The Green In Ghana

So on my 8th day here in Ghana I wrote this post on my other blog. I had seen Kwame Nkrumah Circle maybe twice before then and every time, it hurt. The beautiful fountain had disappeared. :(

Now, today, day 86, I read in the GSGDA 2010-2013 (a development plan) "To address the challenges posed by the lack of open spaces the following policy objectives will be pursued to: ensure that urban centres incorporate the concept of open spaces and the creation of green belts or green ways within and around urban communities; develop recreational facilities and promote cultural heritage and nature conservation in both urban and rural areas; foster social cohesion; and enhance the participation of people in leisure activities as a way of improving healthy lifestyles."

So to summarise, in their pursuit of more open spaces and recreational facilities, this government demolished the country's most loved fountain and garden. Yeh. That happened.

My wakeup call - Ikenna Azuike at #TEDxEuston #rippleeffect

I'm keeping this blog alive with a video about a guy chasing his passion because my other blog documenting me chasing my passion is currently taking up all my time.  #rippleeffect

KFC needs to hurry up and get to East Legon

In a little revert back to the original travellers vibe of this blog, here's a plea for KFC to do more in Ghana and if the other fastfood chains are reading this, I'll be happy to have you too, especially Subway. I have missed Subway. Being a foreigner without those little creature comforts is difficult. I love Ghana, don't get me wrong,  I even stopped my mum from shipping Heinz Tomato Ketchup because I didn't believe I would need it. I was adamant that I would only eat Ghanaian food. If it couldn't be bought at the local market it wasn't worth eating (with the exception of Cheerios).

So here's me, interning in East Legon, home of the rich and the foreign. There are restaurants around me. There's a Chinese restaurant and a Turkish restaurant, further away there is an Italian and a kinda local dish at foreign prices restaurant. I shan't complain, the choice is clearly there, except they are all restaurants-proper, so you've got to sit and wait for your food to be made after you've waited minutes for a waiter/waitress to acknowledge your existence and take your order. Then on average no meal will cost less than 20 Ghana cedis (we say "Ghana cedis" here like there are any other type of cedis in the world).   I spent 40-something cedis at one restaurant, just because I really had a craving for the food, but still that's just crazy for a lunchtime meal.

I just want Subway here so I know it'll take just a few minutes in and out to get my lunch. The "COMING SOON" KFC sign in Lagos Avenue is taunting me. 

Young in Politics

This week Ghana's President John Dramani Mahama said that Ghana needs thinking graduates. According to him "we are challenged to produce the calibre of graduates who are critical thinkers to confront challenges". Tech-focused students are an advantage. What isn't clear though is whether the mark of a thinking person is that they are a graduate or whether "thinking" is the critical criteria to differentiate between graduates that Ghana is producing. I didn't want to touch on this because if you look through my tweets you will know just what I think of Victoria Hammah, but she is an example of the President using the former understanding of "thinking graduate" when searching for talent for his government. He and the Vetting Committee clearly thought she is a graduate and therefore she must be thinking rather than investigate whether this graduate actually engages in some substantial state-building thinking.

It's time for the thinking graduates (those graduates who truly do think critically, out of the box and against the grain), the radical and progressive graduates to stand up in the void left by Victoria Hammah. The problem is that the analysis of the whole Hammah saga seemed to conclude (note: it was a lot of old people doing the evaluation) that her youth explains her lack of composure in high pressure embarrassing moments (pre and post-election) and that her youth explains her mistakes whether we're willing to overlook them or not. That's not fair to the hundreds and thousands of other graduates in and outside of this country, who are young but mature in their thought; who can and want to help Ghana; and who are not given the opportunity because they didn't get involved in party politics on campus. Ghana doesn't just need thinking graduates, it needs thinking young people, teenagers and twenty-somethings (and thirty-somethings ;-] ) who are willing to take the country's future into their hands. It needs thinking young people who will put Ghana first and be willing to get their hands dirty even if that is literally cleaning out the gutter like The Be Bold Show did about a year or so ago.

Ghana's education system, as pointed out by JDM has been responsive to the challenges of the times. I might argue that Ghana is always trying to respond to something, we never pre-empt anything and that is the problem with our development. For instance, the quality of our tertiary education is important in our development but it's also quite irrelevant if after primary education the only people able to afford to continue with good education are those who could also afford to be educated elsewhere. Yes (if I'm being too subtle, I will point it out) I supported the Free SHS campaign. I've heard whispers of Ghana's youth being able to re-create the North African Spring. I'm not saying that we need to topple government, our democracy is still evolving, but young people, constituting over 50% of this country's (and this contnent's) population need not to just be critical thinking about our politics, they are to be thinking they are critical to our politics.

somethingbeginningwithgh

So I'm in Ghana. I'm blogging about my time here. I will do my best not to neglect this blog but, I can't make any promises, so follow me over to wordpress just for a bit. medaase wai!