Record Crazy

Growing up I’d read about people who did extraordinary feats and some people who were paranormal from books and stories that you’d only find if you were nerdy enough to go to the library or see a magazine lying somewhere. Some people also compiled some small books with great titles that were pretty informative just looking at the titles. Dictators of the world, The Richest people in the world, The Ice Age, African forests, Major rivers in the world, The Amazon, etc. These are a few of the titles of that yellow cover book I remember.

There were also geographical titles about places in the world like Australia, Iceland, Antarctica, etc and such books like National Geographic were handy. I think in time the seven wonders of the world as we know it are not wonders anymore with the evolution of technology and architectural designs especially in the Middle East such as Dubai, the Burj Khalifa and the Palm island amongst others in China and Asia in general.

Oh let’s not forget the numerous encyclopedias (Encyclopedia Britannica especially) that nobody paid attention to go the libraries all around. These encyclopedias contained Tory useful information if you knew what you’re looking for. I think recently I had to teach some junior high students how exciting encyclopedias can be.

Now with the birth and popularity of the world wide world and very recently AI, wonders of the world are everywhere and they’re easily accessible. Information is spread fast on social media and other platforms and it’s easy access to information everywhere.

The Guinness Book of Records is one of such books which was very difficult to come by and easily access. People who did extraordinary things and found themselves in this book were pretty obscure people recognized only in some circles as record holders. A record holder in some category could just walk past you and you wouldn’t even know that was the person. Moreover records in the book weren’t updated too frequently so it took some time for records to be gazetted and put in the next edition of the book.

Now all of a sudden the book is accessible and people who believe can do extraordinary things can apply, create or break records that exist in the book. There are also all sorts of records in all categories. All one has to do is go through the record book and see what one can do to break it. The feats gradually are becoming benign and not that much interesting anymore.

So in the spate of a year there have been a myriad of attempts at various records in the book and some of the attempts are just repetitive of each other especially the cookathons. At a point in time there were three attempts at breaking the record for the longest cooking by an individual in various parts of the world. The biggest amongst them that caught national attention was the one held in Modern City Hotel in Tamale by Chef Failatu. This was a few days after another Ghanaian had attempted to break the record for longest singing individual dubbed Singathon.

Oh then there came the standathon that went bust after a few hours it had started. Dude wanted to stand in one place for a week to break the record of longest standing. He gave up after just a few hours.

Then there was the kissathon. A couple tried to kiss each other into bliss but ended up in oblivion instead. Interestingly the woman in the kissing challenge had her face covered to hide her identity. Later when somebody was accused to be the one she denied it but this too went bust.

Heard also about another guy who dressed models in makeup for a couple of seconds to attempt set a record of fastest makeup artistry.

Oh and there’s the longest playing DJ record attempt that also has ended recently.

When I started this article all the thons had ended and for those who had gone through the process they were awaiting results from Guinness World. As I have picked up the writing today there is only one cookathon record breaking attempts going on and he’s been cooking for over a month.. March 6 marks Ghana independence day and dude intends to feed some children who participate in the parade and when he’s done he will turn off his gas stove. He’d have been cooking for almost 50days. Wishing him all the best.

One thing that has come up from observation is that the Guinness world record attempts come with some pretty stringent rules but as usual Africans that we are we flout these rules expecting to get away with it because rules are made for our convenience and not the other way round. In the light of this, it is not surprising that our most popular record breaking attempts, the Afua Singathon and the Faila Cookathon were both disqualified on flouting rules. They stretched the rules to the limit and like Guinness I also wish them well in their endeavors.

Considering that there is no prize money for such attempts, what do you think is the gain from a record attempt apart from your name in the book recognized for that record.

Having been a witness to what happened with the singing and the cooking, I believe the participants can leverage on how popular they became to boost whatever business venture or brand influence they have. Brands get onboard these things to be visible and promote their products. It could be a lifetime of partnership and business opportunities if the popularity and attention gained from these events are handled properly.

But indeed as Africans we need to get away from our perennial copy cat syndrome where persons wait for others to start something and they think they can do it better and just copy what other people be doing. It is a sad case of reinventing and not building something new. Moving away from this will facilitate several start ups and doing more for ourselves rather than depending on others for livelihood.

Like I always say it begins with YOU!

Political Polarity

Politics in Africa has been intense and very tumultuous when it comes to who the politics should really be about. It is quite unfortunate or fortunate, depending on where you’re looking at it from, or when it benefits you, that politics hasn’t changed throughout the epochs. For those of us who’ve read Shakespeare’s Coriolanus or Henrik Ibsen’s A Man of the People, the diffrent political systems and traditions are described from two different societies, British and Norwegian.

