HiFashionAfrican

Check out these young ladies and what they have to offer. A good start for these young entrepreneurs. http://hifashionafrican.blogspot.com/

Miss-Identity: Proud Third Culture Kid

I just read an article by Shuk-Wah Chung an Australian freelance radio/print journalist of Chinese heritage.  It was an article about how she has felt as a Chinese-Australian not fitting into the blue-eyed, blonde haired world of the Aussie nor fitting into the nietzeness of China.  Here is the link:  http://diaspora.chinasmack.com/2011/australia/shuk-wah-chung-questions-a-punky-asian-australian-girl-hates.html

What struck me most about this article was that everything she experienced were and are the exact same experiences I have had as an African-American.  The silly questions ("So you're from Africa" even though I just said I was born in CA and my mother is from FL, born and raised), the confusion of my last name ("huh...that's an odd last name), and the condescending tone of the righteous (We wouldn't have AIDS if it wasn't for Africans and their monkeys." What!?!.  All of those things plus the negativity and the constant fight to prove myself in any predominantly white arena whether that was during my pursuit of higher education, my work environment, or most recently, business dealings.

I naively believed that all of this would be over once I moved house and home to Ghana this past December 2011.  I was wrong. I had believed I would blend in with the natives so to speak especially if I didn't open my mouth.  I had believed that I would slowly pick up on one or two local languages, one of them being Ewe my tribal tongue.  I believed in a lot of fairy tales. 

First, my brother and I did not blend in at all.  We are constantly being stared at and harassed. Finally, I asked a few friends why this was happening and they said "well, you know, you look different." Of course my brother and I looked at each other in confusion and asked how so? "You just don't look like us." So on another continent, several thousands of miles away from North America, we found an even more dissociative culture.

I found a funny joke list on http://expatwithkids.blogspot.com about being a third culture person. Here are some of my favorites.

• “Where are you from?” has more than one reasonable answer.
• You've said that you’re from foreign country X, and (if you live in America) your audience has asked you which US state X is in.
• You flew before you could walk.
• You own personal appliances with 3 types of plugs, know the difference between 110 and 220 volts, 50 and 60 cycle current, and realize that a transformer isn’t always enough to make your appliances work.
• You fried a number of appliances during the learning process.
• You get homesick reading the National Geographic.
• You have the urge to travel to move to a new country every couple of years.

For those of you that don't know the term Third Culture Child. It's basic meaning is a child born of a "foreign" parent and a "domestic" parent. In my case Ghanaian father and an American mother. You are then raised in a bi cultural household usually enriched by constant travel to your foreign parent's homeland or other destinations. Now there are pros and cons to being raised this way of which I won't discuss at this time. It is too long a discussion for one posting.

I would be interested in hearing about anyone else's experiences as a TCC. Constructive and well thought out comments are always appreciated. 

Marriage

With This Ring I Thee Wed

There are two types of marriages here in Ghana.  The first one is the Traditional marriage. The second is the Legal marriage.

The Traditional marriage is typically entered into by having an interested groom approach the potential bride's family elders and asking for their permission. An investigation is done into the groom's background and family and if the elders agree a dowry is asked for (usually traditional things such as cloth, an alcoholic beverage, jewelry, and a few other ceremonial items particular to that tribe's traditions). After the dowry has been paid, a get together of sorts is arranged and both are declared husband and wife. This type of marriage, while widely practiced and acknowledged, is not considered a legal one.

The Legal marriage necessitates the interested parties to apply for and register a marriage license. Of course all the normal legalities are met with this. After all is said and done, usually a Western type of wedding is done. This marriage is becoming more and more popular due to the fact that a woman is then protected in cases of divorce while she is not in the Traditional marriage.

