Global Voices posts

We have a new site www.g-lish.org where you can read all articles from This is Ghana in a much more organised fashion. Read Global Voices posts there.

I'm contributing to Global Voices, a brilliant new media site that, in its own words, "aggregates, curates, and amplifies the global conversation online – shining light on places and people other media often ignore." Check out the coverage on Iran.

Incidentally, one of the GV founders, Mr Ethan Zuckerman, is the excellent author of My Heart's in Accra.

I'll link my posts as they are published. Here was the first one, summarised:

"Bloggers around the world speculate about President Obama's choice to visit
Ghana first in sub-Saharan Africa. Across the continent Africans have been
asking, “Why Ghana?” Many commentators are suggesting that the choice to visit
Ghana first is an explicit endorsement of the nation's recent peaceful elections
and that the USA values peace and democracy above personal affiliations and more powerful nations."

Rainy season bounty

We have a new site www.g-lish.org where you can read all articles from This is Ghana in a much more organised fashion. Read Rainy season bounty there.

Gotta love the rainy season: verdant fields sprouting maize, temperatures dropping below 30, and goats tied up so they don't jump over the wall and eat my veggie patch and everyone else's crops. The mud huts are typical of this region. Those are out the back of our place. Round for women, square for men. The danger is that too much rain can soften the mud bricks so that the buildings collapse. Everyone is busily mending weak structures (bit late, but Ghana time...). I helped smooth the wall of an old Auntie's dwelling recently. It was one of my best experiences in Ghana. Her part was beautifully smooth, mine was kind of lumpy. They use especially polished quartz stones to smooth the mud that is hand mixed and slapped up. The connection was great.

This looks almost black and white but it was at dusk, just after the storm.

Safe-sex campaign: Ghana style

We have a new site www.g-lish.org where you can read all articles from This is Ghana in a much more organised fashion. Read Safe-sex campaign: Ghana style there.

This has remained my favourite ad since the day I first set foot in Ghana when I saw it emblazoned across the back of almost every trotro, the minivans that most people catch to get from A to B (me included). I spotted this one on the front of a shipping container by the roadside.