In Coriolanus, the person elected by the plebiscite later grows wings and forgets that it is the power of the people that he wields and the people that gave him the power can take it any time. Politicians court public opinion and support when they’re candidates. They are easily accessible during this time when they want to get the favor of the people touting what the people want so they are on the people’s side. But immediately they win and are given the power, there’s a seemingly about face. Does this sound familiar?

In A Man of the People, we see the price a man has to pay in every aspect of his life for standing for the truth. Inasmuch as his notions were noble, even the very people he was standing for turned against him in the end based on each factions personal interest. Honesty and integrity is a lonely road especially in a political situation where the system is so cast.

Now let’s add two more books about politics and link to our political systems especially in Africa. George Orwell’s Animal Farm is about political disparity and where people stand. At a point four legs is good but two legs is better. In another instance two legs is good and four legs is better. Politics is always polarized into the incumbent, the opposition and then the others. In all instances it is the others who’s attention is being sought because they haven’t made up their mind on which side of the divide in the usual two horse race. Is this also familiar?

The last book to talk about is the age old laid down manual for dictatorship. Guess which book it is. If you’re a student of political science or an avid reader of classics you’d have got this one straight off the bat. It’s the most abridged and adapted book of all time for rulers and invariably politicians. It is the political manual of all time. Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Princes. This book details how to win the people’s favor by giving them what they want and further on after getting the power, how to ensure that the power stays with the politician.

The book was adapted by Libya’s Qadaffi, who wrote his own version The Green Book and before then there are examples of leaders who have taken a leaf from this book notably Adolf Hitler and Stalin.

Politicians seek the people’s mandate and by politics the society ends up being polarized. Even within the same two horse race, there are reverb factions that can be formed within the one party with some people making moves against others within the same political entity. Recently we have seen a lot of that all over the world and especially in African countries where some incumbent governments have even been forced to go out of their parties to form coalition governments because of the polarity of the people who vote. Is this also familiar?

Back here in Ghana, recently we have seen what happened with the incumbent party in the 2024 when during their primaries to select a candidate for the polls, a four legs good two legs better situation appeared where a favorite candidate felt that some powers that be thought it better to push another candidate and sabotage his candidacy though he is the populist choice. The end result is that this candidate breaks away from the party to form his own offshoot party and carry his followers along. Obviously the main party will also take a leaf from any of these books and treat such a person with disdain and as an outcast thus using all sorts of information to discredit the candidate. Well this is closer to home so I wont ask you if you’ve seen a yellow butterfly.

Families have been polarized politically sometimes strategically for economic gain whilst others who probably don’t know better are polarized politically because of ideals or traditions. Either way in Africa when your political party has the power, it is a surety that you stand to gain more of an advantage over another person who’s in opposition. It all depends though on what the politicians stand to gain from whatever transaction which is usually and mostly not about the people that it should be about in the first place.

Politicians have been the same throught the ages and been using the same underhanded methods of horse and carrot to bait the plebiscite into thinking they’re for their interests and then when they get the power it becomes a season of selfishness.

It is up to the plebiscite therefore to educate themselves and recognize these underhand tricks and work against them. It is unfortunate that some of the elder plebiscite having realized this rather play along and seek to enrich themselves at the detriment of the collective. Does this now sound pretty familiar and close to home?

It is about time the common people realize who politicians are and work as a collective to hold them accountable to the public interest. Common folk have to educate themselves about what politics is truly about and how actually wields the power. When this is known it is easier to choose better candidates based on which candidate can get the job done in the interest of everyone and not based on who has the most money to buy delegates gifts or who makes the biggest promises.

In this cause we are all common people, the plebiscite, will you let the politicians always take us for a ride of promises and attempts to make things better whilst we don’t hold them accountable but based on polarity rather defend them when we’re on the same side and condemn when on the other side of the two horse race.

Like I always say it begins with YOU!!

The Soup

When we hear of light soup what comes to mind is on organized body in a bowl with proteins carefully and deliberately arranged in whatever orders, sometimes even chaotic.

Alas this was not the case when I opened the bowl flask that had been handed to me that contained soup. Maybe because of the way I’d handled the bowl, more like a child sent to the nearest chop bar to get the wicked aunties their favorite soup, when I opened it , the soup was splattered all over the bowl. Soup everywhere.

But it wasn’t the gooey visual splatter that gets to you as much as the aroma of the soup. It hits a nerve and sends you straight to grandma’s kitchen with the asbestos slate sheets and earth fireplaces and the big clay earthenware pot in the corner for water. The aroma of the soup has time warp properties. It is the kind of soup that of jokingly talked about that we could eat a ball of kenkey to its aroma whilst we waited for the soup to get ready.

