The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

It's no secret that I support Paa Kwesi Nduom (PKN) in the upcoming Ghanaian election. I've heard this man speak a couple of times, met him in person, and we have more of the same ideologies for Ghana. His track record is magnificent; he has succeeded in his various ventures and has paid his dues to Ghana. In the aftermath of Ghana's golden jubilee and the relative goodwill we enjoy in the global arena, we need to enlist and rally ourselves in a vision that would bring us national prosperity now and a mission that would get us there. We need to act now while we are enjoying this goodwill and time of patriotism, these times may not be with us for a long time. PKN is the leader we need at this time. Apparently, someone who didn't know about my support for Paa Kwesi Nduom gave my email addresses to Akufo Addo's campaign and they have been bombarding me with campaign emails. Does that amount to spamming? Maybe, maybe not. I can't fault them for trying but not everyo...

My alter ego, Maximus Ojah, just blogged on GhanaThink about Ghanaian workers. I'll be featuring the Lettas to Osagyefo on this blog. Below is the full post. Hello Osagyefo, A lot has happened since I last wrote to you. Chief among them, the Beijing Olympics just ended over the weekend. I share in your disappointment; our beloved country failed to win a single medal. Either our athletes are not good enough to earn our national anthem some airtime on the world stage or we are not investing enough in various sports disciplines so that we can be counted amongst countries with medals. We went there to make up the numbers. But we didn't even have the numbers - our contingent was less than a score (Ha, always wanted to use this expression). In the meantime, our current president handed out a ton of medals recently to about 200 people who have served our nation in various ways. Each 18 carat gold medal cost 33,000 pounds. Here's a good debate Kwame: should we have spent this gold ...

Many Africans are in love with Guinness. You can check the records, some of Guinness (Diageo's) best business is done on the continent. I will never forget the day I heard the CEO of Diageo Africa speak at the Harvard Business School African Business Conference (HBS ABC) and talk about how the company is doing brisk business in Africa. Two words I won't forget from that speech: bottles and business. Whatever speech you give, no matter how boring, great, thorough and intellectual it is, follow this guy's lead, give your audience a couple of sentences or words to remember. Guinness is also a mark of happiness in some places, which includes Ghana. Take this scenario, when Ghana played Namibia in the 2008 African Cup of Nations and won by a lone goal, many Ghanaians were down, disappointed and angry. They expected the Black Stars to annihilate the Brave Warriors. A one-nil victory was as good as a loss, and Guinness felt the losses too. The bars and spots were empty and Diageo ...

As long as I can remember, the notion of every person needing three square meals a day has rung from sea to shining sea. The truth is, I don't remember having three square meals consistently ever since I started living in the USA. I can't afford it and even if I could, I probably wouldn't. Thanks to my Mum, I do get 3 excellent meals when I am in Ghana though. I make sure to eat two heavy meals each day, within 8-10 hours for the second. This is the mantra I follow, unless I am really hungry. Well, this morning, I was really hungry. It was about 11am and I began wondering where I'd have lunch, what I'd eat and how I'll get the food. After spending $20 on the two previous days' lunches, and a further $20 more on dinner Thursday night, I voted unanimously not to purchase food. Cuz I'm a hustler, baby! I made a couple calls to some Stanford students who had meal plans. I finally retrieved an ID number, that's all I needed. I confidently walked up into t...

So finally, I saw the movie, 'Life and Living it' again. I first saw it while I was in Ghana in the early part of the year. I joined my brother and a lot of KNUST students to experience the Tech premiere. In the days, where the Rex and Roxy Cinemas of Ghana are extinct, any Ghanaian movie that has the guts to have a premiere or cinema showing really means business. Sparrow Productions does. I watched this movie in a movie theater atmosphere, with crowd reaction at its peak and surround sound quality. I thoroughly, I mean, totally, enjoyed the experience. The movie itself was awesome. Flat out the best Ghanaian production I have ever seen until convinced otherwise. 'Life and living it' is a movie about four young men just navigating their daily lives. The movie has a star cast - the foursome are - Brew Riverson Jnr, Adjetey Annan (Pusher of Things We Do For Love fame), Chris Attoh and Nana Kwame Osei Sarpong. Other actors and actresses are Fritz Baffour, Rama Brew, Bib...

