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Has it stopped raining in Africa?

No, it hasn't.

Actually raining season is around the corner. However, thanks to the plenty riches of Ghana, I feel like I've outgrown this positive Ghana-centric "Rain in Africa"-blog. Since a little while, I have been working on a new blog and today I am moving to wordpress and to a new blogging concept (or should I say "launching"?).

You will be able to read:
-More personal stories (on Me , myself and I)
-More work related stories (teaching and migration research)
-More critical stories
-More international stories
-More of my favorite reads, links and resources.

To underline that the new blog is more personal, I've decided to "do an AtoKD" and simply give the blog my name plus initials = Kajsa H.A. and the web address http://kajsaha.com

Thanks for reading my blog and I hope to see you soon on kajsaha.com!





ps. I have closed the possibility to comment on this blog, but imported all the posts. So if you want to comment come on over to kajsaha.com.

Ghanablogging: Citizen Media

This evening the network of bloggers in Ghana, GhanaBlogging, will meet again! Even bloggers with a Ghanaian connection outside of Ghana will probably join in by Skype chat.

Especially exciting for this monthly meeting is that we will be discussing Citizen Media, departing from a project Ghanabloggingmember Nana Kofi Acquah has been involved in.

See you at Smoothies in Osu tonight Thursday 25th February at 6.30 PM!

New Favorite Blog: Silverjuggler

My friend Andreas is trying out life on a old-fashioned farm (well, minus the snow mobile and the website) in mid Sweden 7 km from nearest road and he writes beautifully about his experiences. The blog Silverjonglerier is in Swedish, but even if you can't read it I recommend it for the beautiful, snowy pictures.

The blog posts are about the daily labor at the farm, including awe for the influential older worker - "gammeldrängen", different types of firewood and work hazards - but also about the coffee breaks which we Swedes so affectionately call "fika".

It is also about a modern human being being confronted with a strict schedule, physical work and silence.

Pic: from Andreas' first day at Lillhärjåbygget.

Work Blog

Just to let you know I have incorporated my favorite pasttime, blogging, into my work. *drumroll* I p r o u d l y p r e s e n t

Social Theory Blog

a classblog for Social Theory, one of the courses I teach at Ashesi University this semester. Follow it if you want to (re)discover social and political philosophy.

Or just know what I do for a living.

In the picture Socrates is emptying his cup of poison with some ironic words about that citizenship entails following state decrees, even if those decisions kills you.

UPDATE: I'VE NOW FIXED THE LINK, SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE!

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.

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!

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.

Christmas Ghana Style (of course it involves goats!)

The holidays have come to all creatures on this earth. How are you celebrating them? This is how some of my fellow bloggers are honoring the holidays.

Nana Kofi was especially happy with his gift this year, Ato KD sent a message to all who is close to his heart and interact with him on his blog, Holli decorated her unorthodox tree, Afrocentric urged us to think twice about what we are celebrating, Maya Maame has been xmas style busy and Yngvild has some authentic snow on offer!

As for me, I am celebrating with my Ghanaian family. Yesterday we had fun at the local beach. Swimming and enjoying some softdrinks and "biskits". Today early in the morning two goats were slaughtered and they are being cooked I write this. Soon, I will be going over to my mother-in-law's for goat light soup, dance and laughter, cousins and uncles, drinks and jokes!

Dear reader, I wish for you a time of year that is not just about filling your belly, but also filling yourself with stories to take you through the next year.

And may I suggest: If you overflow with tales, you might want to start blogging?

Pic: Santa in my friend Vera's house.

Oluniyi Ajao's Report from Ghanablogging Session

Here are the excellent notes from the session I led on blogging yesterday, courtesy of Oluniyi David Ajao, one of the most successful bloggers out of Ghana.

Noteworthy is also that 24 people signed up to receive more information about ghanablogging.com after the session. Yihaa!

Also, see the Flickr photostream here (where I borrowed the photo for this post).

BarCamp Ghana Underway: Blogging Session

I am right now at BarCamp Ghana 09, all details can be found in Oluniyi's blog here or the official BarCamp Ghana site here.