Already salivating I soup the pour, oops, its vice versa. I pour the soup into a silverware ready to heat it not only to have it hot but savor the rich aroma all over again.. Cant resist a taste of it whilst heating it and…
This soup has the capability too of creating confusion as to what exactly to eat with it to savor its full potential. With banku or kenkey will make you feel like a patient, with rice, well too normal, with gari, I don’t know. What will go with it is some heavy fufu, face the wall or omo tuo. I remind myself that I had some spare ball of “rice gun” hiding in the fridge from the weekend. Quickly went to fetch it and plonk it directly into the soup.

It is time now to labour in eating the meal. The soup is now a hot mess of a zoo with all kinds of protein, I see what’s remained of the scattered catfish head, parts of some dry fish, there’s wele, pieces of meat bones (the meat is so tender it has come off the bones) and for good measure all being guarded by a few pieces of kpakpo shito popping in and out whenever the spoon hits the soupy mess.

With the kinda soup eaten directly from the saucepan, suffice it to say that eating at a dining table is out of the question. Right there on the living room floor, at least I did one better not on the kitchen floor, in front of the television. The soup went down pretty well and after the rice ball was all gone, it wasn’t attractive to eat with anything else so just kept eating the soup and unraveling the gooey maze of bones and whatever the spoon drew up from the silverware.

Then when that was done and all gone, now had to apply the fingers to get to the corners of the bowl and also the thick traces that were stuck the the bowl.

This indeed was a meal and all the time I kept thinking this is a culmination of when mummy’s training meets professional training and several years of experience. For one bowl of soup to be able to invoke a potpurri (no pun intended) of emotions that transcend time and place (this soup could’ve been served anywhere in the world) could only mean that whoever is behind it also transcends time and place per her experiences too.

Well they say you have to understand the artist to understand their art. Ma Fatima Peregrino, you do all! Salute!

You’ll find Ma Fatima at Sugar and Spice, a coffee shop in Kanvili, a suburb of Tamale, churning out culinary delights that will create a lasting impression on your taste buds.

Check out Sugar and Spice Tamale on all social media and place your orders whenever you’re in Tamale.

Give yourself a treat. It begins with you.

The Soup

The Soup

Remembrance Day

Friday January 24, 2023 will stay with me as a day for reflection and awakening for many years to come. I guess you’d wonder why and don’t worry i won’t hold back, I’ll tell you. It was the day that the renown Pan-Africanist, lawyer and speaker Prof PLO Lumumba passed through Tamale of all places, on his way to a festival, to hold court for just a few hours. But the level of inspiration he left in his wake, in those few hours, will remain with a lot of us for a long time.

The Savanna International Academy, the only fully Cambridge affiliated school up in northern Ghana arranged for prof to come inspire the students as part of their core values to teach students Service, Integrity and Respect program.  In an interaction with just the students, Prof admonished the students, as the future of Africa to read the history of Africa and strive to learn the African values of the past and never neglect the sense of communalism that characterized African society.

With regards to respect, he mentioned that Africans have always respected ourselves even though we were subjected to several atrocities by Europeans including slavery and colonization. According to him, loving Africa in all its shapes and forms is the only way Africans can come together to make Africa proud. As the second largest continent, Africa is very diverse and there is the need to collaborate and learn the different systems so we can forge ahead together as one continent. How come this is the continent with all the world’s resources yet the poorest. Pan Africanism is the thought that Africa can rise again and be a major player in global affairs.

On the question of corruption, corruption has become so embedded in the system that the system fights whoever wants to tackle corruption but it is important that at a young age, integrity be embedded and that is the only way to fight corruption, at the root before it takes gain.

He said that in tackling corruption, the corrupt will target to fight back and a man who wants to change society is a very lonely man. Citing the story of Dr Stockmann, the main character in the book, An Enemy of the People, who tried to fight corruption in the system, Prof admonished that fighting corruption is a very lonely road. He emphasized that the history of the fight of corruption are characterized by people who had stood alone because it’s a lonely fight. You have to stay on the straight path yourself to be able to fight corruption.

‘Corruption can only be fought when the seeds of goodness and integrity are planted in the hearts and minds of people, at this age’ he said.

He finally challenged everybody to have a dialogue with their conscience. That talk to yourself from morning till sun down what have you done today that you are not proud of. That way everyone seems to check themselves per their own integrity and one by one becomes a crowd of good people and an army of people fighting corruption. Corrupt people are always afraid to be alone by themselves because then, their conscience will convict them.

Prof asks the students to have dialogue with themselves and ask what good they have done during the day. ‘Whenever a man had encountered God and the truth, they have always been alone.’

A person’s values are the last thing that hold a person in high regard. Every man should have a set of values that they don’t compromise on and this would guide them to do right.

Even after all these pearls of wisdom whilst he interacted with the students he came out to meet the public and spewed more words of awareness and awakening. In his public speech, Prof alluded to the dreams of some pan Africanists and how some people such as the founders of the school are working tirelessly and selflessly to achieve the African dream. To this he said that education is the best tool for awakening and apart from reading, it is important that Africans get educated so they can form an army to fight the global war because the global war now is not a war of weapons but a battle of ideas and intellect. Education is important to get the African a seat at the table of global negotiations and not go in blindly.

