Rejoinder: The Work Culture of Ghanaian Students;Why Don't Most Ghanaian University Students Work?

This will be my very first rejoinder on this blog.  Its going to be long but well worth your time. I woke up to find a few of my friends on Facebook in an uproar over an article concerning work culture among Ghanaian students. I reposted it on my wall and of course had many more of my friends in a delicious discussion(you know how much I love debates and discussions!) so I decided I'd write a response to that article.
The article I am writing this rejoinder to can be found here: http://www.ghanacelebrities.com/2014/06/01/work-culture-ghanaian-students-dont-ghanaian-university-students-work/.

I will try my best to address a few issues raised by the article above as dispassionately and objectively as possible. I am quite qualified I think, since I went to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana, and also had the opportunity to travel abroad for further studies. This rejoinder will not be a bashing or insulting post about the author. The author did bring up a very critical issue for debate and discussion, so here's my two cents on the matter.

The author began by stating his background and his experience quite clearly. From his standpoint, his friends were asking him for money and he had a problem with that. He then went ahead to attribute their asking him for money to the fact that most of them don't work in school and that's why they asked him for money. Right from this beginning, his argument was flawed. I have many friends with well paying jobs in Ghana who will still tell me to send them money when I'm outside the country. I used to do that myself to a couple of really close friends who travelled abroad! It has nothing to do with their working or not and everything to do with our culture and mindset that anyone overseas is better off than we are. Many Ghanaians assume that because someone lives in Europe or the Americas or elsewhere, they earn a lot of money, live in luxurious apartments and drive latest model cars! Contrast that with the reality that the author mentions briefly, which is most of those abroad work very hard just to keep a roof over their heads and phone lines active so home folks can call, text or Facebook message them to ask for money. That is the heart of the issue here, not a lack of gainful employment as the author wants to argue.

The rest of the article mentions very briefly the benefits of working as  a college student and talked about the fact that even students who do not need money work overseas because they would like to get some experience. Well isn't that just well and dandy for them! Its great to work for the experience and learning opportunity but is it feasible in Ghana? The author makes another flawed argument here, one that is based almost entirely on the premise that Ghana has the same economic and cultural system as all other countries in the US, Europe and Asia. Again, this is just typical of many Ghanaians, drawing non-existent and unrealistic comparisons between our country and other nations. Let's get one thing straight: Ghana is NOT the US or the UK. Here are just a few differences that I can think of out the many many many to infinity differences that exist.

1.We do not pay employees by the hour. As in, we do NOT pay by the hour. There is a fixed rate of pay for employees MONTHLY, not even weekly. If you happen to find an employer who is kind enough to split the pay into weekly stubs, then hurray! However, that is the exception and not the rule.

2. Ghanaian employers do not pick part time or seasonal employees for many of the jobs you're proposing are available to students. If you are not willing to work FULL-TIME for many employers, then you're out.

3.Just as a follow-up from 2, the jobs you THINK are available to students are actually not available period. Many of these jobs are offered to uneducated or less educated individuals who are willing to work whenever they're needed, not to students whose time tables are fixed and unchangeable.

4.Which leads me to another follow-up off of 3: Ghanaian students do not get to decide when they want to go to class or which classes to take. There are no multiple sections of a lab, neither are there multiple times available for one class. In fact, there is no such thing as I will declare my major later and so I'll take classes in History and Anatomy. You are admitted to your major and from your first year, you are required to take a fixed list of courses every semester. Those courses will not have several sections. You either show up at the designated time on your fixed time table, or you fail the class. Your choice. How exactly is a student supposed to hold a full time job( since part time is impossible) in this case?

5. One of the most important differences is this: the culture in Ghana is different from that in other parts of the world. In Ghana, your parents are obligated by our values to take care of you through-out your education up until college level (and in my case beyond). In fact, those of our colleagues who did not have parents taking care of them were considered less fortunate. That is not to say that because your parents will pay the bills you shouldn't work. It means that culturally, it reflects poorly on your parents if you work as a student. As an example, a university student from a single parent home wanted to work during her summer break. She wanted to find work as a sales rep because her mom was a teacher and times were tough. She wanted to get some money to help out. She told her mom, who promptly forbid her from doing so. That was no false story, because that student was me. My mom did not want anyone telling her she wasn't capable of caring for her daughter so she said no. While some of you may think this is a bad thing, its actually one of the greatest things about our culture, because it means my mom maintained control over me and I dared NOT disrespect her. Whenever she told me to do something, I did it because she wasn't just my mom, she was taking care of me. Contrast that with many American college students who live on their own and pay their own way. Many of them have no respect for authority because they think they are their own bosses. And who can really blame them? In our culture, taking care of you is the way your parents make sure you're living by cultural norms that will benefit you in future.

