Episode I: Annoying the Gods

 

By Solomon Mensah & Ralph Dinko

Shot & directed by Fahd Mahama

Day was inching closer to night. Not long after the sun had bid the night farewell, those who had gone to their farms were about returning. By now, most farmers were almost done with either clearing portions of weeds under their cocoa farms or stocking their baskets with foodstuffs.

The people of Kaedabi make their village as busy as the anthill. Probably, it is just to while away the boredom. The typical village that it is, Kaedabi is under the Sunyani Municipality; miles away from modern infrastructure; as far from modern infrastructure as it’s from Sunyani. One has to board as many as two buses from Sunyani to Kaedabi!

Whenever the sun crawls from the east to the west, fireflies become the source of light in the village. However, children of Kaedabi don’t worry their heads over being exempted from enjoying even the crumbles of the national cake. When households have finished eating their evening meals, those from nearby cottages including; Wonterefo, Kurosua, Nsagobesa, Kyaase Kurom and Tieku Nkwanta throng the market square of Kaedabi to play; to enjoy their own definition of national cake.

Yaw Anane is a student-journalist at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, Accra. Should he be on vacation at Kaedabi, the euphoria at the market square intensifies. It very much does. He would tell the children stories (with varying lengths) about big cities. The most exciting of all such city stories has been that of city dwellers occasionally going to have fun at the beaches with loved ones.

Today under the mango tree at Kaedabi, the village’s stammerer has temporarily abandoned his table-top call center to hurl stones at a he-goat.

”You-you-you come here again and you will see,” he warned.

It was not the goat he was chasing. A group of three young women stood chatting at the well, which sits few meters away from his call center, and he would do everything to eavesdrop on their conversation.

One of the women, a dark skinned maiden with curvy shapes, accidentally turned to scratch her back only to see him spying on them with his jaw dropped! Impulsively, Gyasiwaa hurled her plastic bucket at him but it missed him narrowly causing him to fall in the grips of the other two women.  

“Wofa Amponsah, please do not plead for him. Let us beat him up till he drops dead today,” the women on fire angrily said to a man who tried interceding for the nosy stammerer.

“This has gradually become his character and they must teach him a lesson today in front of all the people of Kaedabi,” a mud-complexioned woman observing from afar shouted on top of her voice.

It was after Wofa Amponsah had convinced them that he needed his services at the call center that they spared his life. He was panting profusely but wished he was never let go anyway. At least, he had found heaven between the sizeable breasts of Gyasiwaa where his equally sizeable head had comfortably being seized. 

“Ha..ha..halooo Sah, my name is Pa..Pa..Paa Kwasi but you can call me PK, a space-to-space vendor. Your Uncle wants to speak with you.”

“My Uncle? Which of them and from where are you calling me from?”

PK corked his right thumb on the mouthpiece of his phone and murmured to Wofa Amponsah, ‘Wo..wo..Wofa. This is the reason why I hes..hesi..hesitated placing your call for you! Aa aa aaba! I said it. Should he always ask who I am?”

Amponsah sat in a chair and cocked his head for his right temple to firmly press against his huge radio set. He tried mounting it on his right shoulder but it fell on the ground. He picked it up from the ground, blew air to clear off the dust on the radio set and he whisked the phone from PK with his left hand.

“Who or what might have done the world such a great harm? Eh? I wonder why these unfledged birdlings whom we begot now trample on their elders with the feet of arrogance. You better watch your tongue next time, my son!”

“So..so..sorry Wofa, I … I didn’t mean to disrespect you. I was just com.. commenting on lawyers and their long talk of ques-tionings. He had already started asking me many questions.”

On the rock that lies close to the mango tree that shelters PK, Amponsah goes to stand and flings the phone in all directions for a stable mobile network.

“Woo.. wofa, from where you are sta..stan..standing, I should think there is network signal on the phone.”  

When PK drew near to where Amponsah stood, he realized he had turned the phone upside down with the receiving end of it glued to his mouth.