He admonished the students to open up their heart and minds because that is where the battle will be fought and won. He asked that the youth be prepared and that he was no longer afraid knowing that the youth are courageous and determined to study in the laboratories of their minds to prepare Africa for the battle at hand. He said history has the stubborn habit of not remembering those who started well but rather those who finished well. So therefore they young ones should start well and also finish well.

In a speech by the school SRC president, she thanked the Prof for his words of encouragement and before presenting him with an artwork by a student at the school, declared the day as PLO Lamumba Day at Savanna International Academy.

The convenor, Mr Monnah then took the mic to give a significant flashback. On this same date, Dr. Nkrumah had been overthrown in Ghana and on that same date, it has been declared PLO Lamumba Day in SIA.  Indeed, Nkrumah never dies, he said.

In summary this was a good day and being a student and a teacher of history, the awakening of pan Africanism was a pretty rude one. Africa indeed will rise again. Let’s teach the young ones our history so they learn the African values that our generation seem to have lost. Lets prepare them for the global battle to challenge children from other parts of the world and through them Africa will take a seat at the global table.

Indeed it is might seem a daunting task but each one of us has a duty to impart as much knowledge as possible.

It begins with YOU!

Royal Priesthood

So on a visit to a friend, me and twinny had a good time and there were very interesting topics that came up for discussions . We talked about almost everything that came to mind and realized that we had so much to do in this life not just physically but also spiritually. We have been called to do so much yet we have limited ourselves to do so little. “God are watching you..” (in obinim’s voice)

Sleeping that night after a bit of meditation I realized that there was a whole lot of inter connection between the priests of God and us normal believers that we take for granted. (For where I’m going to talk about now it will take people who know these people to understand what I’m driving at).

So there’s the retired solider head pastor at the top, down to earth jovial and affable. His adopted son marries his biological daughter and becomes his boss in the convention by virtue of education. He’s the father of the sons of Adam. He’s brought up, mentored and nurtured many other priests including the converted Muslim prophet and man of God whose story is almost the same as the father of missions who was once a council of state member who happens to the the father in law of the three different priests who marry his daughters. He’s the father of the daughters of Eve.

These men of God are working tirelessly in the vineyard of God and doing exploits and many people are blessed in various ways through their ministry and the impact they create just with their lives of faith.

There is the young pastor in ministry and me, a believer, who put our heads together and realize that God indeed has His own way of doing things in His own time. We are linked to another man of God who’s also a product of a man of God who is gradually casting a niche for himself with monthly seminar and conferences teaching on relationships as men ought to live with God, relationship with nature and relationship with fellow human beings.

The whole conundrum reminds me of the song 🎶”though we are many ,we are one body. We are one body in Christ !” 🎶

In this vineyard of God, it is high time we realize that life is about cooperation to win more souls for Christ and not for competition for who wins the more souls or the richest and most vibrant congregation for God says that the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.

We are all a royal priesthood called to service. There are different branches to this service and each priest needs to identify their branch and work towards being a diligent and approved workman to work towards The Great Commission.

Dear reader, will you heed the call to work in the fields or you’re still waiting on that white collar job in Heaven.

Like I always say it begins with YOU!

Count Your Blessings

The songwriter says count your blessings, name them one by one, see what glorious mercies the lord has done.

More often than not we look outward and count the bigger blessings like having a house, a car, and the material things in life. Have we ever stopped to think that the most important blessings are the little ones?

First and foremost, we have life. How many funerals were there this past weekend alone? Yet we are alive and kicking. The greatest gift God has given us is the gift of another day and we need to be grateful.

Now you saw today huh. Yes the gift of sight. That’s another blessing on its own. It is part of the gift of all the senses. I remember during the pandemic how people were eager just to smell the things that hitherto they considered pungent like the smell at that korle area or Odawna in Accra or the forest in front of Modern City Hotel during the heat season or the various open defecation places in Tamale, and I remember how it gave me the freedom to fart freely at seminars and workshops and if you could smell it through your nose mask it was considered albeit jokingly that you were covid free. 😂😂

Heh! This world. Something that was socially inappropriate now becomes accepted because it becomes a marker for something serious.

If you want to understand the magnitude of the gift of life and the many blessings one enjoys daily just spend a few hours at any hospital emergency or OPD. One time I was in the hospital and the orderlies sent to collect the oxygen tank ended up engaging in an auction for the tank since there was only one tank and three people wanted it. It became a haggle for who could pay more for the tank right there and then. The haggling went on for a while and then the highest bidder paid 80 cedis an hour for the oxygen.