6.Which leads me up to another point: many of such jobs are looked down upon in Ghana because historically, they have been held by uneducated individuals and in some cases, people considered to have a bad character. Some of these jobs are culturally frowned upon for young people because they are thought to corrupt them. As an example, bar-tending is a popular part-time employment for many college students in the US. Let's try Ghana. I can just imagine the scene where Jojo or Akua is seen by their parent's friend working in a bar. Ummm....what?!!!! Do I really need to paint to you the picture of what happens next? The perceived disgrace? The negative perception by those people? And who can blame them? Even though there are many decent bars, many bars are simply not a place I'd want my daughter to hang out in the name of work experience, not unless the work experience was learning how to stay unaffected by shady characters. Enough said.

Finally, the author fails to mention the fact that many students do seek seasonal employment in the form of internships or attachments. These internships are usually unpaid. When I did my internship, I had to wake up at 4am every day in order to get public transportation (which I paid for by the way), just so I could arrive at 8am sharp where I worked. Then I'd have to feed myself throughout the day and then repeat the 1.5 hour transit home in choked traffic, sometimes waiting for hours just to get a ride home, not to mention risk being robbed or kidnapped by miscreants in the evening and get home exhausted to repeat the cycle the next day. I did in fact get kidnapped and robbed in one these public transports once, and robbed another time, just so you know I'm not making it up. So, would you say that it was worth it for me to go through such a permanently scarring situation to gain work experience and not be paid even a cent for it? I'm not sure. The jury's still out on that one.

While my case may be extreme, I'm not sure the pay is worth the time, pain and exhaustion a student would have to endure to work part time in Ghana. Just in case the author forgot, minimum wage in the West is still like decades removed from minimum wage in Ghana. I'm not saying that the wages should be the same, but even if we consider the economic situation, minimum wage from a part time job in Ghana is not sufficient to even cover the cost of transportation to and from the job. That is simply not the case for students in the west, who can access public transport or their own cars on better roads or rail systems. Let's not forget, the pay can at the very least cover the transport fare.

I'm not saying by this rejoinder that Ghanaian students shouldn't work. I am saying that it is not feasible. Its not because we are lazy or proud. As I have pointed out, the reasons for looking down on certain jobs are based on cultural factors and not just the 'ick' factor. Aside from that, many students travel outside the country and take up these very same jobs because they're available to them and the culture is different. Some students are engaged in some of these jobs in Ghana when they can find them. As an example, a friend of mine owned a taxi while in the university and drove it himself at night or over the weekends. He's an exception because many of the above mentioned factors make it difficult for the majority of students to do the same or similar jobs.
When our country  gets to the point where one day many of the wage, security and transportation issues are dealt with then maybe working while in school would become more popular .

Till then, perhaps it is more beneficial for Ghanaian students to engage in entrepreneurial activities like starting their own small businesses or work online with Odesk and other legitimate websites. That's already happening, since the owners of many successful companies such as Pistis started while they were in university. Let's hope that this continues, but perhaps the author is better off just saying No to those who request for money from him rather than making arguments based on fiction.
Alright. I think I've said enough.

Ghana's Independence day: 57 and Held For Ransom

Ransom,noun: a consideration paid or demanded for the release of someone or something from captivity. (Webster's dictionary)

Ghana marks 57 years since Independence from British colonial rule today. Every year, I try to write something reflective of our challenges on our birthday, in the hopes that we can be clear-sighted and improve by the time our next birthday rolls around.

Ghana has been kidnapped. Our whole developmental process is being held for ransom in the sum of millions of dollars annually. It's a sad state of affairs, and we are all aware of it. We are all upset and angry at being held for ransom, just like every victim of a kidnapping feels. Who is holding us for ransom? We are.

