Dear Mr. President,
I heard that the “flying coffin” almost became your real coffin the other time. I don’t know why anyone would fly in an airplane that has been tagged as such but you still do. I guess you can say for the love of the country. I remember that when your government came into power (I love that phrase- came into power), you adamantly refused to fly in this coffin. I don’t know who finally convinced you that it’s not only Dracula who travels in a coffin, but whoever advised you is “playing chacha” aka gambling with your life. But like Dracula, you always escape death. I understand that this is not the first time that the pilots had to do gymnastics in the air to save your life… and theirs too. I hope the u-turn they did in the air was legal and that you did not have to bribe any policemen if it wasn’t. Did you give the pilots medals too the other time? I would really be miffed if I was asked to do such a dangerous job and not get a medal. Ei! What would Auntie Theresa do without you?
Continue reading about Intellectual begging and flying coffins
Politics: derived from poly, meaning many, and tics, meaning blood sucking parasites.
It’s election time here in Ghana and air is full of political nonsense and hot air.
Instead of tackling issues of relevance, the different parties are busy with name calling and blaming each other for all the evils in this world. Of course we don’t expect them to do anything once they come into power (it doesn’t matter the party) but at least the best they can do is try and make us think that one day we’ll get there. Hopefully. The only thing these parties seem to agree on is that the amounts charged by the electoral commission to register candidates has gone up. They even went to the extent of calling a press conference to complain to the press. And they did it together. That should give us a hint of where these parties seem to be interested in- when it affects their pockets.
Growing up in Ghana is really, really interesting. With our cultural identification conflicts, and our refusal to create a unique identity for ourselves, it is not suprising that a lot of us go around feeling confused. And if you are a visitor to Ghana, these conflicts within us can leave you confused as you go around your daily business. I’ll try putting up a list of commonly used and mis-used words which I hope the first time visitor to this part of the equator would find useful. (Maybe)
(This page would be updated as and when new terms come to our attention.)
Abroad
Forget any country in Africa.You travel abroad when you’ve been to either Europe or America
African Movie
A joke played on Ghanaians by local television stations. No other African country is featured in these movies. Mostly Nigerian movies with a few Ghanaian movies sprinkled in to silence the critics.
It’s now over. Fears of pollution, human rights issues and protests taking over the Olympics never materialised. The Chinese pulled it off grand style, making the 2008 olympics theirs, and in those three weeks, owning it, in terms of sporting performance and the way the whole Olympic affair was executed from start to finish. It was truly wonderful.
Not only did China host the Olympics but they set themselves high standards in the different sporting events- participating in virtually all the events, with the hope of topping the medals table. And they did that too. Even though the Americans had more medals in total, China took over the top spot in the gold medal slot, and in so doing broke the hold of the Americans on the medal table since the fall of the Soviet Union.
My beloved country, Ghana is over 50 years, and for those past years, we have been undergoing reforms of all kinds. We never get tired of reforms. We create, destroy, form, reform and then we create and start the whole process again. It’s almost like some sort of obsession or disease. Maybe it’s those donors- everyone of them has conditions attached to their money. But if it means starting something new so that a chief executive of a government institution somewhere can have something “small” in his pocket, why not? As long as the donors are happy that we are doing something useful and the money keeps coming, he is sure to finish that five bedroom apartment at East Legon in time before Christmas.
Last week, we were told that the Basic Education results were in and once again a good proportion of the candidates did not make it, and another chunk had their results cancelled for various examination offences (570 we are told).