Did I Dance with Kojo Antwi? Part II

He gestures for me to come up on stage, "Come!" and I feel myself letting go of my handbag, barely glancing over to see if my husband takes it for me and taking a few decisive steps onto - is this happening? - the stage. Kojo Antwi helps me up and seductively holds my hand and leads me to the center of the stage. While walking he says something like "Clap for Obruni" in his microphone. The crowd starts to cheer.

The crowd? THE CROWD? Oh my! Some 1000 pairs of eyes look at me, some are clapping and selected laughters suggest that some are expecting a funny performance including a dancing obruni, but luckily stage lights are blinding me somewhat, and we start to dance.

The music is good, I am wearing comfortable shoes and my favorite dress, I am dancing with the man of Rocklyn, Afrafranto and Odo ye de sin sika and we are all in this place out of love and empathy for Haiti.

What he looked like up close, this mysterious Mr Music man? I do not remember. Was he holding my hands? I don't remember. In the moment, I just decide to myself to enjoy the song, the dance, the moment of having so many individuals' attention.

It only fully hit me much later, when the concert was over and I was congratulated by a smiling husband, a crowd of acquaintances and friends, including students at Ashesi University, that Yes, I did dance with Kojo Antwi!

DOES ANYBODY HAVE PICTURES OF THIS PERSONALLY SIGNIFICANT MOMENT? Please email to kajsahallberg -at- gmail.com
Thanks!

Did I Dance with Kojo Antwi?

Before we headed to the Haiti Benefit Concert I mentioned here, we had dinner with some friends. One of them had heard the rumour that Kojo Antwi wouldn't come to the benefit(sadly his personal website is very heavy to load, so maybe his MySpace is a better option for you who with less fast Internet).

I was disappointed. Antwi's songs were some of the first Ghanaian pieces of music I heard when I started dating my husband back in 2002. The romantic, lovers rock style tunes in Twi/English/Ga always spoke to me - also others think he Tops the List of Ghanaian Love Songs - although some of his melodies might be just too synthesizer-sweet. Anyways.

When we arrived at the concert, there was no place to sit. "Everybody" was there to support Haiti earthquake victims. We were standing with a bunch of others on the side of the stage, dancing and enjoying from there. After an hour or so, some space opened up on the first row.

When Kojo Antwi did in fact come out on stage I felt a big smile spread across my face. As he started singing a song in Ga "Baa sumo me" (Come love me), I stood up to dance, two ladies joined him on the stage dancing, I was smiling. THEN. Mr Music Man walks over to the side where I am standing, points at me and gestures me to come on stage.

To be continued.

Pic from Creative-Africa.org

Ghana Loves Haiti Concert

The Friends of Haiti and Ghana Red Cross has sent out a joint press release about an upcoming concert to raise funds for our brothers and sisters in Haiti.

The campaign consists of a star-studded benefit concert in solidarity with the People of Haiti which will be staged at Alliance Francaise on Saturday the 23rd of January; and an SMS campaign aimed at raising GHC two million. The venue for the concert has been donated by Alliance Francaise, with all the billed artistes also performing free of charge.

Except for putting together a b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l poster, the stars performing are really stars too, Kojo Antwi, Kubolor, Kwabena Kwabena, Black Rasta, Becca, Ambolley and many more. Tickets go for 10 GHC. On top of that Foundation for Contemporary Art, will also have an exhibition in the same space where 30% of the proceeds will go to the Ghana Red Cross fund for Haiti.

To conclude, there seems to be many reasons for attending this event, out of which the noblest is of course to extend a hand to the suffering people in Haiti, but I'll be going to shake my ass just a little bit as well.

Fellow Ghana bloggers Holli , Obed , Edward, MacJordan and Nana Kofi seem to also be thinking about Haiti.

Are you?

Pic: From the official invite to the concert, courtesy Ghana Red Cross and Friends of Haiti.

Blogging in Sweden

I came across some interesting information about blogging in Sweden, compiled by the Swedish research institute World Internet Institute - I wonder where similar information about Ghana could be found?

In 2009:
- 400 000 Swedes had their own blog.
- 6 percent of all Internet users in Sweden had blogs and 37 percent read others' blogs.
- 20 percent of Internet users 16–25 years are writing or have been writing a blog and 60 percent of users in the same age group read others' blogs.

Amazingly, figures also show that a third of the group "young women" what ever that means, have at some point had a blog and that two out of three in this group read others' blogs. The overall number of 400 000 blogs is also impressive.

Two thirds of bloggers (64 %) write about everyday life, one fourth (26 %) about a hobby or special interest. Only 6 % blog on politics and 4% about work.

I don't know how I'd categorize my blog, as I feel I write on politics, special interests (blogging especially!) AND everyday life. Also I hope to blog more on work...I should maybe call it a work blog to be more unique...

On a more serious note, the World Internet Project which the Swedish research institute discussed above is a part of does not have any partner organizations in any African country! How can they then be called the "World" Internet Project? Even though there are no figures (?) for Africa and Ghana, I have the strong feeling there is room among the 44,3 million Internet users for much more blogging! (and mapping of the same phenomena!)

Pic: The Africa Facts courtesy of World Famous Design Junkies via Holli and Scarlett Lion, thanks!

Ghanablogging January Meet-Up Today

Today Thursday 14th Jan 2010, the network of bloggers called Ghanablogging is meeting at our regular hangout, Smoothies in Osu, Accra, Ghana at our regular time 6.30pm.

If you are a blogger who happens to be in Accra, you are very welcome!

On the Usefulness of Blogging and Tweeting: Earthquake in Haiti

Feeling so sad as I read the live reports of the earthquake in Haiti, see for instance the continuously updated BBC report here.