We claim to love our country and complain about things going wrong. Yet, we are the people holding our own development captive. Whenever we pay a bribe to an official, whenever we demand a bribe, whenever we spend our working time on Facebook, whenever we do not attend to customers or patients because we can't be bothered, every time we increase the cost of a good or service without due cause, every time we refuse to pay our taxes, we are holding our 'beloved' country for ransom.

Notice that beloved is in quotes above, because nothing we do indicates that we love our country. The politician at the top is only concerned about lining his pockets with our money, and unfortunately so are we. We refuse to sacrifice even the smallest of comforts for our development, but we complain endlessly. Our leaders are short-sighted because many of us are short-sighted.

Our health-care professionals hold us for ransom everyday, and unfortunately the ransom is usually our lives. The training of nurses and doctors in Ghana is HEAVILY subsidized with tax-payer's money, just to make sure that people who cannot afford to pay full fees can go into these professions. We even go to the extent of paying nurses in training an allowance every month (GASP!) just for being in nursing school. Yet, after graduation, they refuse to serve the same tax-payers whose money trained them. Doctors refuse to attend to patients routinely in order to demand for more pay. I personally have nothing against fighting for better conditions of service, but in order to even the playing field, perhaps medical students should pay the full fees for their medical education. Since our health proffessionals want to be paid similar amounts as what those outside the country are paid, why don't we save our hard-earned tax-payer's money so you can pay for your own medical education? Who cares if you have to take loans to pay those fees? That's what doctors in many other countries had to do in school. Besides, why should we care if you don't care enough to take care of the lives you pledged to save, and were trained with OUR money to save? What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

The hospitals some of you work in don't even have stand-by generators for emergencies. Basic facilities are absent in many health care facilities.You're going on strike and refusing to attend to patients because you're earning 1000% more than the average Ghanaian instead of 9000% more. Why don't you actually FIGHT for some of these basic things?

I do not mean to turn this post into a lambasting, but frankly, enough is enough! Why don't we stop our endless griping and complaining and ACTUALLY do something for a change? Something that is actually UNSELFISH and truly PATRIOTIC? Like finding the missing baby from KATH so we can all move on. How that happened is still beyond me, but unfortunately, a baby is missing from one of the largest hospitals in Ghana(GASP! again).

And just in case you're still looking for some leaders to blame for our      issues, don't bother. They're too busy fighting to be paid 10000% more  than the average Ghanaian, you know, just like you. They're also  fighting for important things like appearing on videos to sing Tweaa!

I think we all need to take a cue from the many inspiring people I know making a difference. Kwabena Danso. Ato Ulzen-Appiah. Ekow Mensah. Many many more of such names that I cannot mention due to time and space giving up their comforts to help develop young people and our nation. Thank you for making a difference. I take my cue from you, and I hope others will too.

How to enjoy grad school

I am back after my long hiatus, and as you can probably guess from my title, I disappeared because I was too busy having fun!I know that's a weird thing to say, but its true.I have really began to enjoy this experience.Its busy, hectic, stressful  sometimes and overwhelming at others, but I live by a simple rule: enjoy whatever you find yourself doing!
That means no matter how 'bad' I think my present situation is, I am bound by this rule to enjoy it.And its actually quite possible.If you're in a similar place in your life, then this post should be quite helpful.My aim is to help you find realistic ways to enjoy whatever it is you do, no matter how much you complain about it or no matter how tiring or boring it may seem.Its quite simple really.You ready?Are you sitting at the edge of your seat yet?You're not?I'm sorry but I require you to be quite anxiously scanning this article for the answer, so please,sit at the edge of your seat!Now move closer to whatever screen you're reading this on,squint because I'm writing this in the same font I've been using before, and smile.Ready?Good.Here we go:DECIDE to enjoy whatever you're doing.Make up your mind to have fun.I'm done.
Its really not rocket science.Its not even Neuroscience.If YOU make up your mind to have fun doing something, you will have fun doing it because guess what?Fun depends more on you than on anyone else!If you're 'stuck' behind your computer all day at work, there is still something you can enjoy in that.You can enjoy the solitude,take a break to hang out with co-workers or read a fun blog post like this, or you can even look at the wedding pictures of your friend from high school.Don't pretend you don't do that,because you know Facebook is open right now while you read this.
For fellow grad students like myself who spend so much time in the lab and library,enjoying the whole school experience is really easy.You have your choice of writing weird stuff like I'm doing now..:D,go work out,go for a walk,talk on the phone, read weird comics about grad school in between those articles for school,enjoy playing with your mouse (whether its a computer mouse or a real one),go dancing with friends, or just hang out in the lab watching funny videos on YouTube.Either way, don't allow yourself to get into that whole typical grad school mode of 'I'm so tired and stressed out.There's too much to do.Where do I begin?Why am I even doing this?Grad school is so tiring.My boss...blah blah blah."
That doesn't change much, does it?So stop it and have some fun!Even if that means stabbing yourself in the legs with a pair of forceps (true story..that happened to me)!
The end.

