The drums are beating furiously in Ogyakrom! She's baaaacck!

Drumbeats from Ogyakrom!

The Lord is my Shepherd, Who art in heaven. Who preparedst a table before me, in the presence of all the “ofie nipas” ... and leads me not into temptation … many temptations to write and write and write, especially when I have loads of school work to do. Amen. Hmm, … … na wao! As always, I’m thrilled to be back home, even though things are crazier than I last left them. These days I’m somewhat a prisoner in the land of the free … the boys-boys in the areas are mugging people, snatching bags, robbing at gunpoint etc aah ma, now yours truly has to be extra careful. People are infringing upon my liberties oh. Yoo. These are the things that push me to yield to sweet temptation and put my pen (fingers) to paper (screen).

There’s so much to write about … as usual, but this time around, I honestly do not have the time to write as much – I’m not supposed to busy my little self with anything other than dissertation business if I really want to graduate in May (so-help-me-God) and then head back to Ogyakrom. My love for this place and my ‘mof mof’ about moving back is being tested. Will I still sing the same “i-loooove-Ogyakrom” song even when my haven of peace is being disrupted by armed robbers? Help me Lord!

Okay, I got here on Thursday the 1^st, and by that weekend, walked right into an effort to raise funds for flood victims in the north. It was a charity event spearheaded by Mr. Music Man himself, Kojo Antwi, telecast live on GTV. He got his fellow celebrities to get together and take calls from people who were willing to pledge their financial and other support for the brethren in the north. The support was very positive and well-noted; people called in literally from all over – Sandema, Bolga, Half Assini, Hohoe, Yendi, Berekum, Nsawam, Tema, Tarkwa, Koforidua Bimbilla, all over Accra, Liberia, Nigeria, Mauritania, the U.S., the U.K., Holland etc. Abeiku Santana, Rex Omar, David Dontoh, Akofo Edjeani Asiedu, last year’s Ms. Malaika and other well-known faces gathered to do some ‘hard labor’ in the Call Center. Some performed too – one of my favorite Ghanaian gospel singers (Ohemaa Mercy) also performed. Let me digress for a second. … you know, the first time my supplier of gospel music CDs recommended her music, her name kraa put me off. I said to him that I didn’t want any of the many sister-somebody, mama-somebody or ohemaa-somebody singing whiny, dirge-like songs in my ears. I wanted a good selection of worship songs and edifying praise songs. Well, I rejected her CD. I got an MP3 selection of music, and there were at least 6 songs I immediately fell in love with, and guess the woman behind the voice? … you got that right. Shame on me. Love her music – ministers to me.

However, I can’t help but mention my disgust? Displeasure? Sadness? at how much of the gospel music being released is merely entertainment – it has the bumping and grinding ‘dombolo-like’ moves you see in contemporary secular music videos. Puzzling, if you ask me … Recently, many national leaders – Imams, pastors, teachers etc have been commenting about the lewdness we see on the screens – especially the ‘fillers’ used by the television stations when they are behind schedule or have nothing else to offer our eagerly itching (or is it itchingly eager) eyes and ears. The fashion sense has changed … wearing clothes with boobs all over the place, body-hugging stuff that displays every single pimple and dimple is causing custodians of cultural values, moral values etc to be worried. I hear them on that one. And … I have issues with some of these beauty pageants etc … our sense of beauty is equated with the skinny ribcage-displaying light-skinned women with fake hair, nails and the works. God bless Ms Ghana 1987 and some others, who displayed in their time a healthy helping of meat to cover their bones, and had the brains to add to the beauty. It was refreshing to see last year’s Ms. Malaika – a dark-skinned beauty for a change. Anyway … you know what? Lemme leave that issue right there for now. TBC later.

Back to the charity event … this is/was the first Telethon held in Ghana, and I must say it has great potential as a fundraising tool for serious needs like this one. A noble and worthy cause, and I’m glad that I had the opportunity to help out with it. It kept me busy that weekend, but for a good reason. I hope that time will not erase the flood off the memories of people in the country, and that NADMO, different NGOs, individuals and other entities will continue to support the victims - innocent victims of furious nature.