I felt water tricking down the front of my shirt and apparently whilst the haggling was going on it had dawned on me the implication of what was happening right in front of me. Somebody was going to pay 80 cedis an hour to live for the air that I could breathe freely and if I didn’t want it could just fart it out freely too.

Now let me do a little Bawumiaconomics here..  If I am 40 years old plus, and for every hour that I have been on this earth I was paying even one Ghana per hour on the oxygen that I was breathing, how much will that be? That will be One Ghana multiplied by 24, multiplied by 7 days a week, multiplied by 30 days a month, multiplied by 365 days a year and finally multiplied by my age. That’s how much gratefulness I owed to God.

Indeed when the songwriter said count your blessings, I truly didn’t consider this as much of a blessing but more like an entitlement as a human, since I was living. Until this haggling /auction incident.

Today as I write this, I have gone to play soccer, yeah, my first soccer game after my knee accident, and again I have pulled a hamstring. I really need to consider my age when doing some things and not overdo it since I’m no spring chicken anymore as most of my friends will be quick to point out to me.  But the thing is that, that little muscle that I have pulled hurts like hmm and when I walk it is like I am walking on pines and needles. It is a little muscle just under my butt cheek but with the pain it makes sitting pretty difficult and walking is as awkward as can be.

What I take from all this is to give glory to God because in His perfect wisdom He created the human body and every sinew, muscle or bone is important in its place in the body structure. It shows the magnificence of God. If you don’t believe it just stick your thumb in your palm and try to pick anything up. See if you can.

Another thing is that small part of the ear that controls the whole balance in your body. That explains why when one is slapped so hard the person just falls flat.

In essence all I am saying is let us just appreciate the little things in life. I do appreciate a lot, even the fact that you are the one reading this. If it wasn’t for you, who would I be expressing my thoughts to.

Appreciate the everyday things around you and the everyday people too. The little things that you see around are the same things that come together to constitute the big thing you call life.

The more appreciative we are in life, the easier life gets for us and God Himself inhabits the praise of His creation. Let’s be grateful to God and give glory for his blessings in our life.

Thank God for a new day each day.

Like I always say it begins with YOU!

Salute!

Nana’s Story

So Nana takes them out to the courtyard and they sit down around her. The children keep milling about curious about the visitors who have come to see their aged grandmother. They see people come to the compound every day but this group has people looking all strange and some of them are carrying strange things but most of them seem to be carrying water bottles. Why do they have to be carrying water all around when there is water everywhere, one child asks her aunty as she takes his hand and he is told to shut up.

Nana, after her visitors have sat down asks for her cup to be brought to her. One of the members of the household goes into her room and comes back holding a metallic cup with a handle and Nana requests that it be filled with water for her. Ebow goes into one corner of the compound and fetches water from an earthenware bowl that is covered with a piece of asbestos slate. Ebow smiles at the incredulous looks on the faces of the visitors and explains to them that back in the day this was what rural folk drank from and the water from the earthenware pot that stood in the corner was the coolest water they could ever drink and any of them is open to try it if they are brave enough. They look at each other and shake their heads no. well, it is expected though and he hands the metal cup full of water to Nana who covers it with her hands, says a prayer, takes a sip, then covers it with a piece of cardboard and places it besides her.

She then addresses her audience. You are welcome to the land of our birth and inasmuch as Ebow has told me what brings you here it is still courtesy to ask why you are here so you have to appoint a linguist amongst you to tell us your mission here. Ebo is now my linguist and as such you have to find your own.

Dredd gets up to address Nana and tells her their mission and why they have travelled all this way. (here you can recount what the whole journey is about or just paraphrase it)

Ebow relates to Nana what Dredd has said and Nana insists that Ebow tell the group that they have just learnt a very important tradition in Africa that we just don’t jump into issues but we exchange some pleasantries first. Nana stresses that it is also important to do that so that there is no ambiguity about the mission of the guests. She says they will understand that better when she tells them the story they are about to hear about the coming of the Europeans to the Gold Coast.

So once upon a time the people of the coast lived peacefully and traded with other people inland for the things that they didn’t have. There were petty wars of expansion and petty rivalries between some states but this did not affect the general wellbeing of the people. There were established trade routes where those at the coast exchanged their fish and salt from the coast for foodstuff and other products that were inland and then the middle people as we called them also exchanged what they had for leather and cloth and nuts from the farther north.

There were markets established almost everywhere and good and services were exchanged pretty pleasantly and in the areas where the markets were situated the chiefs, who were the rulers of the land, exacted a small tax in the form of royalties for these trade items. Chiefs also had agents and officials who traded on their behalf. The bigger kingdoms had elaborate systems put in place for the smooth running of the kingdom’s economy. This was especially because when they conquered other states and incorporated them into the kingdom, these conquered states paid tribute, determined by the conqueror, to them and these had to be monitored and managed. The older kingdoms of Ghana, Mali and Songhai all had this system of economic management. This was employed by almost all the kingdoms and trade envoys passing through a kingdom had to make themselves known to the ruler of the area. This was very important else it was considered an act of war that traders will pass through an area without seeing the king of that area. It was also the case because most of these trade envoys were sanctioned by other kings and rulers of various territories thus it made it official to pay respect to the overlord of an area.

