Ghana At 51

Panyin and Kakra...a photo of a photo

Wishing you the best of 51 years,

Ghana, once Gold Coast,

Once Ashanti, Akwamu, Ewe and Guan,

Dagomba, Ga, Dagarti and Gonja

Small bites,

Thin slices of forest and savannah,

And migrating peoples, headed south

From the fifth cataract of the Nile

Then from Wagadu- the ancient of empires,

Where the snake Bida was found,

Whose head detached, flew far to the south

So we all marched south

To find the gold and rain.

On dry Sahel lands our footprints lie

Roots pierce deeper

Than our many tongues

Finding the core at the centre of earth

We cling to the genesis of one long story

Of trials, wars, divisions

and now friendships

Seeking a future bound to each other

We could be stronger

We could be taller

Allowing the past to serve the future

And if it will not

Then let it go

Let it die

As we speak with new tongues

and sing new songs

And dream a new conciousness to life

We march on to find the gold and the rain.

At 51, I daresay we've come of age

We know the stage

We can write a new play

It is time to reach ahead for a blessing

Time to grasp a better day

by Adwoa Badoe

Toronto Festival of Storytelling

It was Dan Yashinsky who invited me to tell at the 2004 festival opening at the ROM. I couldn't believe I would open this august event at the ROM. It was the closest I had ever felt to stardom. The moment was almost too big for me but I held my own. I had come far from that day in December 95 when I read my book Crabs for Dinner in a nervous whisper at the book launch. I have since told stories at the Toronto festival in 2005 and 2006. My memory is a little shaky but I think I told tales of Ananse on the Fools Night of April 1st 2007. Tonight, I found this photo of the 2005 festival where I told Gassire's Lute at the great Story Concert, with some of the finest tellers, including the marvellous Jan Blake!

Beauty Speaks

adwoa, during her ten minute speech on self re-making in Canada . In the photo, the mayor of KW and MPP of Conestoga.

I am thinking more and more about beauty. I want to speak more and more about beauty in particular reference to the continent of Africa and especially Sub Saharan Africa which is often displayed naked, hungry and sick and whose beauty struggles to be seen within and without. Last week I was at an event at which I told a story. It was a story of origins which explored ideas od identity and belonging. The story went very well indeed, bringing itself alive in ways I had not expected. Sometimes, I speak with a voice much wiser than my own. The response from the audience was tremendous and as I basked in well wishes an elderly gentleman approached and asked where I came from originally. Of course, I said Ghana. "Ghana is poor, right?" he said.

"No." I said. "We have had some struggles but we have found oil. It is getting better." I smiled at his confusion. Not for five minutes could he handle the beauty of the story I had told. The beauty of Africa! All he wanted to see was the Africa of rags and hunger, disease and despair. Yes, we know it is so but show us please....the Beauty! This year I have determined to increase my profile as a public speaker. In January, I spoke to the Third Age Learners on Awakening the Sleeping Giant- the place of arts and culture in Africa. Infact my speech was about beauty. Last week I spoke on 'Re-inventing Yourself in a New Environment'.

When I speak about Africa, my focus is beauty and possibility. It is my hope that we may all discover beauty in life; our lives as well as theirs, whoever they may be!

TOKWE DANCE

Tokwe is one of the very first traditional Ghanaian dances I learned at about age eleven and a half, at the University of Ghana. No, I was not a child genius, my secondary school, Achimota, was close enough to the university that our club could take lessons, some afternoons, at the School of Performing Arts. Tokwe is a coming-of-age dance of the people of the GA-Adangbe traditional area. The dance is characterised by abrupt changes. The rhythm song alternates between two patterns so that the dance is punctuated by intermittent staccato hip-shaking, foot-shuffling, 360 degree turns. I plan on teaching Tokwe next session and combining it with the other Ga-Adangbe dance, Kpatsa which is another precocious youth dance. Here are the Southern Volta Association dancers exiting the stage after their version of Tokwe.

Afri-Canadians Celebrate in Kitchener

The way We Ewes do it!

On Saturday, we all gathered at the Rotunda of the City Hall in Kitchener for the African Canadian celebration of Black History Month. Outside, the Serbians were peacefully protesting the independence of Kosovo with flags unfurled. They sent us flowers as our event began. If you have never been to this event, you'd do well to go next year. It gets better every year- great food, great culture/s, great company, camaraderie and Africans decked out in fashionable attire- But for the fact that it is held indoors, it would be another great 'durbar' (gahthering) called by an African king!

