The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

I'm getting pretty excited about #BlogCamp13 - the second edition of the biggest gathering of bloggers and social media users in Ghana organized by the association of Ghanaian bloggers - Blogging Ghana . The theme " Content is King " is brilliant and I really believe in that. I'd expand on why that is tres important later but let me get the crux of this post. In late September 2012, I was named as the Blogger of the Week by Blogging Ghana, the association of Ghanaian and Ghana-loving bloggers. The highlight of the week was to be an interview where various people would ask me questions about blogging, my blog entries and my interests and opinions which shape my blog posts. If you know a bit about me, you know I don't play with 2:33pm :-) So I asked that the interview on Twitter, or TwitterView, start at 2:30 pm which is close to 2:33pm. I posted a #233moments update on Twitter, Facebook &  Google+ . While answering the many questions, I was live-blogging...

On September 21 2012, we organized the second Barcamp Ho event. There were a couple of Keta Secondary School (Ketasco) students in attendance. They had been encouraged to come by their superstar teacher, Gameli Adzaho. They loved the experience so much and went to 'sell' it in Keta. On October 27 2012, we organized the first Barcamp Tema event. Gameli came to it with 31 Ketasco students. I remember quite well that when our speed mentoring session was going on, various attendees took to 'mentoring' some of these high school students. Each of the 31 students bought a Barcamp Tema T-shirt, went back and broadcasted the day they had just had. On January 30 2013, we went to Keta Senior High School to participate in the very first Junior Camp in Ghana. We mentored more than 500 students. Who's we ? The GhanaThink Foundation . One main takeaway from this post will be how good things sell themselves and grow and scale organically. The GhanaThink Foundation knew it wa...

On Friday, March 15, I realized that a gentleman I had interviewed for MIT had been admitted. I couldn't hide my excitement and I told a couple of friends there and then. The news was confirmed to me that weekend. This gentleman was a student of St. Francis Xavier, a small Catholic school tucked into Wa in the Upper West region of Ghana. Last year, 2 out of 3 teenagers I had interviewed for MIT also were admitted. One chose to go to Columbia which is another story altogether. Here's praying that the one from this year ends up going to MIT. He's as Mens et Manus as they come. MIT has to step up its financial aid offer to make that happen. 77 Massachusetts Avenue, we dey watch you. This gentleman is such an awesome young man. He was part of the giant-killing squad that sent St. Francis Xavier Seminary to the finals of Ghana's National Science & Maths quiz  after a 2-year break in the competition for senior high schools. They had beaten many 'top' schools,...

Last Sunday, I blocked out some time to go see a couple of movies as part of the very first Francophone Film Festival in Accra. I aim to befriend more Francophone people living in Ghana, I have already befriended a number of belles and I really have to visit a French-speaking country this year. Since we have 3 surrounding Ghana - Burkina Faso, Togo and Ivory Coast, that should not be difficult. The first movie I saw at the film festival is one called "Le Mec Ideal", an Ivorian movie directed by Orwell Brown. It's a romantic comedy. The other I saw was called "Yeelen", a Malian movie. That movie was deep, I need another screening to dig deeper into that. Let's stick with "The Perfect Guy" movie for now. At the NAFTI Preview Theatre, watching Le Mec Ideal, an #Ivorian movie as part of the #Accra Francophone Film Festival. Loving it so far. — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) March 17, 2013 I had heard about "Le Mec Ideal" during the ti...

I promised to write a blog post about dealing with the police while I was recounting my " Retrieving pick-pocketed items in Accra, Ghana " story. Obviously, I had dealt with the police in various ways after traffic offences and after my accident on December 30, 2012 . But this involved a crime, investigation and repeated trips to a Police Station. Let me tell a thing or two about dealing with the police in Ghana. First off, we must preface this blog post with the fact that policemen in Ghana are now paid much better than they were 10 years ago. They ride in better cars and they've been incentivized better to do their jobs. Traveler John bought them shiny blue cars to help them combat armed robbery and they became part and parcel of our traffic. Beyond every doubt, they have to do a better job maintaining law and order, protecting people amongst all they do. And even more importantly, they must exhibit "Service With Integrity". I'm not sure about you, bu...

Through all your comments and feedback, it's clear you've enjoyed reading my 5-part series on " Retrieving pick-pocketed items in Accra, Ghana . Like I said in Part 1, the characters in this story are real but most of their identities are concealed for security purposes. Before we dissect next steps, let's recap Part 1-5. No, this is not a review. Finally (y) "@ abocco : Mighty African Retrieving pick-pocketed items in Accra, Ghana - Part 1 bit.ly/ZMmrc9 " — Nii C'dore (@Cdore_) March 13, 2013 Herh blog post wey edey sweet like Agb3li kaaklo like that? Part 2 for come fast. Read part 1 of @ abocco 's post here: mightyafrican.blogspot.com/2013/03/retrie… — Qwophi Opare (@QwophiCedi) March 13, 2013 @ abocco Can't wait! Will you send out some red-gold-green smoke when part 2 is done? And please don't stretch this like Diabolo part 5 ooo? — Irene (@aireen233) March 14, 2013 Part 1 : I received a Facebook message that I thought was...

What's this Akwaaba lady doing in this blog post? You've arrived to the end of the 5-part series of "Retrieving pick-pocketed items in Accra, Ghana". She's here to say "Akwaaba" like we say in Ghana. On the blog post at hand. I was angling my way through work on Tuesday but I was distracted. I was recounting the story to various people and hoping I could close this " Retrieving pick-pocketed items " chapter. I was tired of going to the police station. I had been warned that these things could take a while. The police wanted to end the investigation and move on to other things. I was tired . I know you are also tired from reading 4 parts of an entertaining suspenseful story. This is part 5, the last part to join 1 , 2 , 3 , and 4 . You catch . You catch? As in, you catch say you catch? Okay, on to the story. Sometime after 2:33pm, I received a call from the policeman who had been on the case. Or should we call him investigator? He's a...