Progress and Development..the real story!

So I forgot to post this last week and decided to do that today.I have been thinking for some time what development or progress is as defined to us and if it truly is progress or development.I know this may seem confusing to some of you so let me try and give an example.
When the World bank gives a GDP for Ghana for example and says Ghana is now a lower middle income country,we usually rejoice and say we are now developing.But let's actually take a look at the situation on the ground and then make that decision for ourselves.This is what I mean.
There are two sides to this coin.The first is a predefined notion of what development in a country is supposed to be when cultural and situational differences determine this.A clear example of this is the setting of a global minimum wage when truthfully,that minimum wage is like 3 times what people in certain nations need for their basic needs to be met.Please note,I didn't say Ghana(lol).

The other side of the coin which concerns me more is the by effect of this so called development.I consider how lifestyles change and the environment is destroyed all in the quest for development and I question if it is true development.We cut down all of our trees to build skyscrapers,begin using fertilizers and pesticides because that's what development is supposed to be,drive cars that emit CFCs into the atmosphere leading to global warming and perhaps most importantly eat ourselves to death.Is this really a price we are willing to pay to say we are now a developed nation?Most developed countries have an epidemic of obesity,Type 2 diabetes and a host of other lifestyle related diseases that a change in lifestyle caused by so called development has brought.They fight  every day trying to fix this but its almost impossible.
We were purely organic farmers in Ghana.Now because of 'progress' and population explosion,we are now eating food grown with chemicals that are killing the farmers applying them to the crops.In a time when people in the 'developed' world are beginning to realise that organic food is best and are actually returning to it,is it true development to just follow in their footsteps?
This is something that we all have to think about.There are far reaching consequences of trying to model our country after the 'developed' world just because we accept blindly that they are developed.Our MPs now demand that we pay them exorbitant salaries simply because Kenya pays their MPs more.Really?When did Kenya become the standard of what we want Ghana to be?Isn't this just ridiculous?After all,don't you agree that people walking the streets of hot Accra in winter jackets is ridiculous?
We do this not just with our economic affairs but with our family and cultural habits.We are modeling our marriages after those in countries that we consider developed, modeling our families after theirs, even dressing more like them than us.Do we really want to go down the same path people have gone and failed?If we're really learning from them why can't we see that they have realised the way they do stuff needs to change?Do we need the divorce rates in our country to reach the level of that in the 'developed' world before we start to question if their methods really work for us?These are just a few examples.Maybe we need to stop copying blindly and start deciding what development and progress truly is in our own country.

Progress and development?Really?

First of all,I am super excited because with just 4 more views  this blog will hit 27,000 views!Whoo-hooo!That's awesome!I never thought this blog could come this far so I am really grateful especially to the members of the blog who subscribed but also to all of you for coming back to read this stuff.I hope I've been able to make a difference in someone's life somehow,whether with a smile or thought provoking stuff or anything really.Thanks for the support!

In celebration of an anticipated 30,000 views in the next month(I know its possible cos you're gonna share this right?..:D) I am going to do two things.
1.I want to help any upcoming blogger who needs traffic for their site.All you have to do is comment on this post with your name and blog address,subscribe to the blog if you haven't already and share this post on Facebook,twitter,Google plus and wherever else you want.Sharing already gets you traffic because people will be clicking on your link in the comment box,but also I will do a special feature series on the blogs that get submitted and that should get you some traffic too.
2.Secondly,you guys get to choose what you want me to write on in April.This will be a Reader's choice month so I will write on whatever subject will be the most popularly requested.To make a suggestion just put it in the comment box and I will read it.If you see someone's suggestion and you want me to do that one simply copy and paste it and comment.Pretty simple right?