Decree Nisi 

Divorce is a bit more involved in Ghana than in Western countries. Here a desire for divorce is brought up not with the spouse, but with the spouse's family elders. (Ghana is a very family focused culture and everything, every decision, every action is done within that context.) When an intent to divorce request is brought to the family, the family does everything within their power to dissuade the divorce. If the desiring spouse cannot be convinced otherwise the elders then confer with the desiring spouse's family as to how to divide the assets.  If the divorce happens during a traditional marriage, the man has the right to just ask the wife to leave and does not have to give her anything. Women in this situation are usually left destitute without any recompense and with the full duties of a single mother. This is the main reason why many younger women opt for the Legal marriage. In Legal marriage they are automatically awarded the house if there is a divorce, plus some reasonable financial assets. Of course what they are awarded is relative to the couple's financial and domestic situation. Children are almost always awarded to the mother in both Traditional and Legal divorce situations.

Something to note: In this culture it is far easier for a man to divorce than it is for a woman. Divorce still has a HUGE social stigma attached to it for a woman.

Visit to Kwame Nkrumah National Memorial Park

Kwame Nkrumah National Park in Accra, Ghana
A very LARGE complex

Dr. Nkrumah and Mrs. Fathia Nkrumah Mausoleum 

A statue of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah ( (21 September 1909 – 27 April 1972)
He is pointing forward to symbolize the dream he had for Ghana's development

This speaks for itself

Mrs. Fathia Nkrumah's chamber.  She was originally from Egypt.

Statue Kwame Nkrumah which one time stood in front of the Parliment House.
Was vandalized during the 1966 coup d'etat.

This reads:

"The bronze head of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah's original  statue which stood in front of the old Parliment House, Accra, Vandalised during the February 24, 1966 military and police coup d'etat.

This was recovered and presented by a patriotic citizen to the information services department which in turn released it to the park on May 28, 2009.  Mounted on the park on Sept. 1, 2009."

MIA

Well ladies and gents I've been MIA for a few weeks now.  Internet connectivity in the country was down for awhile which totally messed with my blog mojo.  Things seem to be running much more smoothly now.  I believe it has something to do with all the road construction going on.  Power-lines and other tech (yeah I'm not really knowledgeable about this stuff) have been on the fritz lately.

Anywho...I'll be playing catch up for the next few days. :D

Market Day

Early, every Saturday morning my Aunt does her weekly household grocery shopping.  She goes to this outdoor market about 10 mins from the house.  This is what I saw...

VIBRANT

MARKET LADIES OF ACCRA

Most of the market stalls were run almost exclusively by women and their children.  Every type of food, local and imported, was sold there.

Starting from lower left side some of the more common commodities (garlic cloves, ginger, sardine cans, oil, and red pepper)

Rock Salt

Fishy! Fishy! Fishy!

To carry all your purchases, you hired a young woman or child that would wait for incoming customers.

This is Diana who helped us that day.  She was stoic, professional, and graceful.

Phones

We are back at my Aunt's house now.  It's 5:54am currently and we have a busy day ahead of us.  First and foremost I am getting my phone up and running.  The process is fairly simple.  You go to one of the many phone companies here and buy a sim card for your phone.  Once you do that the card is registered and you pay for how many minutes you want on your phone at any given time.  The sim card is only 1Ghc (1 Ghana cedi) which translates to less than $0.01 American.  This also gives you a phone number. Then for about 22mins/1cedi you can call anywhere in the world and you add minutes as you need them.  A very simple system.  The only thing you must keep in mind is that you will need a sim card based phone.  I would recommend an AT&T based phone.  Verizon and Sprint do not carry sim card based phones at this time I believe.  T-mobile phones seem to work pretty well as well.  Before you come to an African country also try to get your phone unlocked or as they say here, decoded first.  To unlock/decode here is about $70USD.  That's a lot of money for something you could have done free in the US. 

Also, for those that are wondering why you can't just buy a phone here the answer is of course you can, but you pay full retail price for it.  Which can be anywhere from $100 to $1000.  Yup you read that right!

Any SIM card based phone can be used.
Your carrier should be able to unlock it for you or you can  have it unlocked in your host country.

MTN is the largest pay as you go carrier in Ghana.
SIM card costs $1 GHC and you can put any amount on it from $2GHC on up.

All cellphone companies here are pay as you go carriers.  The SIM cards are usually only $1GHC.  I went with MTN because they are everywhere so buying more credits and having any technical issues dealt with quickly is very easy.  There is also Vodofone (UK based), TIGO, Airtell and a new one from Nigeria called GLO.