It came to a slow start, but "everybody" is here, many members of ghanablogging.com, lecturers, industry reps, entrepreneurs and cool students - so networking is great!
Importantly, I will be leading a break-out session on blogging in an hour. What I will talk about is

1. Why should you blog?
2. How can we together create Internet content that is relevant for Ghana?
3. How can online activities be taken in to the "real world"? (with the example of ghanablogging.com)

Hope to see you in my session!

Review of Film About Blogging : Julie & Julia

Just saw the first major motion picture to be based on a blog, Julie & Julia.

It was interesting to see a film (loosely) based on a blog, but I must say my friends and I much preferred the story about the eccentric cookbook writer Julia Child, whimsically performed by Maryl Streep, compared to the bland "heroine" Julie the Blogger. Ultimately, a blog should provide you with stories you otherwise do not get access to, but this blog seemed to be a rather predictable story on how to become a famous blogger.

Still, the film was an entertaining Nora Ephron construction complete with lovable supporting characters (the Julix husbands), lovely Parisian bistrot milieus and loads of butter-drenched food to love.

Enjoy the official trailer here. Bon Appetit!

Adidas Hidden African Inspiration: The "Kenta" Shoe

Yesterday,Kwabena, a fellow blogger alerted us Ghanablogging members of that Adidas is using Ghanaian Kente cloth on a shoe calling it Kenta and acting as they invented it.

Kente is Ghana's (and Togo's) pride, being delicately woven in narrow strips by skilled craftsmen - almost always men. Kente is then sewn and worn at very festive occasions such as weddings or just a few strips over the shoulder as a sign of beauty and wealth.

An interesting debate weather or not one can say Adidas "stole" has arisen on ghanablogging's mailing list (hopefully soon the other side of the debate can be read here and here). I'm all for intellectual property rights, but can a country or an ethnic group have the right to a weaving technique? Have we even tried to patent it? Sure, it would have been nice had Adidas recognized their (potentially huge) market in Ghana and West Africa and called Kente by its real name...but it is a crime not to do so?

As has rightly been pointed out, African Americans, Caribbeans and also other ethnic groups in Ghana have also claimed kente as of late and I don't hear them saying it is Ghanaian/Togolese.

Actually, these days a lot of the Kente for British and American markets is made by Asians, see this book Money has No Smell by Paul Stoller for more info on this interesting transnational phenomenon.

So rather than forming a blog-war against Adidas, should we instead sue China?

Let me also offer a bonus conspiracy theory: Adidas call it "Kenta" to avoid any legal issues with people claiming "Kente". Aha!

In the Pic the famous Kenta shoe. Photo credit to Adidas.

Morning News Routine

How are you, dear reader?

I hope you are well, maybe you have finished your morning coffee or tea and are now looking forward to the two productive hours of the day - those before lunch.

I on the other hand am still sitting at home and doing my daily online media routine (Joy FM, DN, maybe Aftonbladet, The Big Picture - loved the picures from Indian festival Diwali- etc) and will only soon let the Kwame Nkrumah motorway take me to work.

A lot is going my way these days. I feel like a juggler who gets more and more balls thrown at her - but still manages to keep all balls in the air. Fun work (with flexible hours allowing me to keep many of my routines), interesting side projects and fun people with whom to spend my spare time. Let's hope it continues that way.

I only wish I had more time for my blog. That is for you, dear reader!

Picture of a the sky in Tema on a day that is going to be good.

How To Start A Blog in 5 Steps

This is the tip I gave to a good friend when she asked me how to get started with blogging:

1. Think about what you want to say and formulate it in one sentence, maybe something like "A Colombian's Thoughts about Sweden, Relationships and Jewellery",
2. Choose a simple name for your blog (preferably easy to say and spell)
3. sign up with a blogging platform, for instance here.
4. When you blog do it regularly, once every two weeks, once a week, every day, doesn't matter, but keep the pace.
5. And you must send me the URL when you are up and running! :-)

More tips on blogging can be found on fellow Ghanablogging member Oluniyi's blog, here.

In the pic the blogger mentioned above and another pro-blogger, White African from the meeting described here.

