MLK is Happy; Nkrumah is Sad.

I put up the title of this post as both a facebook status and a tweet yesterday afternoon. It didn't get the response I expected. Fact is, it didn't get any response at all. Not a like, not a retweet. I was a bit sad though. It got me wondering if my internet family didn't agree or they were just forced to skip it due to the flooding of our timelines with MLK quotes the whole of Monday.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr. has a lot to be happy about. He had a dream. A dream that much of, if not all has materialised in half a century after he delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech and forty-five years after his death. Dr. King should be smiling in his grave. What can beat having the second inauguration of the first black president on his day?

Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah "the show boy"(I don't have the slightest clue as to why the Ghanaians of those days gave him that nickname). This man on the other hand has a lot to be sad about; so much to fill so many books to fill a decent sized library. As I write and as you read this, Mali is in turmoil. This same Mali that was part of Nkrumah's Ghana-Guinea-Mali "association", being taken over by French soldiers, probably clearing the path for influx of their other western allies. His fears and much preached about neo-colonialism lingers over the continent like a dark cloud in the wet season. Gadafi has been killed, Libya is going through her own post Arab spring struggles, the list can go on. But before we cut the list short, let's come home. No matter what one says, we have not built Nkrumah's Ghana, not even a good percentage of her, forty-one years after his death.

I'm sure you agree with me now that MLK is happy and Osagyefo is sad... 
 

photos borrowed from @DUSTAccra 's editor, Mr. @kobbygraham

Will Accra Benefit From Being Number 4?

"4. Accra, Ghana - A buzzing metropolis ready for business and pleasure."

A view of Accra from Dansoman borrowed from somewhere on the internet

Yesternight, on my home while on the final shared-taxi that gets me closest to my house, I was as usual social networking my way through the dusty and horribly bumpy ride. I came across a link to an NY Times article @WizSharifa had posted on her Facebook. The link which I'm sure you've also come across(because it's making it rounds on Ghana social media) by now, led to a piece on the 46 places to visit in 2013. In fact, I'm writing this around 5am after I woke up and found on my twitter how other people have shared the same link, just btw.

Why should such a list interest us in Ghana this much? Because Accra was number 4 on that list! I must confess that, the rather short piece on Accra is on point, apart from the fact that only high end places in the city were mentioned. On point enough make anybody with prior plans of coming here get 'more vim' to do so.

It's amazing how some things come together for me. Just before I went to bed on Friday night too, I used the remainder of the mobile data bundle to create a personal hotspot to download the latest edition of @DustAccra 's DUST magazine, the best magazine right now there is about the city, that is Accra... and it's free! Download a digital copy or if you're still old school like me and like to feel the paper while reading subscribe or grab a copy at a few of their designated outlets. Check them out at www.dustaccra.com.

Funny thing is, this new edition of DUST focuses on the whole 'Brand Ghana' thing. Something we've heard a lot noise being about in Ghana before. The piece 'Branding Ghana' written by Sena Kpado opens with a rather interesting line; "From the outside, it's fair to say the eyes of the world are on Africa...". A statement that has gained more weight in my opinion, per Ghana's number 4 spot in the referred to NY Times feature.

I, like several of you like-minded and well meaning Ghanaians, have one concern or maybe a few concerns. I just hope this won't be one of those things that make the news, creates a lot of buzz on our air waves and like any other thing, is used by politicians more than anybody to make selfish arguments for they and the parties they represent without anybody really putting in any work for us as a country to reap as much benefit from it as possible.

Here's the link to the page http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/01/10/travel/2013-places-to-go.html?hp . New York Times y'3daase.

To Do 2013

I took this photo of the basketball lying on the court unattended to last Wednesday (2nd Jan.). It was during the DC Dynamics U16 invitational tourney at what has become known as the Central Courts at the HQ of the ICGC at Abossey Okai to us regulars. It's the first photo I've applied a personal watermark to. After spending some time working on it, something about it struck me and I must confess I'm not very sure if I have full grasp of the thought myself.

If you're like me and spend a lot of time watching, reading and following basketball, you definitely have heard countless times coaches yell out to their teams(especially youth teams), "protect the ball". In fact, the entire game is about "protecting" the ball. Think about this, for a moment this rock is left alone. This rock that everybody goes chasing when the game is on. Would really like to know your thoughts about this. Like I said, I don't even really know why I'm thinking about this situation myself.

Last year at Blogging Ghana's #BlogCamp12, @kajsha defined a blog as "your home on the Internet". If that be the case, I've not done justice to this home of mine. I think I've been too selective in what I blog about. This year, I'm going all out. More photos(obviously the reason for the watermark), more articles about anything and everything considering the wide range of things needed to make a home a home. From food, to clothes, to places, to sports, to politics, work, business, the world, photography, film, ...anything and most of all as much as I can, Ghana!