PK gently stretched Amponsah’s arm, opened his palm for the phone to lie prostrate in it and directed him on how to talk on phone; that which has become a ritual whenever he comes to PK’s call centre. When the call to Lawyer Gyamfi was finally restored, Wofa Amponsah broke the news to him.

At Kaedabi, the lawyer’s hometown, his senior brother who served as the chief priest of the land’s shrine had passed on. Per tradition, Gyamfi was to succeed his brother and take over the seat as the new chief priest of the village.

The elders of Gyamfi’s house after appointing him as the successor to his brother and heir to the throne of the shrine, have had their decisions approved by the gods of Kaedabi.

“What? A whole me a chief priest? The lawyer and flagbearer whose fame is felt across the length and breadth of Ghana to be the new mouthpiece of the gods and the people of Kaedabi? Where will be the place of my Bible after ascending that fetish throne not to even talk of my hard earned professions? Never! Wofa Amponsah, you know I have every right to reject such an offer?”

”Reject, you say?”

“Please… please, you are my uncle, Amponsah. I don’t want to engage you in any legal tussle for threatening my peace and freedom of association. It is either the gods are mad and confused or you elders of Kaedabi still go for meetings and conclude matters in words spoken in honor of palm wine. I had nothing against my deceased brother but I am sorry I can’t succeed him.”

“Gyamfi! You dare not speak evil of the gods and elders of Kaedabi.”

Gyamfi hangs up the phone. Minutes later, he tries calling back Amponsah but he is repeatedly told, “The mobile number you are calling is either switched off or out of coverage area.”

The lawyer’s bereaved mother would need some amount of money to serve her visitors who keep pouring condolences on her. He had, therefore, wanted to tell Wofa Amponsah he would be sending him some amount of money to be delivered to the woman gripped with sorrow. 

Few months ago, before the funeral of the chief priest, Gyamfi had sent home GHC2, 000 but when the money got to Kaedabi, Amponsah who usually took the parcel from the Kaedabi bus drivers did the unthinkable. He was supposed to take his portion of GHc300 but gave Awo Yaa only GHC1, 200 while the remainder found its way into his pocket.

That day, he bought a calabash of palm wine for everyone who happened to have been present at Ataa Adwoa’s Palm wine Bar. It was rumored at Kaedabi that he even left an amount with Ataa Adwoa for those drunkards who would come to the bar after he had left.

Later on, when Gyamfi found out, he threatened Amponsah on phone. He would let the police arrest him for his deceitful ways. Amponsah apologized.

Gyamfi’s money had to go through a series of transits of bus drivers before eventually getting to Amponsah. “Awo Yaa has come of age,” Gyamfi groaned. “Even walking to the bathroom is a headache to her. If she were active on her feet, Amponsah would have never touched my money, again, at first hand.”

Just when Gyamfi was about inserting his phone into his pocket, Amponsah called back. “… Gyamfi, it is not that I betrayed you as you say. I tried telling the elders that your professions won’t allow you become the chief priest. But …’”

“But what? And you say the elders have summoned me home? Right? Hmmm! Little did I know that rushing back to Accra after the funeral worried the elders that much. Emm … I will be traveling to Ohio …”

“Oha … what?” Amponsah sought to find out where that was.

“You always make me laugh even when anger dawns on me. Ohio is in the States; I mean in the Whiteman’s land.”

“Ah yoo!”

“Wofa, do well to tell the elders I will be coming to Kaedabi on the second Saturday of next month on my return to Ghana. Extend my warmest greetings to Awo Yaa.”

“I will,” Amponsah chipped in.

“Assure her that when I come, I will return to Accra with her as she has always wished.”

The call ended. Amponsah smiled. Money had been made mention of. He would obviously have his share in the amount of money he would be receiving from the lawyer. 

 

Email: annoyingthegods@gmail.com

 

 

The story continues in episode II. Watch out!

