The importance of market women can never be exaggerated. For centuries, these women have held the purse strings and purchasing parity of West African families, deciding what gets sold and at what price. These markets, now little more than stalls or windowless containers were once the nerve center of West African commerce. Now, in the […]
Greetings, members of the MOM Squad and other Random Readers dropping by. You’ll have to forgive me this morning. This post will not be completed with any elaborate eloquence. My body is wracked by pain, but it is my duty to report the events as they unfolded as I made a fatuous attempt to climb […]
Whenever I feel down, I medicate myself with food. And whenever I feel especially down, chocolate serves as my one true panacea. The range of emotions I’ve felt in my first few days in the country – which included elation, disappointment and despair, all finally culminating in a certain ambivalence – have forced me to […]
You need this song playing in the back of your mind. It makes the storytelling so much more arresting. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpBP9dALcWw] South Africans like to think they are immeasurably different from other Africans; when in fact, they are not. There is a wide spread and indoctrinated belief that all Africans north of the Limpopo are […]
In my bathroom at home we have a three foot tall stack of magazines. Architecture Digest, Essence, Relevant, Time, you name it – it’s in there. And in one of these magazines, it was suggested that readers venture off the beaten vacation path and give a try to ‘serving vacations’ or whatever the term was. […]
You don’t come to Africa empty handed. You can try that mess if you want to, but it doesn’t bode well for a good experience. At some point, you will pay for that decision. It’s one of the themes you’ll often hear foreigners and White folks in South Africa discussing: This damned entitlement culture that […]
Greetings from windy South Africa! I’ve been on the road and in the air since May 25th and I’m ever so grateful to have my feet on the ground. The last time the family went to South Africa I believed it was the most grueling experience I would ever endure. Seventeen hours in the air […]
Consider a pimple – a whitehead to be exact. Over the course of time – a week perhaps – you see and feel it erupting slowly, breaking through the surface of the skin with powerful stealth until it blooms and settles on your face with opaque grotesqueness. Frantically, you begin to stab at it, vehemently […]
Hmmm… I think Ambolley wants me to write about Monsanto. Done! Does Ghana – or Africa as a whole, for that matter – have anything to fear from Monsanto? The short answer is “yes”. Anytime a huge US conglomerate takes an active interest in developing nations or any geographic area perceived as being bereft of […]