The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

If you listen to songs a lot, you will pick out how to say "I love you" quite quickly. Since I have grown to listen to music from all over the continent and used that to build Museke.com, I am well-versed in saying that "1-4-3" line in many mother tongues. Let me show you ;-) Akan: Med ɔ wo ! What you thought I wouldn't add my mother tongue? Some folks can't say what "thank you" is in their lingua francas. Such a fracas. Don't belittle this at all at all. Ga: Mi sumo bo ! I learnt this through songs. Especially, Amandzeba's Dede . That's such a classic highlife track. Ewe: Mi l ɔn w ɔ ! Would you forgive me if I said I (pretty much) learnt this from a Daddy Lumba song? I don't remember which but the Ghanaian Michael Jackson taught me.  Hausa: Ina sonki . After loving how D-Flex sang Hausa lines while featuring on K. K. Fosu and Ofori Amponsah songs, I had to learn to this one. From who? I don't remember. Swahili: Nakupe...

Happy Easter everyone! Today is Easter Sunday 2013 - March 31, 2013. It's been a relaxing Easter weekend. I am in Kumasi just like I was for the last Easter Sunday which was on April 7, 2012. On that day, I met a lady at an event on the KNUST campus. She sold me some Bissap juice. Ever since that sale, I've been sold. Not to her o! But on Bissap juice. I had attended a Classics 4 Christ show at the Independence Hall JCR. It was night of praise and worship, poetry and various performances. After the show, there was a little stand selling various snacks and drinks. I discovered that Bissap juice was being sold and quickly bought some. Because it is a cool African drink. Because the lady selling the juice was so pleasant and cute. One or all of the two. I found out she was not from Ghana, she was from a Francophone West African country. I took her number and bought some more Bissap . I never called her for a long time until I whatsapped her one day. She remembered who I w...

After taking a stab at seeing if I could say "Thank You" in 23 African languages, I decided to try this with non-African languages. Wasn't easy koraa. And let's share some small attendant info. :-) French: Merci . I learnt this way before Class 4. Pourquoi? I can't add French? Parce que? Let me count it. Je parle Francais en peut.  German: Danke . I learnt this correctly when I found myself in Amsterdam while traveling to Ghana from America.  Dutch: Danke je wel . We had just bought some stuff at an Amsterdam bar and we thought it well to say "Thank You". No, I didn't have some of the stuff. Just some tea. We didn't go to the Red Light District but let's just say Amsterdam is quite the liberal city. (Mexican) Spanish: Gracias . I was forced to learn this when I went to the Dominican Republic for spring break in March 2006 with 5 other African guys. My Spanish was non-existent but I was able to have a 30 minute conversation with a hot ...

Earlier tonight, I was at the Goethe Institut in Accra for the first time in more than 10 year s. The last time I was there, I had attended a literary event as a student of Presec . That night, my love for poetry was born. But let's talk about that in another blog post. Tonight, I was there for the premiere of " Kweku Ananse And The Chest of Stories ", directed by Johannes Preuß from Germany. I don't remember the last time I watched anything Kweku Ananse related and either I am too old to watch " By the fireside ", I don't have a TV or they just don't make "By the fireside" anymore. I love Anansesem though and I wrote this blog post a long time ago on GhanaThink's GhanaConscious Blogs . I do have this animated movie though - " Ananse Must Die ". I was excited to see this film and I booked it on my calendar. And on this one too . The premiere started with a documentary which I missed. But we can all watch it at the end of...

Today, I learnt how to say "Thank You" in yet another African language. So let me take a stab at seeing if I can say "Merci" in 23 African languages. And let's share some small attendant info. :-) Akan: Medaase . What you thought I wouldn't add my mother tongue? Some folks can't say what "thank you" is in their lingua francas. Such a fracas. Don't belittle this at all at all. Ga: Oyiwaladonn . I don't remember when I learnt this but I do know I learnt to say "Nnuu Ga" (I can't speak Ga) during the time I came to Accra to represent KNUST JSS in Kiddie Quiz and me and my Kumasi-living mates were testing our Ga knowledge. Ewe: Akpe . I love saying "Akpe kakaa" and I am not sure why. Dagbani: Ti pagi da . Yeap, Jemila Abdulai taught me this one. Thrice. You can also say Mpagya . Hausa: Na gode . I should have known this a long time ago but thanks to Manre Chirtau, I will not forget this one. Ever. Alafia lo! S...

Yesterday, we heard news that Bill Gates was coming to Ghana today. He had announced it on his blog:  The Gates Notes  and was oohing and aahin over how Ghana has handled immunization. The Bill Gates of Microsoft. No, the Bill Gates of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Still one of the richest men in the solar system though. He tweeted ... In Ghana to learn more about the amazing progress this country has made: b-gat.es/ZPSI1b — Bill Gates (@BillGates) March 25, 2013 Bill Gates was coming in without much media fanfare, unlike his fellow American Chris Brown did just before Ghana's 56th birthday. Chris Brown's face was all over billboards, Bill Gates' name was reduced to a number of tweets. Chris Brown was in town to give hope to Hope City and make the evenings of many Ghanaian women. Bill Gates was in town to check on the progress of Ghana's health care system and remain anonymous. Because the best way to really assess how well something is running is...