Nana looked at her audience and smiled to herself at how they were caught in rapt attention at her story. Every gaze seemed to be on her and it looked as if her voice had brought the whole evening to a standstill. Even the children had stopped milling about and sat in one corner of the compound listening in.

She continued.

Inasmuch as trade was mainly amongst Africans gradually the trade expanded and went beyond borders and over what we now call the Sahara. That meant that now people from the Sahara traveled all the way along the trade routes to find the source of the trade items and deal directly with the producers of the trade items. What we now call the Trans Saharan trade.

This meant that now the Arabs were involved in the trade too and as they traveled down along the trade routes they established mosques, which are their places of worship along the routes and also because of the large number in their convoys, they also established towns and markets to add to the existing markets. They were pretty aggressive traders and traded in whatever was the item of demand at the time. At the height of the kingdoms, gold became the main object of trade and that caught the eye of the Europeans and they decided to find the source of all the gold that found its way into Europe.

Since they couldn’t come by land like the arab traders, the Europeans decided to find a sea route to the coast of Africa and find the source of the gold. The Portuguese expedition, sanctioned by the king of Portugal, found their way to a place on the coast that they believed was the source of all the gold based on the stories of traders they had. They named this place Elmina and that is where we are now.

Well, I guess you must be tired now after your journey. I have given you the background to the coming of the first Europeans on the African coast at Elmina and will leave you to think about it and then will continue when you get back here tomorrow. You guys get some rest and make sure you sleep fitfully because you are back home.

Nana then called two of her grandchildren to come get her chair back to her room and she retired waving the visitors goodnight and hobbled to her room.

(The next day)

Nana looks out her window and sees Ebow coming with the visitors. She thought they would be coming later at sundown but it is obvious that they cant wait to hear the rest of the tale. Ebow leaves them in the courtyard and heads on to Nana’s room to talk to her. He explains that the whole group had decided that it was important that they hear the rest of the story before they do any more tours to any sites. He tells Nana jokingly that whilst they were on their way to her compound, most of the people had used their phones to check on the story as Nana had told it and it was indeed true what she had said about the wars of the states and kingdoms and also the Trans Saharan trade. Nana just smiled and asked Ebow if they had eaten anything and he could talk to his aunties in the house to prepare some koko for the visitors to which he replied that indeed they had been given breakfast where they had slept and what was in them wasn’t hunger for food but hunger for information and they couldn’t wait to hear the rest of the story. Nana then tells Ebow that she will go inside and get dressed and come join them in the courtyard but he should call his nephews to come get her chair and place it in the courtyard for her. Ebow departs to join the visitors.

By the time he gets to them, they are interacting with the children in the courtyard and are involved in playing a game of hopscotch that they children had been playing earlier when the visitors walked in. now some of them were involved in the game playing with the children as Ebow announces to them that Nana will be with them in a bit. Others join some other boys in another corner of the courtyard juggling a makeshift soccer ball made of pieces of cushion placed in a sock rounded up like a ball. They seem to be fascinated at the way the children just use materials around them to create play things. Two children are in one corner making tin cars out of discarded milk tins and the tyres of the cars are made from rounded plastic slippers cut out in perfect roundness by sharpened metals that are used like calipers.

In a bit Nana walks out of her room and walks down the courtyard towards the visitors. Being the oldest in the compound, almost everyone comes out to greet her as she walks past them to take her seat that has been placed in the spot she usually sits. Her grey hair is neatly combed and slick and she wears an African print dress that flows behind her in the wind making her look like an African queen heading to her coronation. She smiles at everyone as she takes greetings from her household. As they greet her they also add blessings wishing her long life and health amidst genuflecting to her.

Everyone quickly gathers around and they stand in respect as she walks to them and kind of greets almost everyone asking if they slept well and how they are doing this morning and then she walks slowly and takes her seat. Everyone sits down and then she asks Ebow, like she did yesterday, what their mission is and the reason for the visit. Again Dredd is the spokesman for the visitors and conveys to Nana, through Ebow, that they had really been intrigued by her story last night and that like the proverbial Oliver Twist they had come for more especially having realized via Google on their phones and computers that most of the story she had told them was true. They were intrigued and wanted more.

Nana laughs quite loudly as asks ‘so if it wasn’t for your gadgets and this Google, you will think whatever story I told you was pure lies huh..’ .  everyone laughs at this and they all chorus in unison ‘oh nooo!!’. Well I’m glad you confirmed the stories I have told you because these are stories that has been handed down to us through the generations and even though it was a long time ago, the substance of the stories still remains though there might be distortions here and there. ‘so yes I understand and I was just teasing you’, Nana says.