That same weekend, I marched off to the Qodesh – i.e. the home base of Lighthouse Chapel Int’l to witness the ordination of a good friend of mine. It was a blessing to be there, and you know, I realized how stable the church has been over time, and how it’s kept its mission/ vision all these years. Truly international oh … Tuesday evening saw such a representation of the diversity God has blessed this planet with … churches represented from Australia, Brazil, Austria, Germany, the U.K., Italy, and tons of African countries including South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria, Mali etc etc … I was telling someone the other day, that whenever I get lost, all I have to do is look out for a bright yellow signboard, and I will find out where my wanderings have led me to … LCI – Banana Inn or LCI – Darkoman, or LCI – Sakumono. It’s a blessing to be part of that family. Looking forward to spending time with my original spiritual family too - LIC in Legon, and ooh, it’s always so refreshing to be back with them. No place I’d rather be, I tell you. This time, my trip is going to be all about me, God and our dissertation. … and of course, ‘light’ updates on what’s going on in Ogyakrom. Light updates like this one …

Some fires are raging here oh – chieftaincy wahala in the Anlo area. A dispute over the rightful successor to the stool etc … Some representative of one of the factions came on the SMShow (Joy Fm), and totally said everything about absolutely nothing, trying in some very lame way to pin the ongoing conflict on government using parables. Government didn’t send law enforcement early, and then now they can handle things by themselves and don’t need any law enforcement agents. I tell you, I could not for the life of me understand his point (of course that’s because he had none). Why do we ‘Ghana-nians’ alllllways have to politicize everything? In a conversation with a taxi driver the other day, he blamed government for higher oil prices, saying that government owns the petrol stations like Total, Shell, Mobil etc, and so they’re the ones profiting from higher prices. It’s all the NPPs fault – that’s the song. This is where I launch my favorite missile – taking the scales off ignorant eyes and conscientizing Ogyakromians one mind at a time.

That aside … you know, there are certain issues that cannot be resolved without the input of some key stakeholders … how can we ever do any serious urban planning if we won’t involve the chiefs who sell, re-sell, re-re-sell and then sell the same piece of land to different people? The last time I came down, I was appalled (this is the kindest word in my dictionary for now) … at the condition of some of our public agencies – Town & Country Planning, Deaths & Births Registry and those agencies housed in the shacks that were supposed to be temporary some decades ago by the sea. Why am I wasting my breath anyway? After all, the Akosombo Dam mpoh was supposed to be temporary, and here we are, 50 solidly golden years later … Come je disais … plus ça change … Hmm… I really would like to do a study on the funding patterns for public agencies – the visibility and invisibility of some agencies. Compare CEPS and the GIPC to T&CP …. that’s like comparing night to day.

You know, these are the things that get me worked up about the public sector. If there’s any young person out there who believes in the public sector more than I do (not that they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing, but that they can be mobilized to do what they’re supposed to do), please, I beseech you … introduce me to that person. For some reason (only God knows), I see the potential and the indispensability of the public sector, and I can’t wait to start working on certain projects to help some one progressive and needy agency somewhere to find its raison d’être and function as it’s supposed to. Hmm … lemme get off that train for now.

Certain things haven’t changed – round-the-clock traffic jams, rude customer service personnel, goats, chicken, people and cars trying to share road space, tons of radio call-in programs etc etc etc… The more things change, the more things stay the same, I tell you. Your political aspirants are still crawling all over the place like ‘nkran’ (ants) in warfare. The heavyweights and “political ticos” (thanks to Ato K. Dadzie on Joy Fm’s Super Morning Show, Dr. Frimpong Boat has a small nickname to match his political stature among the heavyweights). It’s wearying to hear of NPP all the time. I’m on the lookout for noise by the other parties too, but nothing serious yet. … just the MPs slapping each other and Aggudey shoving his feet and hands into his mouth a little too early in the game. Did you hear his outburst? My goodness -- and this dude wants to be president? You bet press freedom will be heading on its way out as soon as you guy this one in.