Also,I started another blog specifically for hair stuff yesterday so I guess you're the first to know about it.Its called Ghana Hair Chick.Check it out if you like pictures of hairstyles,need help with your own hair or want to share your own hair story and advice with others.I also do have another blog dedicated solely to the wandering thoughts and most of my interests.Its more personal and I usually update it with stuff I'm doing in school,food and travelling stuff and just plain inspiration and truth.I like to keep my stuff short so you should enjoy that too.I guess that's enough talking about me.And it looks like I forgot to talk about the actual reason for the blog post title.Oh well!Another time.Till then,stay blessed!

A new Satire(sort of) to us on our 56th Birthday

And so they say we are 56 years old today as a country.We look at them incredulously and wonder in our minds if there is wrong maths at work.Ah!But the date is really 6th March 1957 oo.So the maths is right.Maybe the principles of maths need to be put aside in this case.After all,the principles of Biology and Psychology have not been considered here.In Biology,there can be stunted growth and so someone claiming to be 30 could look 10 years old.In Psychology,some adults never mature in their thinking past the age of a child due to whatever factor.So I am definitely thinking that Biology and Psychology makes more sense in this case.
Not to say of course that we are stunted or immature.Far be it from me to say so.I mean,we do still have issues with water,healthcare and electricity while a country like Malaysia born in the same year as we were is almost totally free of such issues but who's comparing?Its not like we have any kind of natural resources or human capital like they do..oh wait I think we do.Hmm..maybe our parents were just different from theirs..aahh..looks like we were both British colonised.
Oh well.Who's counting?If nothing else we are most definitely very mature.We did pay someone $1 million to get on stage,cuss and promote weed(and get arrested for it) on our independence day while millions of us didn't have clean water or health care but hey..its not every day you turn 56 and launch a big project.Its very important to relax too!That's not immature at all.We're good.The Math is right and the Biology and Psychology must be wrong.After all,who's looking?
So Happy birthday to us!We definitely look and behave 56!

Adventures in Hair:An African's journey in Commitment

Interesting title huh?Sounds like some long treatise in an academic journal but I promise its anything but that.First let me say that this something quite personal and some of you may not agree with me, but its personal so that's to be expected.Secondly,enjoy reading and let me know what you think!

I was brought up like most Ghanaian girls of my generation with short cropped hair till I finished high school.During high school some of my class mates would keep their hair growing and tie it down at night so it looked short the next day,because it was required that we all have short cropped hair.In our final year some even did plaits and other things during vacations.As you may probably have guessed by now,I wasn't one of those.I was never particularly interested.All I wanted to do was just hide somewhere with a good novel.Who cared about hair when my heroine was getting swept off her feet by her dashing Prince Charming?

I should say though that I didn't have anything against those who liked long hair and stuff like that.I just wasn't interested.My mom however had long completely natural hair.Why do I mention this now?Because I enjoyed helping her remove her braids or corn rows( which she kept them in all the time) and I enjoyed the feel of the hair.I could run my fingers through her hair and play with her coils and that actually was something I did with my own kinky coils.I would be pulling and playing with them,especially the hair at my temples,till they fell out.I liked feeling the hair and it kind of became an absent minded/thinking/something to do with my hands kinda thing.

Its after high school.My mom started me off by plaiting my hair with thread(an African way of stretching natural hair called the tension method) because thats what she did with her hair.My hair was very healthy and plentiful, but it was too painful!On hair days I literally cried when my mom was fixing my hair and I just couldn't take it anymore.So I ran to my big sister for help, and she got me my first relaxer.I didn't really like my hair straight (wierdly).I preferred the rough kinky texture of my natural hair and the 'big hair' type look I had with my natural hair.However I kept at the relaxer cos I didn't really know any better alternative.I just kept my hair in pony-tails,braids and weaves most of the time and if I got a relaxer,I would curl my hair.My hair was fine,growing ok, and even started growing pretty well with the relaxer.I reconciled myself to that and decided to stay with it.Because I got bored very easily with my own hair,I always got other styles put in and every few months I would get a hair cut to try a different syle,but  it wasn't really working out.