Developing Blogging - Leaving Blogger for Wordpress

Let me share some Sunday thoughts about developing my blog. My ideas so far are:
I want to

• graduate from the idea of only writing positive things about Ghana into telling my personal stories, related to Ghana or not, being uplifting or not.
• be able to express myself better though the design of my blog, so leaving blogger and moving to wordpress.org is an option.
  
• refresh the look of my blog to inspire myself (and possibly others as well).
• show my readers I am serious about blogging.
• add new categories of content.
• change its name and URL into something simpler (I tried on the new name "Urban Africa" some time ago here, but wasn't satisfied with it).
  

...and soon I'll tell you more.

What do you think? Does the name of a blog matter? How it looks? How its posts are categorized? What topics it presents? What URL it has?

Pic: Climbing higher.

Blog Action Day: Climate Change

What is blog action day?

Blog action day or BAD09 as some blog nerds call it is a day for bloggers all around the world to join forces around one important topic. Last year, the topic was poverty and I participated then too. The result of that can be seen here.

What is this year's topic?

It is Climate Change. I guess with the UN Climate Conference coming up in Copenhagen in December, its a fairly current topic. And there is a lot to say. Check out BAD09's inspiration page that has gathered some very interesting information about climate change, for instance.

Speaking of the urgency of the topic....Last time I went to my native Sweden, I was surprised how the word klimatsmart (translates into climate savvy or environmentally concious or something like that) was everywhere: A train journey was maybe not cheap, but klimatsmart. One brand of milk was more klimatsmart than another. My friend had gotten a colorful brochure in the mail asking her if she was klimatsmart (she wondered here how klimatsmart that brochure really was...). My cousin's new blog even had klimatsmart in the title!

What can be said about climate change in Ghana?

Actually, what strikes me is how not current the topic is in Ghana. The website (organization?) tcktcktck.org is counting down to the UN meeting and tellingly has no story from Ghana on their cool Climate Orb application. Really, when was the last time you heard someone discuss climate change around here?

The rest of the world seems worried about climate change/higher temperatures. One of the effects that have been discussed lately is how this can increase the spread of malaria to Western Europe, South America and even Russia.

But in Ghana we don't worry too much about that. Malaria is already one of Ghana's biggest problems to date.


But do we really need to talk about climate change in Ghana? Shouldn't we rather DO something?

A way to globally reduce the carbon dioxide emissions is to make sure we travel with public transport rather than individually in our own cars. Today, many Ghanaians travel in packed trotros, shared taxis or "Kufuor busses" and hence do not emit too much CO2. Can we say the same about the North/West? But as Ghanaians grow richer - our goal is to become a middle income country as soon as possible - more Ghanaians can also afford their own cars.

In my opinion the problem in the discussion about climate change is that while developed countries are struggling to be sustainable, developing countries are already klimatsmarta, but not by choice. Rather the "environmental consciousness" or sustainable living is caused by last year's topic; poverty.

Climate change issues in the end boils down to politics and income distribution. Will my 4 year old relative in the photo above drive her own car when she has grown up? Is it really fair to try to stop her?

What do you think?

How Big Is Africa?

A silly question prompted a fellow blogger, Texas in Africa, to post this pic, developed by Boston University.

Of course Africa is a sizable continent and not a country (there is even merchandise to prove it here), but how often do we really ponder the size of this great continent?

I knew from before the relative size of Sweden and Ghana (Sweden is almost twice as large with less than half the population), but it never hit me that Africa as a whole is so vast that Europe, US (including Alaska) and China could fit inside.

I must say this overlay of maps intrigues me.

What are your thoughts when you see it?

New Poetry Blog: Soursweet Ghana

Last week, I got a chance to do to an impromptu presentation on blogging to a room filled with young women. I wrote on it here.

Tonight, I got an email from Lizzy, a woman who was there and inspired by the talk started her own blog!

She has chosen to present her beautiful poetry combined with stylish photos (her own?) to illustrate the feel. I like the the poems because they discuss common literary themes like the village and the rose, but in a way that carefully avoids clichés. Here's a passage that I enjoyed particularly:

The sun was to be married
Her groom was the moon
Though they met often they never got married
For their meeting brought darkness

The name of the blog is also intriguing: "Soursweet Ghana". Find it here.

I'm so happy I could inspire to this!

Pic from the above-mentioned Women and ICT event.