This people that has been through so much, why? Today, I think of my colleague with Haitian roots, my college friend from Haiti and my UN-peacekeeper friend who used to live in Port-au-Prince. I think of their friends and their families.

As I was driving to work this morning, they said on the radio that communication with Haiti has collapsed and it will take time before we know the scale of the disaster. However, at that time, I had already read a number of tweets from Haiti.

Citizen media, including blogs, video reports and Twitter are becoming more influential as sources of information these days. See Global Voices' Georgia Popplewell's early tweet-based report here , her colleague Janine Mendes-Franco later account here or problogger Dan Kennedy's extensive compilation of citizen media about the Haiti Earthquake here.

If anyone ever doubted that blogging and tweeting could go beyond navel gazing, I guess today we have evidence of the contrary.

Hopefully this access to on the ground information will also make a difference to the Haitian people.

More on Togo Team Attack

Through an email from a fellow blogger, I was pointed to Ethan Zuckerman's interesting analysis of what happened in Angola.

He writes:

Hosting Africa’s biggest football tournament – that is, up until the World Cup later this year – was probably a good branding move for Angola, which has made vast strides since the Angolan civil war ended in 2002. The mistake was in holding one of four sets of matches in Cabinda.

Reading the full article, it struck me how fragmented news is these days and how hard it is to get the full picture.

Good News for Ghana's Economy

“We want to move the economy forward quickly and we want to try as much as possible to make an impact on the road sector, which includes city, urban and feeder roads,”

was the message from the Finance minister yesterday according to Joy FM, as he announced the government is releasing 160 million Ghana Cedis for projects that were stopped after the 2008 election.

Can I say hurray?

1. Roads for development = yes, thats the analysis! (when will power and water be on the list, by the way?)
2. At the time, I supported freezing funds as there were transparency issues for some contracts, but as time went along...and business life in Ghana almost came to a complete stop I ehhr...changed my mind.
3. Hopefully, this action will have a trickle down effect (although it is a long way from 25 big companies and the Kofi and Ama on the street)and might turn the Ghanaian economy around.

Or what do you say, am I being way too optimistic now?

Pic: A collapsed sign from an totally unrelated project.

SLS Literary Contest

I challenge all the good writers I know to enter into the Summer Literary Seminars Unified Literary Contest, see a message from the organizers below:

Summer Literary Seminars is announcing its annual unified (Montreal, Lithuania and Kenya) literary contest, held this year in affiliation with Fence Magazine. We are thrilled this year to have Mary Gaitskill judging the fiction, and Mary Jo Bang judging the poetry.

Contest winners in the categories of fiction and poetry will have their work published in Fence, as well as the participating literary journals in Canada, Lithuania and Kenya. Additionally, they will have the choice of attending (airfare, tuition, and housing included) any one of the SLS-2010 programs – in Montreal, Quebec (June 13 - 27); Vilnius, Lithuania (August 1 - 14); or Nairobi-Lamu, Kenya (December).

To summarize, this contest has two really good prices,
1. publication in Fence magazine and
2. a sponsored stay at a writing workshop to develop one's skills!

The catch? It costs 15 USD to enter the contest and the deadline is just around the corner (February 28, 2010).

Read more about the Summer Literary Seminars Unified Literary Contest here.

Pic: Write something someone else can read!

Dramatic Week: Nigerian Terrorist, Togolese Team Attacked and Oil Curse

This week passed really quickly.

I went back to work, now preparing for the spring semester. I had one friend leaving town (bye Uli!) and one coming back (Hi Tuuli!). It is somehow a big relief that the holidays are over and regular life and routines are back.

But as my personal life settled down, there were some shocking news this week that I'd like to comment on.

The Nigerian Terrorist
As I am sure you heard, a man was caught on board a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit, US with explosives. Some curious facts about this incident was that he was on the list of terrorists, the 550,000 names long list. I guess that list was too long, but that wasn't my point. He hid the explosives in his underpants and is therefore now called the "underpants bomber", but that wasn't my point. He was from Nigeria and started his journey in Ghana, but that wasn't my point either. Yesterday, in a discussion someone said American medias found it suspicious the terrorist bought his ticket in cash. Ha! Last time I bought a plane ticket in Ghana I t-r-i-e-d to pay with a credit card, but was refused. It seems like it is a forgotten fact that many parts of the world runs stricktly on cash. There are many other things to say about this thing, but I'll leave that to my fellow bloggers Oluniyi and Obed.

The Attack on the Togolese Soccer Team
The African Cup of Nations that is supposed to take off tomorrow, Sunday, got to a horrible start when the Togo national team was attacked in DRC Congo on their way to Angola. The bus driver was killed and at least two players plus two other people were injured, according to the BBC. They were supposed to play Ghana for their first match, but the team do not know yet if they can play the tournament at all. This was the main discussion yesterday night and our sympathies go out to our neighbors in Togo!

Investigations into the Ghanaian Oil Sector
The first investigations (?) into Ghana's new oil sector might lead to prosecution according to the Attorney General, Betty Mould Iddrisu. Fear has been raised many times that the financial blessings that come with a big oil find, might be a curse leading to the rich getting richer...Let's see, this investigation might be good news?

Hoping for less drama next week.

Pic: Closing the door to this week and stepping out into the next.

Happy New 2010!

I took off for Cape Coast for a few days: new year's celebrations, bonfire, fireworks, chilled drinks, grilled fish etc., but no worries - now I'm back behind the computer.

My plan was to by the first days of 2010 move you guys over to wordpress and a stylish, crisp, new blog I have been working on there. However, as I am so stubborn I want to build it myself, along the line I messed up somewhere and am now faced with an error message instead of a fresh blog. Boo.

Still, I think the new year (and decade) has started on an interesting note for me. How has it started for you, dear reader?

Pic: from above described celebrations in Cape Coast, Ghana.