 

 

 

 

News Commentary (Aired on Radio Gh)

 

NEWS COMMENTARY DISCUSSES THE CHARLIE HEBDO MASSACRE, THE MEDIA’S ABUSE OF FREE SPEECH, AND THE LESSONS THE GHANAIAN MEDIA COULD LEARN FROM IT.

BY SOLOMON MENSAH, A FREELANCE JOURNALIST.



On the 7th of January, 2015, France and the world as a whole was thrown into a state of shock and dismay when gunmen stormed the offices of France’s satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, and opened fire at the publication's staff, for repeatedly publishing irreverent cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

The gunmen’s shooting spree saw dozens of people, including the editor of the weekly magazine and two police officers, losing their lives to the bullets of their attackers.

This barbaric incident perpetrated by the yet-to-be arrested gunmen, sparked anger and fury in France and across the world. Following this deadly attack, the news media has been flooded with messages of condolence and a call on the general public to give the media its right to ‘free speech’ in order to operate effectively.

Joining the White House, Francois Hollander, David Cameron, Angela Merkel, and Vladimir Putin among some other world leaders to condemn the Hebdo attack is our own first gentleman of the land, President John Dramani Mahama.

According to myjoyonline.com, the President at the 83rd annual congress of the Ahmadiya Muslim Mission, is quoted to have said, “Terrorist action in Paris led to the condemnable loss of 12 lives … all this is done in the name of religion, justified by theology.”

Indeed, every discerning mind must see how distasteful the Hebdo massacre is and speak in plain words against the attackers and would-be-attackers in the near future. The world has had enough of their bitter pills.

But, while we all lambast the nefarious acts of such religious extremists, we must, however, not forget to also throw a word of caution to the media. Indeed, he who condemns the attacks by extremists must equally condemn the works of the journalists who throw such caution to the wind.

A magazine's irreverent depictions of one’s sacred object of worship such as Prophet Mohammed is in a bad taste. No matter how much Islam abhors violence, such barbaric attacks on those who make ridicule of its object of worship are predictable. Does satire means dragging one’s image to the mud? Certainly not. Are there not a number of ways Charlie Hebdo could have satirically reached out to its audience without necessarily stepping on toes?

Freedom of speech has in many ways been abused by many media houses across the world. Here in Ghana, the media, especially the broadcast media, with specific reference to the Akan newsreaders trample on people’s dignity with the feet of ignorance all in the name of free speech. The press, undoubtedly, needs freedom of speech to operate but free speech to the press does not mean that every single word should leak out of the mouth of the Akan newsreader as freely as drops of milk leaves a mother’s breasts. It is about time the Akan newsreader realized that a loud-mouth is not synonymous to good journalism.

Another lesson the Ghanaian media could learn from the Charlie Hebdo attack is the tightening of security at their various entrances to their newsrooms. The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, of all the media houses that I have personally visited in the country, has the best of security check points at its entrance. Media owners must emulate the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation’s security example and invest heavily in providing proper security at their respective media houses’ entrances, for the safety of their workers, in order to prevent such an attack as witnessed in France.

The Charlie Hebdo disaster, whether we like it or not, has happened and we must as Ghanaians learn our lessons well. What every journalist must realize is that being given the freedom of speech to operate does not make you a cut-above but rather a cut-at-par.

The Seventh-Day Adventists of Loma Linda

 

 -Faith & Fast Food

By Solomon Mensah

The Aged of Loma Linda Excercising

Looking through the rear window of my room somewhere in Accra, the self-angered sea lies billowing furiously. Its billowing sound, like that of a thunder, uncomfortably forces me to get up from my slumber and prepare for school every weekend. Ouch!

But today, 7th December, 2014, while the sea roared, I fluttered left and right on my bed and shuddered under the thick yards of ‘Efie-abosea’- a cloth we used back in Sunyani Secondary School. No school today! So … I can sleep.  But I would listen to the BBC, almost all day, when I finally wake up as I always do on Sundays whenever I have the time to.

The BBC Report

On their (BBC’s) ‘Heart and Soul’ this morning, Peter Bowes takes his listeners all the way from London to Loma Linda, a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States of America.

