The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

Got an email from a friend recently which prompted me to look at the top rated sites on Alexa.com for Ghana. There were a few interesting discoveries so wanted to share. Top sites 1-10 1. Facebook.com : Pretty easy to decipher. Facebook has seen phenomenal growth over the last few years, making hi5 extinct and leaving myspace in its wake. Hey, they have Facebook parites in Ghana now. Facebook was probably the number one for advertising and marketing BarCamp Ghana last year. 2. Yahoo.com : People still use Yahoo regularly? For what? Email? I stopped using yahoo in 2006. I check my yahoo address once every 3 weeks. I probably use the Flickr service more than Yahoo Mail. Did I hear YahooMail has unlimited storage? 3. Google.com.gh : Maybe the only reason Google.com isn't top in Ghana is the fact that it shares 'time' with Google.com.gh. The Ghana google site has only been around maybe 4 years but it's sweet to have a country-specific google site for GH. Does Yahoo or MSN ...

It's been a while since I shared a 'diary' entry. This last weekend presented the perfect opportunity to do so. It wasn't setting up to be that special a weekend. The Harvard African Business Conference was going on, but I did not attend. While I was there last year, I decided to forgo the HBS ABC this year. I was bent on seeing this through and if I had the littlest inkling about changing my mind, my empty-full-of-potholes pocket hammered the final nail in the 'dont-go-to-the-HBS_ABC coffin. So, I was stuck in the Bay but the Bay interestingly had a few good things to offer. It ended up offering an unforgettable weekend. So I missed out on Naeto C? Kini Big Deal . Missed out on the biggest, brightest, most reputable face-to-face tete-a-tete networking potential African marriage-partner finding event? " Duro ", didn't drive me crazy because you should know my P. This weekend's Mighty African adventures were not to be missed. Here's the story. F...

In fact, sometimes I can't believe how ridiculous I get. Some might say I have a way with words. Actually, I am considering doing stand-up comedy. I have always been writing poems , used to write a lot of short stories (maybe I'll get into those again soon) and most recently, I have been doing spoken word. But at the time I found my love of writing in Presec through short stories, funny articles and poems, I employed 'these styles' in 'letters'. These styles included various figures of speech and what is known to Presec enthusiasts as "Chaa". In my youthful exuberance, I'd write letters to various girls and I don't know why we 'did' this, but we felt our letters had to be special, funny, witty, and 'chaaristic'. I don't have the letters I wrote in Presec with me but I was browsing through my Facebook messages and realised I never 'lost' my touch. I found a long-lost friend from those jolly old Presec times and felt ...

This is my second post this Valentine's National Chocolate Day. I was going to combine both posts but had too much to say in the first one . I have a poem to share with you all in the spirit of this weekend. It's a very special poem to me, because it is a love poem. Uuh. It's titled 'I would like'. I have debated well over a year whether to make it public and finally I have decided to let you all enjoy it. Well, I've performed it a couple times (spoken word) so it's not a huge secret and I've shared it with some friends as well. I wanted to keep the poem safe till I released it in my anthology or maybe, used it at a very very very special time. But hey, since I am unable to write poems these days for stupid reasons like "this poem better be better than the last poem", I figure I'll share the poem with y'all so I could be forced to write some new ones. It's easy to see why I chose this day, it's Valentine's Day, love is in t...

So it's Valentine's Day all over the world, so let me start by wishing you all Happy Valentine's! Like the Good Book says, Love is the greatest commandment. Love your neighbour as yourself. Pretty golden quote to live by. Where I'm from, aka Ghana, February 14th is National Chocolate Day. It was adopted by the Kuffour government in 2007 to boost the consumption and sale of cocoa. Ghanaians like to claim the best cocoa (or even chocolate) comes from Ghana. February 14th is a day cast in stone for high consumption of chocolate and cocoa products in Ghana. I know when I was in Ghana for February 14th in 2008, I bought my family a big pack of Golden Tree Chocolate. I shared my story on GhanaConscious too . So yes, we must buy made in Ghana-products all the time, but if you needed any reminders, we have National Chocolate Day. Too bad, I don't have any here to give us gifts. In fact, I am wondering where I could get some. I MUST get some Golden Tree Akuafo Bars today! I ...

I have blogged about Kasahorow & Fienipa creating a home for African languages on the web and the former's project for translating between some African languages and English . Through a recent Gmail conversation that I was privy too, I discovered a few great things my friend at Kasahorow have been up to. A few apps here and there are in the works and I'll broadcast them once they're 'ready for primetime', in the words of Paa Kwesi Imbeah. One recent feature I found very exciting was the opportunity to use my favorite web browser, Mozilla Firefox, in Twi. Yes, the file menus, download windows, everything. In Akan Twi! Isn't that just awesome? I am using it right now and you can too, just read on. * Download and install language pack for Firefox 3.5 or 3.6 * Navigate to about:config from your address bar and promise to be good. :-D Look for the variable called general.useragent.locale. Change the en-US value to ak-GH * Restart Firefox and ...

I Sing Of A Well is one of the best Ghanaian movies I've seen and I made that clear in my review here . After watching "I Sing Of A Well", a few questions lingered in my mind. So I decided to ask Leila Djansi, the director, a few questions about the movie, and herself. She is the founder of the Los Angeles based production house Turning Point Pictures. Her critically acclaimed screenplay for Movie Africa "Subcity" won the best screenplay award at FESPACO in 2007 and WorldFest platinum award winning film "Grass between my Lips". Normally, I would use the answers to make my blog entry but I thought I'll try something new this time. So here goes. Mighty African: What was the motivation behind doing this movie and choosing this time (circa 12th century, etc)? Leila: I love period pieces. And doing a movie on slavery has always been my ambition. Mighty African: What are some of the projects you worked on before you travelled abroad? Leila: Oh my. I...