Last Tuesday, the country of Ghana was shocked to learn of the passing of sitting its President, Prof. John Evans Atta Mills. The news of his death hit the airwaves shortly after his passing at the 37 Military Hospital. President Mills died at 2:15 p.m on July 24, 2012. The news of his death was Read More …
Visiting the burial site and memorial to Kwame Nkrumah, our tour guide said something that managed to reach beyond the colorless mental images of young Ghana breaking from colonial rule and strike home in the vibrant reality of the here and now. Thanks to an extensive tour of the memorial, I can now confidently inform Read More …
Flight ends and entire airplane empties, filing into a line that lasts hours and keeps growing through customs and guards in baby blue going “Tsss! Tsss!” to get your attention, like a snake. Outside we meet Catherine, Leslie and Doc Williams – an unknown face, but soon to be important landmark in the imagery of Read More …
The streets were oddly quiet for the time of day. I had promised a street vendor that I would come back to buy a pineapple today. I had intended to keep that promise but it wasn’t the real reason I was in the streets this evening. President Mills is the first President of the 4th Read More …
My co-worker, Abigail, buzzed my room’s phone in a frenzy at about 8:00 p.m. Sunday night, the day we arrived in Tamale. She informed me that the Northern Regional Minister did not like the speech she sent him three weeks ago because it wasn’t indepth enough, and if we did not prepare a word-for-word speech Read More …
This is a dance preformed at Big Milly’s lodge in Kokobite, a beach located about 45 minutes by taxi west of Accra. I thought the dance was pretty amazing and assumed it had a name, but when I approached a local to inquire about the dance he said it was interpretative. And you know when Read More …
‘You guys realize that there’s an empty row in the front, but we are all so connected that we would rather be squished together in the back than spread out…’ Dan flashes her pearly whites and flips back around to put her head back out the window as we all laugh at her observation. None Read More …
The folk at my internship, Media Foundation for West Africa, were generous enough to fly me to Tamale, Ghana, for an all expenses paid for three-day conference during my second to last week here. The conference focuses on using radio to promote effective and participatory local governance in Northern Ghana. (Ghana divides into ten regions Read More …
“Can I ask you a question?” Abby asked. “Of course you can,” I replied. Abby gulped down some courage and cleared her throat. In a hushed voice she asked, “Are you an Angel?” Courtney and I were sitting on a white bench outside of the Ghana-Canada Medical Center, waiting for her lab results, when I Read More …
Our 6-week adventure in Africa is just over half-way finished. Weird. I find myself reminiscing a little on my journey as an Obruni in this Western African Nation and our African abode. It was nighttime when I first disembarked from the plane in Accra. Eric, our bus driver, took a group of our freshly landed Read More …
Published in the “Daily Guide” on July 14, 2012 By Ryan Schoeck In Asuafua, in the Ashanti Region of Ghana, David Opoku’s family has been running a small bead-making business since the early 1800s. “For 200 years, bead-making has been in my family, in this village,” Opoku said. At 27, Opoku, along with his sister Read More …
Roses are red, Violets are blue, Lanabroni ate fufu, and you can too! I did it. I faced my fears. I finally took the plunge. I. Tried. Fufu. And the moment I stuck my hand into the gooey mess I knew I would never be the same.
6:30 a.m. rolls around, and our African abode fills with the default alarm ring from our 15 candy-bar MTN cell phones. I climb down my rickety bunk bed ladder, hunched down to avoid my head hitting the deadly ceiling fan, and tip-toe out of the room so I don’t wake Elora. I make my standard Read More …
39,974,880 feet, 7,571 miles, 24 hours of travel, and a seven-hour time zone change later, a little girl no older than eight approached me for less than five minutes from her small village outside Kumasi and gave me a fresh perspective on the small things that sometimes matter the most. We had just finished watching Read More …