Although this event is minus palanquins, chieftain litters and umbrellas, all the same it calls for royalty and this time, we had none less than the mayor of Kitchener, the MP of Kitchener -Waterloo, two MPPs and the commissioner of Citizenship and Immigration of KW. Each delivered a speech of releveance, inclusion and support. The leaders of KW did themselves proud.

This time around, I gave the keynote speech, ten minutes exactly, on "Re-inventing yourself in a new environment" . I think ,I look re-invented don't you?:) I borrowed a line from the Disney commercial which boasts the cutest little boy saying, "You can do whatever you want!" Of course (from my perspective and considerable experience), with much effort, focus and determination or, and this is true too, just purely by chance! Some people are lucky, or if you are so inclined...blessed! (It is far better to be blessed!) In any case my aim was to motivate and encourage. After my speech, four panelists gave us the indepth on their experiences.... 'win big, or moderately', each and everyone of them had to overcome great obstacles. The moral.... if you want to immigrate to Canada, do it when you're young and single and can return to school and work nights, while you have no children to care for....! This is serious advice from me and them. I think we should ask Canada Immigration to post that on their website. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

The performing group from the Southern Volta Association, gave a vibrant show of drum music and dance. The multi-generational group rendered an authentic feel of the Ewe culture of Ghana, at the end of which we all joined in with the GOTA dance and Agbadza.

I must mention the great food by the great cooks in the community, the smooth MC of the event and the drum solo of Gerima Harvey Fletcher, my friend in rhythm. A happy shout out to Phyllis Peprah who works incredibly hard for the success of this event, to Albert Soga and his family, to Atsu, Mike and Gustav, Evelyn, Emefa, Sena and Edem Quist. Here's a photo from Esther. This is how we do the Agbadza!

While We Wait.......

fancy shirt, Fule!! Fule is the director of percussion for JIWANI

So I'm waiting for photos of the Song of Wagadu: Song of Africa show. In the meantime, I have been out and about doing Blck History presentations particularly in schools. I also presented at the "Reading for the Love of it," conference 2008, where I made three interesting connections. First is Michelle Muir a Spoken Word Artist and Storyteller who took the time to come to my workshop, even though she was presenting. I am hoping to make connections there for future events. Then I met two authors, Eric Walters and Chris Dinsdale and Chris' wife Amanda. Eric Walters is a prolific Canadian writer whose books often make it to award lists for Young Adult novels in Canada. He tells me he has a lot of nterest in Kenya. Then there is Chris who teaches in New Market whose book has been nominated for Red Maple. I hope he wins the top spot!

Yes I'm still waiting for the pictures of my show and also the CD of the epic telling by the same name: Song of Wagadu: Song of Africa but today I was in New Central P.S. in Oakville for what I call "The Celebration Workshop". What a blast! The students from grade 6-8 were engaged, energetic and enthusiastic. We even had some parent participants. I was wondering whether to tease you with my new CD cover design but am thinking I'll stay with another post-show photo of Esther ( from Uganda ) and Fule. It is so nice to make a new friend and we hope to stay connected. We knew some great Ugandans in the UK when we were younger. Shout out to Lucy Lutara, Grace and Lincoln.

The Song, The Dream

Dreams came true as Gerima played solos next to Njacko

Soon I will have photos of the February 9th event, Song of Wagadu: Song of Africa. My evening went very well, with a full house on a snowy cold night. What can I say? I am filled with gratitude. I am truly grateful to all who came to celebrate the night with me from Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo and as far as Toronto! I am winding down from the night and must soon plan to release the CD of the stories. I will keep you posted when that happens but now I must prepare to speed through February, giving all sorts of performances and workshops. May the days be bright and the winds tame. May our tires grip the road and safe transport be ours during the month of February!

Song of Africa

I am getting excited! Yesterday I was interviewed by a reporter, Thana of the Guelph Mercury, concerning my show, Song of Wagadu: Song of Africa. I am feeling the tropics in my blood inspite of the snow. Talking about snow, last friday which was the first of February, a winter storm blew over much of Ontario. I had to cancel an engagement in Alliston to stay safe. It was the same evening Phil Bast, journalist, came to shoot a video report of our practice. What a night! We were not sure of anything, who would make practice, if Phil could brave the weather. In the end he did brave the weather, a number of us could make the practice but the studio was closed: SNOW DAY! Stress! Solutions!

We ended up practicing at our church on Watson Street and Phil shot the video which you can find at http://news.guelphmercury.com/videogallery

Please note: that was a practice. The show will be so colourful!!!