Loma Linda, which translates as Beautiful Hill, has a population of about 23, 261, according to its 2010 census. Out of this, a large proportion of the city’s residents are Seventh-Day Adventists who, by practice, are vegetarians.

“I’m Peter Bowes and I have come to Loma Linda to learn more about the Seventh-Day Adventists, who make up about half of the population here. What is it about the way of life of this evangelical Christian denomination that helps its followers live to a ripe old age; up to a decade longer than the average American?’ the story rolled.

In the report titled “Living Longer in Lovely Hill,” Bowes visits a retirement home where a daily ritual of an exercise class for the elderly was ongoing. They sat straight up on chairs holding sizeable metal bars.

What!? “Up, down, up, down,” the teacher instructed while they (elderly) lifted and lowered their arms pointing to the ceiling and the floor of the classroom, respectively.

“What is the average age, roughly, of this class?’ the awed Bowes asked the teacher. “Maybe around 93 or something but our eldest was 101 [years].”

Loma Linda- the Mecca of longevity

Here, at the Californian City, the Seventh-Day Adventists say they live basically on the teachings of the Bible and on the principles of their church. They practice vegetarianism and do more of exercises even at old age.

This lifestyle of the Seventh-Day Adventists makes them grow older and older. Dan Buettner is an American researcher. He labels Loma Linda as a blue zone; a concept used to identify a demographic and/or geographic area of the world where people live measurably longer lives.

The City including Okinawa (Japan), Sardinia (Italy) and Nicoya (Costa Rica) are all marked by researchers as blue zones. In Peter Bowes’ words, Loma Linda is the Mecca of longevity. 

Faith & Fast food

Somewhere in 2012, a great debate ensued in Loma Linda; the debate as to whether the City should allow the influx of fast food eateries such as that of McDonald’s.

“Without a single liquor store, and legally smoke-free for nearly three decades, the tiny hillside town of Loma Linda brims with pride about its devotion to health and spiritual well-being.

So... news that McDonald's was coming to town, with its special-sauce-slathered Big Macs and 500-calorie sheaves of large fries, has triggered enough political reflux to put City Hall on the defensive,” writes Phil Willon, Los Angeles Times.

In ABC News’ item uploaded on YouTube, January 24, 2012, titled ‘Faith Matters,’ the debate got much more intensified. McDonald’s said to the ABC News that “Our line of premium salads can be ordered without meat. We also have other offerings including apple slices and oatmeal. We believe the new restaurant will help fuel economic growth.”

Reacting to matters, Dr. Wayne Dysinger, head of preventive medicine at the Loma Linda University Medical Center said: “McDonald’s does not fit the Loma Linda brand of health and wellness. Compare it to smoking laws: There’s no question that smoking is harmful to people’s health. Exposing people to fast food also is harmful to their health.

Cutting a long story short, McDonald’s after the legal tussle with Loma Linda has established its restaurant in the City. But for the ardent vegetarians of the Loma Linda who prefer living longer to enjoying fleeting and transient pleasures, they have adopted the fish-in-the-salty-sea principle of not letting itself taste salty.

“You may not believe this … I have never touched tobacco in any form. I have never touched alcohol, never touched coffee,” Henry Nelson, 91, said.

Any lesson to the Ghanaian?

Indeed, there are lessons the Ghanaian could learn from the Adventists of Loma Linda. Here, in Ghana, food poses a great threat to a number of people. Many are those who are digging their graves with their teeth.

Like the spillage of the Bagri Dam, fast food eateries, that which Dr. Dysinger deems dangerous to one’s health, flood almost every corner of our country. We buy it, and hold it firmly on the tips of our fingers like the terminal report card in the hand of a pupil. Show off!

This aside, many of us buying food from chop bars would shoot a finger directing the chop bar operator the sort of meat she should serve us. Ironically, we brand the taxi/trotro driver as the meat addict who points to the soup with his car key to tell the meat he would prefer. We hardly exercise after these food intake and the list is endless.