Yesterday I got to when the Portuguese first arrived on our coast. Well imagine what it looked like to our people to be on the shore and all of a sudden ships appear on the coastline heading straight for us. Mind you this were people who were not used to big boats just their small canoes for fishing and then also came these whitemen off the boats that had appeared on the coastline. They parked the big boats on the water and took their small canoes and then they came ashore. Our people just runaway thinking they were seeing ghosts. The people were so white and they had just appeared on the coastline and now they were on the beach. Somebody will definitely run to inform the chief on the arrival of the ghosts on the shore. The chief gathers his warriors around him to go see what is going on and then the first meeting with the whiteman happens. Through sign language the whiteman tells the chief his intention and that he bears gifts for the king. It is the gifts that have the people in awe because they were mostly things they had never seen before. This include mirrors, our people looked into water when they wanted to see their images and here was an object that you look in and could see yourself. There were bottles, made of glass, exquisitely shaped, there were several European goods that the Portuguese presented to the king. The leader of the Portuguese delegation nods to his colleagues when he sees all the gold ornaments adorning the king and his elders and they acknowledge they are in the right place. This indeed is the source of all the gold that has found its way to Europe.

Nana paused for a second to gauge the reaction of her audience. Then she continued. It was obvious that language was going to be a barrier but these white traders found a way of going around it. With sign language they managed to show their intention and as like how you came and I asked you your mission, the king asked their mission and they managed to communicate that they were traders and that their ships were full of such items as silk cloth, mirrors and European goods and they will trade them for the gold and other items that were available. But the focus was mainly on the gold. To this the king gave the Portuguese a place they could build their lodgings and these lodgings were what these days you call offices, where they conducted their trade. Gradually there came the need for these lodgings to be expanded to include storage so that trade went on all year round and when they ships came they just loaded what was in storage and left for Europe. Hence the forts and castles were built along the coast line to act as trading posts and loading bays for the Europeans ships. These forts and castles were also armed to defend against other Europeans into coming to take over the trade territories established by another European nation.

So a basic fort along the coast was mainly a trade outpost for the Europeans. Gradually as the business got good, more Europeans started arriving and though it started with the Portuguese, soon the Danes, Dutch, British, French, Germans and several others managed to find themselves all along the African coast using the Atlantic Ocean as a trade route to Europe and the west indies. These basic forts as trade outposts using had a storage room, living quarters and a meeting room. At the height of trading when the forts needed to be expanded, the Europeans built the castles which were big edifices that contained everything and even housed a battalion of military forces not only to protect their interests but also to fight against each other. That is when in most of the castles you find canons pointing out to the sea and at least one pointed into the town habitat of the people where once a while they fired off warning shots to keep the local people frightened and the rest of the Europeans at bay. It wasn’t just the other Europeans kept at bay but our people too were afraid of the booms of the canons and the cracks from the firestick rifles. Women will threaten stubborn children that the boom boom will capture them to put fear in the children and calm them from mischief as children were wont to.

Nana continued her tale but it was obvious that the old lady was getting tired and needed to rest. Well at least now you know the story of how the European ancestors came to our coast and have been coming ever since. another day we will continue with how some of these people went to town to interact not with nananom but with the local people and how they took wives from amongst them to live with. Nana then called her grandson to hold her hand as retreated to her chambers leaving her guests in the courtyard after bidding them farewell.

**This is part of a story I wrote to be published in a book The Ship That Returned**

Dead Dolphins

Photo from online

It’s been so long since I wrote anything on any of my blogs and it is not because I don’t have content but interestingly my muse seems to have gone on a long break which probably is bad for my popularity and blogging brand. But hey I’m back.

In these past months since I posted anything here, several incidents have caught my attention that should have brought me rushing to this gadget to type my thoughts on these several issues. Notable amongst them has been The Covid Election 2020 as I’ve personally come to call it, the events before and after the election, the kinda apathy Ghana folk showed for this particular election, the riots after, the inauguration, the state of the nation (will definitely come to that) and then finally the election petition and its aftermath. All this didn’t get me writing because after all what was I gonna say that hasn’t been said already and how far has what has been said gone anyways.

During Ghana independence day weekend I decided to take a road trip to a part of Ghana I’d never been and this was a pretty exciting trip. Axim is on the western side of the country and the furthest I’d been was Takoradi. It was on this trip that I got to know that there were actually dolphins in the offshore area of Axim.