February 9th, 2008, GUELPH YOUTH MUSIC CENTRE, 75 CARDIGAN STREET, 7pm

Song of Wagadu- The Ancient

Angela Abrokwa-Ampadu will perform as Wagadu's Western face, Agada! Agada is red for the unbroken bloodline with the ancestors!

Identity roots anchor Angela firmly within the cultures of Africa, as far as she is from the land of her birth.

Within identity lies strength, whether its is ancient, or whether it is created within recent memory. The strength of identity is proportional to its acceptance by the majority and the power and frequency of reinforcements, over time and ages.

This is the task of the 'griots' or the 'jeliw' who motivate and invigorate contemporary generations in continuity with the past. The story is alive, it lives in the retelling; it lives with each new deed and personality, worthy of note. It is the people who make the story. It is the story which makes the people. The story grows longer with the passing of the days.

May you live within our story. May our story live in you.

pssst: You don't want to miss our show! Feb 9th 2008

January Speaks

I've been silently watching the new year unfold its early intentions before my eyes. Unfortunately for her, many of the early goings and comings were written before the close of the last year. She carefully follows through; there is this expectation between the past and the present, something to hold the future steady on the tracks of time. It takes patience to paint the changes within a new year. Even so, colour appears on the frozen gray canvass of the new year and transcendent visions establish the substance of hope firmly within the soul, waiting to manifest as January gives way to February and March. The new year will sing its own note and already I'm humming along.

Watch Out for show-time on February 9th: Song of Wagadu: Song of Africa, featuring Adwoa Badoe, Njacko Backo, Jiwani, and special friends of mine.

Griot's Journey Poster

My favorite poster (and also DVD cover) by far: The Griot's Journey. The DVD is available, check out http://www.afroculture.com/. Soon the book "African Legends" will accompany this amazing storytelling/ black history/African cultural resource. A Canada Council for the Arts grant was accessed for this Performance-DVD project. God bless Canada!

Recent Favourite Poster

What do you do with the poster once the event is over? Answer: Blog it! One thing we are dramatically short of is photographs for our December 16th event. I hope someone from the audience sends me one.

CHRISTMAS BASKET -Afehyiapa Basket

The very first photo of our Sunday event is in. It is a beautiful Ghanaian-Canadian basket of goodness for Christmas which was tastefully put together by Dorothy Odartey-Wellington, professor of Spanish at the University of Guelph and donated for the Northern Ghana Benefit 'An African Christmas Celebration. ' The basket held a wooden African mask, an inviting red-orange drink, cakes by Dorothy( Ghana style) and the best milk chocolate bars and chocolate drink made from the finest cocoa, Ghana's own Golden Tree brand. The basket was won at a bid of $70! I have said to Dorothy: here's an alternative business idea for her, when she wearies of teaching Spanish at university. We thank all the bidders and wish everyone a Happy Christmas and the best of the New Year. Afehyiapa!

Tomorrow We Dance

photo by Anuta of Translucence, Guelph.

Tomorrow, December 16th, we dance to celebrate Christmas in warmth, with the community of friends in Guelph and to give a small gift to people faraway!

The River and the Path

wading across the floods

There's an Akan proverb which says:

"The River crosses the Path; The Path crosses the River-which of these is the elder? The Path crosses the River; the River crosses the Path- which of these is older? We cut the Path to cross the River but the River is from long, long ago."

My take: We can choose wisely where to place the path, so long as we are aware of the River and the area of its overflow.

We have chosen to make a pathway of relief through celebration. You can help make this path across the river! You can help to make a bridge!

Celebrate Generousity!

A performance of River Bride by Adwoa Badoe's class of dance students

When I was growing up in Ghana, we didn't believe in Santa and it wasn't because we didn't want to, but we had no fire places with chimney entries to let him through! Santa was only ever at the Kingsway Store, and he was black. Besides he had very little to give for the price one paid for the short miniature train ride which one took across the department store floor. This did not agree with the books we read where Santa was Caucasian, and rode reindeer accross the sky. Yet his songs found their way across the ocean to our homes and schools and we learned to sing them. Still, Christmas was fun for the new clothes we received and the few toys we got but particularly for the food we ate: jolof rice with beef, chicken light soup, spicy goat meat- stewed or fried and fufu, gari-foto, fried ripe plantains and custard-and-cake. My mother made the best European desserts at Christmas! There was that thing she call "Blancmange", I have never seen it anywhere else! Then there were the bands of masqueraders, as though we were mixed up between Christmas and Mardi Gras, and visitors coming in and out all day, bringing good wishes for the year end, and the old Huntley and Palmers gem biscuits with or without the frosting on the top, which we ate and strung together for necklaces and tree decorations. In spite of Santa's absence, Christmas was good and filled with generousity and we sang of Jesus all season long! This Christmas I am looking out for fun and rest and recreation. We want to celebrate the year end with greetings of Afehyiapa, literally a good meeting of the ends of the year, as though time was a circle which began and ended at the same point. We now translate this greeting as "Happy New Year!" We want to remember the generousity of God and in so doing motivate ourselves to be generous to people. This is why in celebrating an African Christmas at the GYMC on 16th December, we give a gift to some others to make both ends of the year meet well, for them and for us too.

