 2016

Most people head to Puerto Rico as their very own island getaway; sun, surf, sand, what more could you ask for. Turns out there’s another island that you could stop off at for a few days to have an island getaway from you island getaway: Vieques.

But why would you want to go out of your way to get there? Sun, surf and sand are already covered, remember? How about some of the best diving and snorkel spots, the best bioluminescent waters and beaches all to yourself.

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View from a rocky ridge over a mixed evergreen and hardwood forest

5 Days in the Backcountry of Isle Royale

October 2, 2015

The sun shone down on my face from the peak of its daily ascent. I lay there, on some of the oldest rocks in the world with my feet dangling over the edge of the ridge, dozing in the mid-day heat and taking a break from my ritual of the day.

The ritual of meticulously placing my hiking pole in a spot that would support and balance me as I swung my foot up onto the rocky ridge in front of me, pushing myself forward on the stretch of trail that is routinely referred to as “the hardest trail in Michigan” only to catch myself as I picked my way down the rocks back into the boreal forest. The process would repeat itself less than a quarter mile later.

I lay there, along with the lichen, soaking up the late September sun and allowing it to turn the sweat on my brow into salt lines, giving me a faux aged look, until the call of a bull moose rang out from the wilderness below my feet spurred me up and onto my destination for the day, still a few hard miles on down the trail.

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2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami: 10 Years Later

December 26, 2014

While for most people that I know, today is a day to relax and enjoy the afterglow from the previous days’ festivities, here in Thailand and across Southeast and Southern Asia it is a day of remembrance. Ten years ago today, the most destructive tsunami in modern history tore through the Indian Ocean and took the lives of over 227,000 people, with more than 5,000 confirmed in Thailand, alone. To this day, there are around 3,000 people who are still missing.

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Bpai Tiao: a Trip to the Border in Kanchanaburi

August 19, 2014

In Thailand, a bpai tiao is a trip of any length. I’ve written about some of my more significant bpai tiaos to tourist destinations here, to be used as travel ideas and tips.

Last week was Mother’s Day weekend, so I took the opportunity to travel to the other side of the country, which has piqued my interest for quite some time: Kanchanaburi. I had heard stories of beautiful national parks and of the storied history of the provincial capital’s key involvement in World War II, and so I packed up my tent and headed west, all the way to the Burmese border.

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