Fast forward to after graduation from university.I was just browsing one day and found a video of a Black-American woman with lots of hair and it wasn't relaxed or weaved in.Apart from my mom and auntie I hadn't seen that before and she looked like she wasn't in any pain doing her hair.That's when I realised I could actually have my hair however I wanted it without it having to be painful.So I said to myself,'Hmm,I wonder how challenging it would be to try that?Ok!Challenge accepted!' lol.

When I cut off my relaxed hair,my auntie asked me why I did it because she didn't understand why anyone would want to cut off long hair when people were craving long hair.I said it was just to try something new.And that's why I stopped relaxing.

I have a lot of respect for those who have natural hair because they have issues with putting chemicals on their heads,or the gender stereotypes or racial issues or heat treatments, and I would like to say I have natural hair because of some noble reason,but its simply because I like it,and its something new.Its not because lots of people are doing it and its not because I think relaxers are 'evil',its simply because I want to learn to take care of my own hair and actually be commited to it.Till I cut off my hair I didn't even know I could do it, but its been fun.I enjoy learning hair styles and attempting them, and I like the fact that I can change my hair style everyday,by myself.Even more I like the fact that I haven't given up(thanks to encouragement from Annete of http://naturalistagh.blogspot.com/) even when my hair seemed completely unmanageable while in the past I would probably have got a relaxer.I like the fact that I stayed commited in hard times and now good times.Its what I playfully call commitment training 101 for marriage!(hahahaha!)

 So there!That's why I have natural hair.If you have natural hair or considering it I hope this was interesting for you and I would love to know why you have natural hair.Thanks for reading and I hope this has been a fun read!I blog on my hair journey over at the Ghana Hair Chick blog so feel free to check it out.Cheers and remember change begins with you!

Studies,travelling,food and such

I have been conspicuously absent!Wow!Its been months since my last post and so I am sure some of you are tired of waiting for a new post!Well,here it is!
I have decided to write on something I'm sure a lot of you are interested in knowing more about:studying outside your home country.First though,before you get excited and start looking for links to scholarships,please take a minute to ask yourself a few questions.Top of the list would be what your plans/dreams for your life are.Depending on your answer you may not need to read any further because you may not need to undertake further education in certain areas.For example,if you want to be a businessman and you already have an MBA you may not need to do a PhD because a PhD is more or less an academic degree.If you don't plan to stay in academia or the research department of a big company, a PhD may not be for you.
The next question would be what you wanna study and for how long.That would determine which country you should pick because let's face it,some countries are better at certain programs than others.Also,your choice of country would depend on your personal ability to adjust to strange environments,source of funding and your need to have friends or family around.If for instance you have a difficulty in really cold environments,a Norwegian education may be particularly difficult for you.Also,if you can't live without buying food and your stomach revolts at every new dish, you probably need to go to a country that has a similar cuisine to your home country.
Just in case you have no preferences, you should consider how your choice of country will affect your future plans.If you want to live in a particular country for the rest of your life,it might be easier to go to school in that country since getting a job after that would be easier than moving from another country.

All the above being settled,the next question would be how do you plan to fund your studies?For an answer to that question,join me for part 2 of this article soon.Till then,have a fabulous day!

Lessons at my Granny's knee

I started a series on the people that have been very instrumental in shaping and forming me into the person God planned for me to be.I am a work in progress,but I can definitely look back and see the impact that specific people had on me without even realizing or knowing it.One of such people was my maternal grandmother, or Dada as we called her.

Dada was one tough old lady.Having grown up in one of the remote portions of colonial Ghana, she grew up without formal education and learned to farm and to trade.That was what she did to take care of her family of five children,my mom being the second.My earliest memory of her would be her sitting on her little stool out in the sun weeding( yes weeding!) or cracking nuts or some such thing,and this was no mean feat for someone who was almost 70 years old.She was always doing something.If there ever was a firm believer in hard work.it was my grandmother.No idleness for her!That is one thing I have come to appreciate about her.She knew that there was so much to do and so she didn't believe in wasting time.