But all is not lost. Inasmuch as we breathe, we have the chance to critically consider what we consume. Perhaps, for those of us who have never physically seen a 'flying-coffin' on the tarmac of an airport, except for those that fly above our heads, Loma Linda and its healthy principles might seem far away and impossible to learn from. Very!

However, the Valley View University (VVU), Oyibi-Accra, presents to us an epitome of Loma Linda’s example. The Adventist University pays particular attention to what its students eat. “Meat is not served at the campus’ cafeteria. They produce their own drinking water and yogurt, bake their own bread, cultivate vegetables … I mean the school promotes a healthy lifestyle,” Kyereh-Yeboah Victor, an immediate past student of the School told me in an interview.

He says if he had his way, he would always eat from the VVU campus. But that should not be the case. Wherever we find ourselves, whatever faith we profess (Adventism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Islamic and what have you), we must take a cue from the healthy lifestyle of the citizens of Loma Linda and try practicing.

I do not in any way suggest to you to refrain from eating meat or fast food. I eat it myself. However, I think it is about time we ate it in moderation. Christmas is here and in our various homes meat, alcohol and others will ‘flow.’ While we wine and dine, remember that somewhere in America where happiness abound, citizens there eat with their minds.

 

The writer is a freelance journalist.

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Blog: www.aniwaba.blogspot.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba

 

 

 

 

 

News Commentary

NEWS COMMENTARY LOOKS AT KENYA’S STRIPPING OF WOMEN IN MINISKIRTS, THE ‘MY DRESS, MY CHOICE’ CAMPAIGN AND THE LESSONS THE GHANAIAN WOMAN COULD LEARN FROM IT.

BY SOLOMON MENSAH, A FREELANCE JOURNALIST.

Her attackers stopped her, harassed her, and tossed her around like the dice on the slippery surface of a ludu as they ably yelled in Swahili “Toa” which translates into the English language as ‘take it off.’ Indeed, the miniskirt-attackers took off an unknown Nairobi woman’s miniskirt giving room for the hungry eyes of the sea of people around to feast upon her nakedness.

This is, but, a description of the YouTube video which went viral on social media few days ago. The video which could be termed as a gruesome display of lawlessness by some Kenyan men who, in the said video, reduced the Nairobi woman's dignity into rags. The woman’s crime was simple and straightforward; she had worn a skirt which her attackers described as only a little bigger than a handkerchief; a dress code the group of therowdy young men disapproved; calling it provocative to onlookers.

The 1 minute 27 second- long video again showed the woman being beaten and paraded heartlessly along the streets. This shameful act by these rowdy folks must be condemned by any discerning mind irrespective of being a citizen of Kenya or not. It is, therefore, not surprising that most Kenyans shortly after seeing the video took to Twitter with the hashtag “My dress, my choice” to send a message to the attackers that women, like men, must be respected in the society.

Women have suffered all forms of abuses from some unscrupulous men in our societiesfor far too long. More often than not, men are left off the hook to go about their activities without being apprehended in any way. Are the attackers saying they have not sighted some men who pull their trousers below their waist to expose their filthy boxer shorts; a dress code referred to in Ghana as Otto Pfister? Has any of the Otto-Pfister-men been stripped naked in public before? So why must it be done to women?

On the 16th of November, 2014, majority of women in Kenya supported by well-reasoning men hit the streets to protest against this act of stripping skirts. They as well adopted the slogan ‘my dress, my choice’ chanting women must be allowed to wear what theywant. Sadly, before the protestors could take respite from their long walk for freedom, another Nairobi woman was, again, stripped of her skirt and the other cloth on her totally removed by another crazy bunch of lawless men. From this YouTube video, too, the second woman suffered much more brutality from these men.

This stripping of miniskirts in Kenya did not start today. Somewhere in February, 2013, another Nairobi woman was equally deprived of her skirt in public. It took the intervention of a local politician Daniel Kachori who whisked her away into a room. Mr. Kachori later described the attack as shameful. But... a year and over after the incident, this shameful act still goes on.