CANOE TRIP - EIGHT DAYS TO GO!

"Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub."

My anatomy teacher, Mr. Ramaswamy, was completely befuddled by the nonsensical English nursery rhymes they were forced to learn in India. Befuddling perhaps to the adult mind searching for meaning in words but not to the child who hears the rhythm inside the words and the music within the rhymes.

" Trick-a true-too, three in a canoe." (This one is mine, stretched to the core...as these men were who rowed a canoe accross a flooded field.) I wonder if these three are farmers, going to look at their wasted fields, or relief workers going to help, or stranded victims being rowed to safety or perhaps journalists looking for a story. Maybe they are fishermen looking for a river. In any case it must have been the safest way to travel , with broken bridges and washed out roads. At least they would arrive safe and dry.

In Just TEN Days- HOMES

flooded house credited to Ghana Web

The homes of the poor may be constructed without complexity, using the commonest cheapest materials, earth! But it still takes effort and skill to build! And for those who live there with the fewest of possessions, there is still the pride of ownership of a piece of God's earth and the sense of security and belonging which bind a household together. A home is where life begins, food is shared, stories are told and dreams dreamt at night for the better tomorrows just around the bend of the horizon. .....Perhaps, there will be a good harvest and God willing, the children will be healthy, some money may be saved toward the next year and those dreams of a new house built of cement with a shiny aluminum roof, may find the magic to come to life.

The FLOODS REVISITED-14 DAYS MORE

A cornfield is devasted after the September floods of Northern Ghana.

The expectation of the children, when they open hands and mouths to be fed, is among the most basic of needs. Food is the first inspiration for human activity, the primal urge to rise, search, gather, farm, emigrate and... fight. It is the primary impulse of the infant who finds her mama's breast with closed eyes and whose thirst is quenched and hunger fed, by the one activity of nursing. Food determines survival, growth, health, security, opportunity, possibility, dreams and vision. Food reassures the individual and the community of the love of God and that of their fellow man. A self sustaining people gain in confidence and self respect . They expect more of themselves because they are assured of their place in nature and their equality with all other people.

In many areas of the world the acquisition of a well balanced diet is no small feat. Even in places where food production is subsidized and food is abundant, there are some who starve and many who eat poorly. Sometimes people spend much money to eat substandard fare leading to the unprecedented rise in obesity, in wealthy nations. Starvation may kill faster than overeating. In the end, food and a well balanced diet is a basic human right which must be won for humanity!

I have heard parents cry foul when children leave food uneaten on their plates. "Think of all those hungry people in Africa!" They say. I say, don't just think of all those hungry people and gripe about a little wasted food on a plate, "Feed someone somewhere and better still help someone to feed themselves." What does food mean to you?

Fifteen More Days to Our Benefit for Northern Ghana

..my friends from northern Ghana holding a drumming party for me in Accra....

In September, floods ravaged the Northern and Upper regions of Ghana as well as Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso opened up sluice gates to a dam built on the Volta River, further flooding the region. More than twenty people died and 300000 people were displaced as their homes were swept away. Nine or more bridges were lost and the roads all but dissolved under the rising waters. The Northern and Upper Regions of Ghana, areas which are drier than most parts of Ghana, received about half of it's annual rain fall in those few days of incessant and heavy rains. Cropped fields were swept away and people fled here and there to join already overcrowded families living in difficult situations. The aftermath of such floods include water born diseases such as dysentery and cholera which can spread so quickly among vulnerable societies, not to mention malaria of the drug resistant types which is already endemic in Ghana. Then there are the mental health and emotional concerns for those with so little who have lost everything, for up to 80 percent of the people in this area earn less than $1.00 a day.

It is several months since the disaster itself but responses and actions tend to be more hesistant and difficult to achieve in certain places, and even in the USA where Katrina spilled her waters a while ago, we saw the helplessness of the mighty USA. The thing about disaster is that, while it is so devastating, it gives the worldwide community a chance to embrace a certain part of the world, if only for a short time. And within this embrace, if it is done with the right spirit, is the culture of our communal worldwide healing as humanity.