Perhaps the one thing I will always remember her for is the fact that she insisted on me learning to speak my mother tongue.I was about five or so and couldn't speak it very well, and she came and said I was going to learn to speak it whether I liked it or not.I am really grateful for that because otherwise I am pretty sure I would be lost if I had to go to my hometown!

Some of the best memories I have are of her telling us stories about growing up in her time and the things they did.She would also tell us all these parables and riddles that set us thinking till we could solve them.She would always give us kids a piece of meat from her bowl because where she grew up that was the culture.One of the most valuable cultural lessons she taught me had to do with honesty.She grew up in a large family, and this was fairly common in those days, so whenever the kids were eating together they had to find a way to split the meat fairly among them.What they would do was pick one person to split the meat into equal pieces and then everyone would take their share, but in order to ensure that the person doing the splitting up did not cheat ,he/she would be the last to pick their piece of meat.Morale of this?Be fair otherwise you get stuck with the smallest piece of meat!That was just one of the many things she taught us and I am grateful to have known and spent time with such a grand old lady.When she died I was devastated, but she was pretty old by then.I was in college at the time and she had already been ill for a while.She would always be complaining about being cooped up and so sick she couldn't do anything.She just hated being idle but I guess she had no choice then.It was tough on her and on all of us to see this feisty lady confined in such a way, but through it all we remembered that it would only be for a short while.

I thank God for her life,( because otherwise I wouldn't have been born)!But seriously, she taught me the importance of respecting your culture and the need for hard work.For that I will always be grateful.I do miss her, especially running to her whenever I got in trouble with my mum or auntie, knowing that she would be there to listen and protect me.It is an honor to be her grand daughter.
(image courtesy: jonathanpritchard.co.uk)

Playing God?!

I was hanging out with a few friends over the weekend and the conversation turned to what each of us likes to do and our interests. I of course talked about my love for genetic engineering and all things to do with genetic modification. I mean when you consider the potential benefits of being able to target particular genes, eliminating those that are harmful to us and maximizing the impact of beneficial ones, I am usually amazed that this is even possible. Some of these genes can be transferred between different organisms in order to help mitigate some the negative impact that human activity has on the environment. Of course something like this can be potentially dangerous in the hands of the wrong people (we don’t want another Adolf Hitler, do we?) and there are a lot of ethical issues involved. One the biggest issues so far has been that everything has been created the way they are for a purpose and “messing around” with them may upset the natural balance. In simpler terms, we are attempting to ‘play God’.

I happen to believe that at least some of the issues raised are legitimate, but that is not the reason why I brought this up. Try to imagine for a minute a world where everything is within your realm of control-the economy of the world, the health and lives of your loved ones (and your enemies!), the course and direction of your life, the ability to cut off anything in your life that is not beneficial (sort of like genetic engineering right?) and the power to do anything you dream with no limitations in your way. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

Unfortunately not everything can be controlled in this way. If we could have control over all the components of our lives......wow! But the fact that we can’t control everything doesn’t mean that the ones that are within our control should be left to the wind. If we can, by our own initiative and desire for growth, earn more than we are earning now, we shouldn’t just take what we make, complain about it and then spend it all (with no thought for the future if I may add).If we can use our time to achieve more than we are doing now, we should. If we can achieve all our dreams with just some more effort on our parts, then why not?

I guess all I’m trying to say is that if we can engineer our lives by removing those bad habits and bad associations and adding on good habits which will produce better results than we have been attaining, then why not? If this means we are playing God with our lives, well then I don’t think that is such a bad thing is, is it? So technically not every circumstance can be within our control, but what have we done to affect the ones that are within our realms of influence?

And so this is Christmas..

Wow!I don't even know what to say.I mean it seems like only yesterday that I was making plans for 2010.Now 2010 is almost at an end.I have been trying to take stock of 2010,sort of a personal review mechanism and plan for 2011.What I realised was that God has been good to me this year and it has been a great year.This year I have learnt several invaluable lessons on life and I am really happy to have made it this far.
I have learnt,among other things,to bee patient and persevering but also to know when to let go.I have learnt to communicate more effectively this year and I have learnt the value of hard work.Above all else,I have learnt that God is faithful and HIS Grace will always be sufficient for me and for you as well.
As we spend Christmas and enter a new year,try and do a review of your year.Find out what you have learnt and where you have failed,but do not forget to count your blessings,for not everyone has got the opportunity that you have.Make use of every opportunity without wasting time because before you know it,the time for action will be past.
So what to say finally?Merry,Merry,Christmas and an Amazing new year!Don't forget to spread some cheer around this Christmas.Ciao!