The director of Kenya’s public prosecution has ordered the Criminal Investigation Department to probe the incident. But before the law takes its cause on the attackers, we must not forget to ask ourselves some questions. Can any member of the society determine what one can and cannot wear? Who, as a member of the society, is given the right as the moral police to arrest and strip women of their miniskirts because such dress is seen as indecent? Is it not true that the attackers’ victims could be your mother, sister, wife, or even girlfriend?

If this abominable practice is allowed to gain roots, then the law as the guiding principleof the society becomes useless.

This happened elsewhere. Far away in Kenya. That notwithstanding, the Ghanaian woman must learn her lessons from it. Apparently, you may freely walk about in town in your skimpy dress regardless of the law prohibiting indecent dressing. However, one does not know when such a bunch of these lawless men will spring up here to pounce on you when you least expected and strip you of your dignity.

For the attackers, they must for now realize that enough is enough. Our elders say, thatwhen a handshake goes beyond the elbow, it ceases to be a friendly gesture. Inasmuch as most people and for that matter the society abhors indecent dressing does not mean that women must be subjected to public humiliation for what they wear.

It is about time the Kenyan law enforcement agencies rose to the occasion to ensure that the rule of law worked without interferences.

 

'Unemployed:' Why not dance for cash?

By Solomon Mensah



Jacky

In the late 1990s, I had an undying passion for dancing. I wanted to be a dancer aside my aspiration of becoming a journalist. So … there were no twisting moves that the likes of the Slim Busters did that I couldn’t imitate to perfection. Unlike today that there are proliferations of reality shows on our screens, in the late ‘90s it was as rare as armed robbery cases at Burma Camp, as Manasseh Azure Awuni – my mentor - would put it. Among the few reality shows we thronged behind people’s windows to watch by peeping through holes was Embassy Pleasure; a dancing competition. Did you watch it, too?

It was my favorite and I wanted to partake in it. I had one of my sisters’ approval to contest but my mother would not allow me to dance. And so, the spirit of dancing died off. Today, with the advent of the azonto and akayida, I hardly can tilt, like the Ghana map, to shuffle one of my feet left alone to clench a fist and throw it in the air.

It’s been about fifteen years now since I hanged my dancing shoes and kissed the dancing floor a goodbye. Today, I’ve a school mate at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) who has taken dancing as a ‘world cup’- serious business.

Meet Jacquelyne Sackeyfio whom I will call as Jacky in the subsequent discussions. She is a journalist by profession, an entrepreneur, [currently] a public relations student at the Ghana Institute of Journalism and a dancer. A dancer you mean? Oh yeah, she dances. I mean she dances for cash!

“Charley you for watch how Jacky de twist en waist at her rehearsal,” a friend had said to me. “Jacky? Rehearsal?” I retorted. There in that WhatsApp video that the dancer had sent to a close pal, I watched her with amusement; great one for that matter. She moved to the left, to the right and back and forth with rhythmic shivering of the body as if she had touched a naked wire. But to what extent must one value dancing? Does it indeed cause the economic rains to fall on a dancer? Listen up.

In one of the intros of Daddy Lumba’s hits, “Med) w’as3m bebiree,” he acknowledges how important dancers are to his music career; “This song is dedicated to the newly formed ‘Lumba Dancers’ in Amsterdam namely Yvonne Prempeh, Abigail, Manfred, Brother Denis, Charles, and Kwabena (popularly known as Richard). I really love you. Thank you.” 

Then in the jerry-hair-do era till now, musicians have been pulling crowds, not only with their creamy curled hairstyles and fashionable apparels, but, with their team of dancers, too.

Such dancers would do the formation dance moves either in front or behind the artiste who would take a lead role intermittently. From the lists of our legendary folks in the music fraternity like Nana Kwame Ampadu, Adofo, Akwasi Ampofo Adjei through to the Akosua Agyapongs and the Nana Acheampongs, down to the contemporary exuberant singers - rappers – Guru, Sarkodie among others, dancers keep playing a pivotal role in musicians’ packaging of songs to their audience.