It’s pretty interesting to know that I only found this out when I was treated to a sumptuous VIP lunch at the Axim Beach Resort choosing to eat outdoors from the restaurant near the pool and facing the scene of the Atlantic ocean and its horizon. It was whilst I was walking towards the ocean front, with the waves beating loudly on the beach, that I noticed the cameos in the resort swimming pool were of dolphins and it was explained that Axim was also called Dolphin Town. Once in a while there were sightings of dolphins offshore and sometimes they came close to the beach for people to get to see them. Also some fishermen caught one once in a while and it was such a delicacy.

Its been a month since that trip and being back in the Savanna, the global warming has it with temperatures as high as 46 degrees during the day and as low as 19degrees in the wee hours of dawn. I’m mentioning global warming because only a month after the trip to Axim, over 50 adult dolphins have been washed ashore dead and some few alive, at the Axim beach. That’s a lot of dolphins in one day and several explanations have been given for the incident.

The Dolphins were stressed?? 🙅‍♀️🤐🙄photo credit Citi TV

Some others posit that dolphins are pretty delicate animals and that there could have been a seismic shift undersea that could’ve led to their being washed ashore. Its also been rumoured that maybe there was an oil or chemical spill offshore and this had led to the dolphins having to be driven to the shore.

Well all this is in the wind but what’s the importance of this to the inhabitants of Axim. The true state of the nation comes into play here. Citizens and residents go into survival mode. With the dolphins washed to the shore and even into some homes in the fishing communities, residents saw it as a means to an end. Dolphin is a delicacy served on a seafood platter and hitherto pretty expensive. With them being awash , now was the time to cash in even though the cause of their being beached was still unknown especially if it was due to poisoning thus making consumption pretty hazardous.

Inasmuch as the government authorities and agents of agencies warned against consumption of the fish, people still went ahead and have prepared it for consumption and sale on the local market. All of a sudden people went to find loans so they can invest in this business of dolphin sales and when government started clamping down on those preparing the fish for sale, the age old mantra comes up that same government should do something about it and come to the aid of the people because they’ve taken loans for the business and these loans are going to be defaulted if they don’t sell on the market.

Dolphin loans

Indeed at a time when most Ghanaians live from hand to mouth and by “kpakpakpa” doing any odd jobs or businesses that come to mind, it’s pretty sad that the fish should end up on the market in the first place especially when the cause of the incident is not clear. Even if the fish was stressed and died via stress on the beach, what are the effects of a dead stressed dolphin on an already economically, covid 19. social decorum bereft, social media frenzy and political and generally stressed Ghanaian.

Personally, I don’t wanna think far. I hope that those involved do the right thing and this incident does not affect the ecology of the Axim coast. The effects of global warming are real and we each need to mitigate these effects before our very human existence is threatened.

Like I always say, it begins with YOU!

Ha Ha Ha Show: Covid Edition

It’s been a pretty intriguing year with several ups and downs. We’d all agree that from March since the corona pandemic hit the world, events have gone haywire and the safety protocols have made gatherings almost impossible. Event organizers, travel and tours organizers, hospitality organizers and every other event or activity that involves people gathering have all come to a standstill. For months now the social protocols for safety have been enforced strictly and it’s only now getting to the end of the year that they’re relaxed a bit.

For those of us who have found a way around the protocols but still taking extra precautions, life has been somewhat manageable even with the new normal of wearing masks everywhere, washing hands and sanitizing everything in sight. We are taking precautions but we still have to have our entertainment and even if means we have to be in social gatherings.

The DJ SID Gh and Team organized the Covid Edition of the Ha Ha Ha Show and as usual some of us were skeptical about the event even happening. With the promos out it was obvious that the event will go off as planned and patrons couldn’t wait to see what was in stock. As for the comedy acts, if you’ve followed comedy in Ghana for some time you’d know that it was going to be exciting. Ghana comedy has come a long way with fresh relatable jokes unlike the recycled internet jokes that we kept hearing over and over again.

Billed to perform on the show were the top crop of Ghana’s current comedy acts including Foster Romanus, Headmaster DKB, General Ntetia, Drs Sars and OB (real life doctors practicing stand up comedy 😂), Clemento Suarez amongst others. How the Dj Sid and team managed to get all these acts together under one roof is the mystery of the year. But they all did and it went pretty well with patrons laughing their hearts out and just having a fun filled night of laughs and music.

It was also a night for networking and meeting old friends especially since with the lockdown most people hadn’t come out for such a long time. The venue also provided guests with the tantalizing ‘jarwaakye’ from Rockstone’s Office and yours truly got a taste of what the hype was all about.

Well now that the vaccines for the pandemic is out and several people vaccinated and thus restrictions are pretty relaxed, we really hope to see the next HA HA HA SHOW with a bigger audience and more laughs. Indeed such shows are necessary to destress from the hustle and bustle of daily life. Like the proverbial cliche, a laugh a day keeps the doctor away. The more people laugh over issues, the more the quality of life is improved globally hence making the world a better place one laugh at a time.

Like I always say, it begins with YOU!