Getting better and better....

I try my best to be as fair as possible in my posts so today I am going to dwell on something I find commendable.The Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology in Ghana has initiated a new scholarship scheme to support students in the area of maths, science and technology studies.It is for both pre-tertiary and tertiary students studying any subject under the broad category.
The scholarship covers the tuition fees for the recipient for the academic year of the scholarship award.I think that this is a laudable initiative the ministry and government as a whole and needs to be commended.
However there are just a few basic issues that need to be sorted out with respect to the method of application.According to press releases from the ministry,a certain number of forms was made available to the district education offices all over the country.Interested applicants were to pick up the forms from the district offices and submit them back to them.However according to first hand information from the district directors of certain districts,they did not receive any forms.Some districts also received forms for only pre-tertiary students.Now the questions that beg asking include:
1.Do prospective applicants pick forms from their districts of origin or from the district in which their educational institutions are situated?
2.Are scholarships awarded based on merit only or district of origin only or both?
3.Are the scholarship quotas for each district the same or different?If they are the same, did the ministry take size,population,economic background and percentage of youth in school for each district into consideration?
4.Are children or direct dependents of ministry officials and district education officials qualified to receive this scholarship?
5.How was it that some districts did not receive the forms?
If someone has answers to these questions I would be very happy to hear them.For now it would seem that the scholarship forms were kept by some officials in the various district offices and given out to only their relatives and friends.
If this scholarship is to serve its purpose, some of these challenges need to be addressed.The Northern regions of Ghana have some of the most serious developmental issues in this country.The percentage of the populace educated up north is less than that for most of the southern regions, and yet a lot of districts in the north did not even receive the scholarship forms.If we are not interested in regions of origin of applicants,then the forms need to be made available online for easy access to anyone who is interested.
I hope that the administrators of this scholarship will sort out some of these issues before the forms are made available next year.

First Order of Business...

Hi.Welcome to my blog.My name is Yvonne and this blog is like the proverbial horse where wishes are concerned.I will post on what I think I would like to do if I were the President of Ghana for just one day.I mean His Excellency John Evans Atta Mills is doing well but with me in charge we will do great!This blog is not for partisan politics but pure politics.I am letting my imagination run wild on all kinds of issues from the 'big' ones to the seemingly unimportant ones.So join me.Imagine with me, if you will,Ghana..........

WITH NO SPITTING IN PUBLIC!!!!
Yeah,yeah,yeah I know that we have pregnant women around but seriously I doubt the TroTro driver I saw doing it this morning(and messing with my ability to enjoy a seriously powerful breakfast)is pregnant.I mean come on HE WAS A MAN!Wait I don't think I have told everybody that story(well maybe a few Ejobs Africa trainees).I was going from Anloga Junction(in Kumasi) to Asokwa(ALSO in Kumasi) with a taxi.I was having a chat with one of my team members in Dynapharm(we will talk about it later) and enjoying it tremendously too.It was about making money with Dynapharm so it was quite interesting.
So there I was at the back of the taxi talking with my friend and something stopped me mid sentence.There was a grown man driving a trotro in front of the taxi and he just cleared his throat, opened his mouth and sent a nice sputum sample(as my Practical lecturer will say) straight onto the street.I just froze(seriously) and then I went like 'Hey he can't do...'.
Before the sentence ended another went splat a few feet away from the first.I just stopped, staring into the back of the driver's head hoping he would turn around but he didn't.I wished there and then that there was a law against public spitting in Ghana.I mean we can't have people going round destroying hard earned appetites(it is not easy to work up an appetite you know!) and marketing all sorts of disease germs to others(free of charge I might add).
I mean at least if they are going to market their sputum and all the probable germs in it on the streets( we are fighting to make nice) then shouldn't they pay some advertising fee or something like that?What do you guys think?