When Kofi Yeboah approached me about getting accepted into the Preparing Global Leaders Academy and needing money to fund his way there, I thought we could do a lot to help him reach this goal. Mac-Jordan Degadjor (arguably the top blogger in Ghana) and Alloysius Attah (of Farmerline fame) had used crowd-funding to  help sponsor trips abroad around their work and passions, so Kofi should be able to use the same methods to raise the $1200 he needed to fund his way to the April events in Jordan. He had been selected as one of 50 finalists, and as far I know the only one from Ghana and one a few from Africa. So via  GhanaThink Foundation , we set up a crowdfunding project for him and the collective network pushed it. Last week,  Kofi Yeboah  reached his $1200 target. With one week to spare too. It all went down here . I must say GoGetFunding is a good crowdfunding tool and I will recommend it even though it charges small small fees. Kofi recapped the story of h...

You might have read about my previous blog post about watching the popular Ivorian movie " Le Mec Ideal ".  The Accra Francophone Film Festival ended today and I saw 3 full-length movies and a short film as part of it. Apparently, the last week has also seen the Festival de la Francophonie happen in Accra courtesy of Alliance Francaise. But if I didn't know this particular weekend was going to be a French weekend . It just kinda happened. Allow me to explain :-) When I showed up to get my social media teacher hat on at the West Legon location, the friend who had invited me told me the students were mostly Francophone. " Be careful of what you say so they might understand you well ". After greeting the class with " Bonjour " and going through some Facebook tips, I asked the students if I had spoken too fast. They had followed my speech and teaching well so that would not be a problem. But that made me wonder, do Francophones hear Anglophones spe...

In December 2006, Ronke Ampiah , Farida Alabo , Felicia Hanson , and co started a project called Smiles For Christmas where they got friends to donate gifts, items, provisions and cash to kids in a Ghanaian orphanage. I joined them to Orphanage Africa in Dodowa. Later in 2008, I remixed their efforts to do Smiles For New Year where I joined others to donate similar items to kids at King Jesus Charity in Boadi. Today, I joined Nehemiah Attigah and a few others to do a similar deed at the Lords Arm Christian Home & Foster Care in Teshie. Today's episode touched me a whole lot more and I have been more driven to act around helping orphanages and foster care homes. I hope to be involved in more efforts like this in 2013. At the Lords Arm Christian Home & Foster Care in #Teshie , #Accra with @ attigs @ ahiabor @ eokyere @ qwophicedi and others. #PalmSunday — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) March 24, 2013 Nehemiah created a Facebook event inviting us to this. He ch...

I didn't wake up remembering that today was 23-3. I knew it was 23rd March, the day of Blogcamp Ghana 2013 aka #blogcamp13 . But did I remember that the date itself was 23-3-2013? As in, 23rd day of the 3 month? Nah. But do you get it? Today was 23-3 . That's like the perfect day to signify the number 233 , which is Ghana's number. I guess every 23rd March is gonna occupy a special place in my heart. The #233moments posts at 2:33pm on every 23rd March will be that extra special. But like I said, today was the day many bloggers and social media enthusiasts gathered at Blogcamp. But boy, was it an interesting day! I had been approached by a Presec mate during the week to do some lessons on how to use social media to some people taking a professional course on this day. I told him I couldn't do it because I would be at Blog Camp and that everyone I knew who could do this would be there too. If you could do this, but weren't gonna be at BlogCamp if you were ava...

Blogcamp 2013 happened today. On 23-3-2013. :-) Over 400 blogging and social media enthusiasts gathered to learn more about digital media, network, share ideas and commune. There was also the small matter of the Ghana Social Media Awards 2013. Here is the list of winners. Best Original Content poetrysoundbites.blogspot.co.uk Best Creative, Literary Short Stories, Poetry Blog ganyobinaa.com Best Organisational Blog accradotalttours.wordpress.com Best Technology Blog techy-africa.com Best Citizen Journalism Blog circumspecte.com Organisation with Best Social Media Presence Vodafone Ghana Personality with Best Social Media Presence MutomboPercy the Poet (@MutomboDaPoet) Best   Business   & Commerce Blog estockanalysisblog.com Best Showbiz and Entertainment Blog ameyawdebrah.com Best   Lifestyle Blog ganyobinaa.com Best Activist Blog adventuresfrom.com Best Photo Blog africaphotographer.blogspot.com Best Bl...

#BlogCamp13 is here on Saturday! It's going to be the biggest ever gathering of bloggers and social media users in Ghana. BlogCamp Ghana is organized by the association of Ghanaian bloggers - Blogging Ghana . In late September 2012, I was named as the Blogger of the Week by Blogging Ghana. I was interviewed on Twitter (really close to 2:30pm) where various people asked me relevant questions. I covered the blogging related ones in this post. I'd like to cover some other questions of interest in this blog post. I live-blogged the questions and answers so people could follow the conversation. See the raw live-blogging post here . Naturally, the first question was "how did you come by the name 'MIghTy African?", asked by Courage ( @ couragedarling ). I once wrote a blog post about that and my other online & pseudo-names. When I was in MIT, I started calling all African students there MIghTy Africans because it was a cool name to have given where who we were...