The Olympics is totally the biggest sporting event. Some may argue for the World Cup, but even though the Mundial is grand and is centered around the passion of the nation (aka football), all other sports have some different fans who pay attention to the Olympics. For instance, I have a couple of friends who could care less about football but will stop work to watch Michael Phelps and the 100 metre sprint. I didn't catch the opening ceremony, it's always the greatest spectacle of celebration. Ghana's contingent was very small and they were clad in kente. I've heard people complaining about the choice of attire, about how kente has been accepted by the greater Black community and we can't claim it anymore. Nonsense! People should know we are the originators! :-) The Ghanaian contingent held their own, you can't miss us, we are colourful and we stand out. I was very disappointed the Black Meteors failed to make it to the Olympic soccer tournament. We have a lot of...

Just wanted to share a poem I wrote about Africa. I wrote it sometime in February 2007. I wrote it for MIT's Pulse concert, a celebration of Afro-Diasporean culture. I was exploring some of the ways in which Africa was different from the rest of the world and the various little things we cherish that may not be glorified or celebrated in the media. Enjoy! Why I love Africa It takes a village to raise a child It takes a male child to start a village It takes a female child to educate them all In Africa One man’s inactive car Is many other men’s community service Because you will need others When your own car breaks down in Africa It doesn’t fall into winter And then spring into summer People may be raining away But life and warmth never run dry in Africa Tangerine tree, football field, sugarcane seller Very different but similar Who needs Mapquest? In directing and navigating All landmarks are on deck, in Africa What if the peanut seller is sick with malaria? There are a hundred an...

I was in Ghana for the first three months of 2008 and one thing I realised, was the emergence of relatively good relevision adverts/commercials. Ghana was crazy about the African Cup of Nations it was hosting and various companies had tuned their marketing campaigns in line with the football fiesta. One company whose commercials I really enjoyed was that of the mobile service provider called Tigo. The headline sponsor for the tournament was MTN, which was widely publicizing itself around every visible corner. Tigo and other companies like One Touch, Ricemaster, Coca Cola, had done their own ambush marketing. Tigo's campaign was called 'Be a true fan'. According to them, no matter what sport anyone played, their first love was football (soccer). You can see it in these commercials. "It's football time! Tigo, express yourself! Pool - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI-KVz9O-QU Tennis - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUXNFEhc04Q Golf - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1...

I am a big sports fan. I remember as far back as 1992, I started following football (soccer) very keenly. I knew the name of many footballers, where they played and where they were from. We had no internet but my friends and I knew the latest news and Sports Highlights (every Monday on GTV) was our favorite program. At some point, we knew so much information, we would organize quizzes for our friends. I've seen a lot of footballers play over the years. Positioning in football has changed, we have people like Ronaldinho wearing jersey #80 and Beckham #23, a marked departure from the days, each person in the starting team had 1 through 11 and a position to play. I am going to discuss my winning eleven, the top players I've seen play the 11 positions in football. I will be choosing circa 1992 and onward. That removes people like Pele, Maradona, Platini, Roger Milla and everyone who was the gangarea before 1992 from my list. Let's do this. #1 - Goalkeeper: There are a number of...

So through my conversation with that Habesha taxi driver in San Francisco the other day, I have learnt a few more Amharic words. I am making progress towards formulating my lines for picking up Ethiopian women. More on this later, I said I am making progress, I have not made all the progress I need. In the meantime, if you are looking for ways to pick up some other women, how about you try these lines? "Sorry for gate crashing girls, I need a cookie from your cookies 4 my pookie in the pouch". Sounds a lot like chaa, twum, blowing rot or speaking nonsense but like most of us Odadee have learnt; chaa is a very useful tool. We used it in secondary school to write cheesy love letters and the advertisers in the West are some of the best charisters out there. No pun intended, but some companies pun their ways in the yard pon da bank. (I was trying to say some companies use puns, rhymes and chaas on their way to the bank aka payday). Anyway, if you want living proof of how these li...

It's a weekday in late July. I just have finished playing phenomenal football and I've gotten a text to help a friend move to a new place. I take a quick shower but have no time to eat before I join a ride with some other friends. Maybe the sight of a restaurant near to my friend's old place made me hungrier. I couldn't help but ask the workers at the restaurant (the back of the place was right next door to this apartment) to give me some food. I mean, they are closing down, there is bound to be some good food headed for the dustbin. Okay refuse heap, there is virtually no dust in the Bay Area. But pardon my African upbringing, we are used to dust. This guy (I think he's a manager of some sorts) tells me they are closing down so I should go to the front of the restaurant and place an order. Would you do that? I wouldn't either. I left him alone and after carrying a couple more things downstairs into the U-haul, I see a sign on the U-haul van. It reads - "Y...