Oh … today I went walking through Madina market. You know me and my school girl haircut. I get the labels “hey, school girl”, or “small.” Some dude actually referred to me as “school girl”, touched my arm, said “obaa” something something…, and commented on how soft …. In fact, I was immensely annoyed, to say the least, but I realized that the nincompoop was too empty-headed to even acknowledge my threats, protests, etc… The most I got out of him was “ah, na wonnye obaa? Me de mensa kã wo ah n’ayeh den?” (trans: ah, aren’t you female? So what will happen if I touch you?). You know, it’s amazing to walk in these shoes oh…. I get so quickly stereotyped either as some J/SSS school girl, or some ‘millenium woman’ who perhaps is all book and nothing else, can probably not cook or keep a home, will be the harasser of some poor guy. And … here I am, the total opposite. I’m happy whenever I see women who dare to wear their hair short on this continent … it is just another option – not a lesser option, but people refuse to see it that way. You’re free to perm your hair, wear a wig, braid it, wear locks or go santo/sakora. So why is it difficult to accept that we don’t all want our hair permed? Ça, je ne comprends pas. Seriously. Anyway … I keep getting harassed about marriage, wearing short ‘school girl’ hair instead of a perm etc etc… Why can’t we just accept alternatives to the straightening of our natural kinks? As for the extent of our brainwashing, the least said, the better.

Oh … the Most Troublesome Network in Ghana right now is messing me up paa, so I got myself a chip To Go, and texted my new number to a couple of friends (by the way, all puns intended). ...and by the way … that freeze on the sale of starter packs was one of the most useless directives. It was just a display of NCA might – mightless might, I might add. It’s different if you’re going to go and check the actual tech equipment they use to serve their network, etc etc etc. What did it achieve? Oh well. … so I sent my new number to friends, and one of them called back, but wasn’t saying anything when I answered. The call came through about 4 times, and then I gave this buddy of mine a warning … that I would count five and hang up ‘cos I wasn’t sure whether the Most Troublesome Network phone he was using was misbehaving or not, or whether he wasn’t aware his phone was calling me. Countdown … and then I hung up. Call came through again, and some woman asked who I was looking for, and I gave the name, and then realizing it was a wrong number I’d texted, I apologized for disturbing her peace. Then came the barrage of threats … that I should never dare to call her husband ever again or text him. I said ‘oh madam!’ dis one na wrong nomber oh abi. Make you forgive me. Sister-woman was too irate to listen, and then hung up.

Moments later … phone rings with a seriously-stressed out brother at the other end asking if I’d called him. I said oh Massa, I misdialed the number oh. Poor dude was panting, obviously after a heated argument with his bezerk wife, who thought I was his ‘mpena.’ Ao, mercy!! Poor guy. I tried to apologize to the Mrs., who refused to listen, so I moved on with my life. Perhaps Mr. man may have some skeletons in his closet, giving this woman some reason to suspect him of foul play. Or … she’s some mental nutcase who’s acting out in paranoia. I’ll leave the head doctors to figure that one out. It left me with a question I still haven’t been able to answer … why do spouses always go pouncing on the person they think is trying to poach their partner, when indeed, prudence would suggest that they rather launch their attacks on the one to whom they have committed, who seems to be breaking the commitment? Not worth my time for now … let’s move on.

I need to focus on school work – don’t wonder what my Sacramento Kings are doing, or how the Phobians are doing, or anything of the sort. Don’t wonder how I’ll leave all the Ghana 2008 excitement to return to Uncle Sam’s yard, just 2 days before the games start in January. Hmm …

You see how this happens? This was supposed to be a very quick 2-paragraph update, and here I am after a number of pages. May God have mercy on this temptation that so-easily besets me. Hmm. I’ll boss you more later on. I’ll try to make my entries short and regular – as much as possible. There’s so much to boss you about … the Trasacco trial. Now tell me … how does an Italian kingpin come here, make tons of money off us, commission land guards to storm parcels of land, kill people, use mafia tactics to evict and murder people and get away with it? It drives me insane! What kind of nonsense – mega nonsense is that? Oh, … the Chinese are here in full capacity – Bui Dam, roads, schools, etc etc… I wonder our role in dealing with them - equitable/equal partnerships? Servants and masters? Uneasy bedfellows? Much to say, but I hold my peace. Lemme stop here norrr. Keep your ears opened to the drumbeats floating up out of Ogyakrom. Be safe, and God bless Ogyakrom!