Talk of the music videos of any musician and it would be obvious that dancers are conspicuously present. They add color to the video which makes one directly or indirectly grow fond of such a song even if they didn’t like it.

One is therefore not surprised that Daddy Lumba, who for the sake of “Koobi” swearing an affidavit to be known as ‘Tilapia’ also transmogrified into DL, says to his dancers “I really love you all.” Similarly, if you should ask Stonebwoy and Mz Vee how important Jacky is to them, they, like Adom TV, would say to her ‘y3w) adze a oye.’ Why? Simply, Jacky is their personally billed dancer!

“Although I am their [Stonebwoy and Mz Vee’s] personal dancer, I do dance for other artistes on pay-as-you-go terms,” Jacky, told me in a WhatsApp interview.

“I have danced in the music videos of VVIP (Selfie), Criss Waddle (3shishi), Castro (Seihor), Vybrant Faya (Mampi), Choirmaster (Pull me down)  and I was on the stage of the 2014 VGMA with Stonebwoy and Iyanya, 2014 Ghana Meets Naija with MzVee, and Afrobeat and GH Rocks again with Stonebwoy, in R2bee’s Star beer advert and a host of others.”

Jacky says she does not dance on pro bono basis. “Would you mind telling me how much you charge your artistes then?” I asked. She laughed and replied “No, I don’t mind because I dance alone.”

“For a music video, I charge not less than Ghc300 and on a stage show, I go for Ghc100 or something higher per music performed,” she observed.

Jacky after completing the Ghana Institute of Journalism in 2013 had had her certificate shelved; unemployed. Perhaps Jacky, like yours truly who has rejected some media houses’ offers including that of a popular television station in Ghana, doesn’t want to read empty contract agreements. She would therefore dance to survive aside the beads of accessories she makes and sells herself. 

However, Jacky faces challenges in her dancing profession. When asked if she has a boyfriend and whether he approves of her dancing, she said “Yes I have a guy and he does not approve of it. So is my family. Both do not side with me on that.

“But since I like it [dancing] they do not stop me,” she said. “Do you enjoy what you do?” I queried. “Oh yeah, I am a professional dancer and I do it with style. To succeed, one has to love what he or she likes and I blow kisses at it. I love and enjoy it.”

The truth is that Jacky is not the only person who benefits from her dancing. There are other individual and various groups of dancers who equally get paid by dancing. Recently, on one Friday evening, a friend invited me to sit with him and another friend at a joint behind the Oxford Street Shoprite Mall over foods and drinks (not what you think). While we sat, a group of young children numbering five came to acrobatically display. From swallowing a glowing fire on a piece of a stick to standing on each other’s shoulders, they lit up the place.

Thereafter, a young man dressed in the resemblance of the late Michael Jackson took the dancing floor. He had given his own collections of songs of the singer to the disc jockey of the street eatery. If the world searches for the Jackson-alikes, I can bet with the coins in my bank account that the Ghana Jackson would be chosen. From the moonwalk to whatever dance moves of MJ’s you know, he did it to perfection. Then … he stylishly removed his fedora, placed it in his palm for the bowels of it to sit prostrate and moved from table to table to solicit for funds (for thrilling us). After taking his offering, he changed his apparel to a casual one, took his pen drive and away, he went to a different gathering of merrymakers.

In Ghana, professions like painting, plumbing, driving, including dancing and many others are either left to the so called uneducated in the society or discarded into the bin. I trust you know that dancing is considered a serious profession in the white man’s land? So … while you are capable of doing the azontos, amandas and the akayidas, why don’t you join a dancing group near you to sell what you do for free? Is it not better than waiting on that targeted job that never comes? When you finally decide to dance for cash, email me and I will link you up with Jacky.

Lest I forget, Jacky says I should inform you she will be on stage with VVIP this Saturday at the 2014 MTN 4Syte Music Video awards night.

The writer is a freelance journalist.

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Blog: www.aniwaba.blogspot.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba

 

 

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