Gameli Adzaho, author of The Gamelian World Blog, presented a post on “5 Voices on climate Change“. In it he sampled views from five global leaders. In his opening remarks, he talked about the significance of Blog Action Day and how “the phenomenon of climate has engaged the world's attention over the past decade, provoking debates in science, politics, business and technology.” The five global leaders he discussed were former US Vice-President Al Gore, Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai, US President Barack Obama, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former Cuban President Fidel Castro.

Gameli ended his post with a series of questions—”What are your views on climate change? Is it for real? Is it a myth? In what ways do you think that the world can use its resources more sustainably? Can developing countries contribute to reversing climate change?”—to which he hopes to get to answers to soon.

Next to post on Blog Action Day was The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) whose contributors are AWDF, Bisi and Roselyn. Their post related to “Climate Change and Women“.  AWDF is an Africa-wide grant-making foundation for African Women. The vision of the AWDF is for African women to live in a world in which there is social justice, equality and respect for women’s human rights.

They started their post by taking issue with statements made by Arun Agrawal in his paper on Social Dimensions of Climate Change, which was prepared for the Social Development Department, The World Bank, Washington DC, March 5-6, 2008. In his paper, Agrawal stated that “climate change will be pivotal in redefining development in the twenty-first century. How nations, societies, communities, and households respond to the impacts of climate changes and variability to which the world has already been committed will in many instances determine their prospects for growth, equity, and sustainability”.

AWDF views climate change as an environmental change, which is also driven by humans—fundamentally a human problem. The impacts of climate change are expected to seriously (and disproportionately) affect the livelihoods, health, and educational opportunities of people living in poverty. AWDF also made a few recommendations for dealing with the situation.

Kajsa Hallberg Adu, co-founder of Ghana Blogging Group and author of the Rain In Africa blog, had a lot to say on Blog Action Day, but was shocked at “how not current the topic is in Ghana”. Kajsa laments the absence of Ghana from a web site counting down to the UN Climate Change Summit and asks: ”Really, when was the last time you heard someone discuss climate change around here?”

Yet Ghana came in for some special praise from Kasja:

A way to globally reduce the carbon dioxide emissions is to make sure we travel with public transport rather than individually in our own cars. Today, many Ghanaians travel in packed trotros, shared taxis or “Kufuor busses” and hence do not emit too much CO2. Can we say the same about the North/West? But as Ghanaians grow richer - our goal is to become a middle income country as soon as possible - more Ghanaians can also afford their own cars.

In my opinion the problem in the discussion about climate change is that while developed countries are struggling to be sustainable, developing countries are already klimatsmarta, but not by choice. Rather the “environmental consciousness” or sustainable living is caused by last year's topic; poverty.

Finally, Edward Tagoe, author of Tagoe Blogger blog and also a software developer-cum-poet, decided to share with his readers an interesting website called YOURENEW.COM. According to Edward, the site “is the perfect place for you to recycle or sell used cell phones, mp3 players, digital cameras and graphing calculators. You can also recycle and sell laptops, video game console, external hard drive, video game or DVD. If you can’t find your device in our catalogue or we can’t pay for it, you can always ship it for free and we’ll recycle it safely. So look up your device today, go green and get green! So look up your device today and go green!”

Also take note, October 24th, 2009 has been designated the International Day of Climate Action by 350.org.

Blog Action Day 2009 was an online event organized by Change.org. It was a virtual gathering of voices discussing climate change. Bloggers from a sampling of countries in Sub Saharan Africa were among those who posted their thoughts, and in this post, we get to listen to their voices.

Kenya

The blogger at Theatre of Inconveniences reminds readers to also think about wildlife and the species threatened with extinction due to climate change. The blogger also looks at the extreme weather situation in Kenya, with a drought that has lasted many months and the expected heavy rains.

In Kenya recently, prolonged drought – and we can not rule out the effects of climate change as the cause – first killed livestock, then pushed the livestock into wildlife habitats, then killed the wildlife. Now Kenya is – ironically – waiting for El Nino rains to settle in so that it can save people, their livestock and wildlife. But the El Nino could be made more severe by the effects of climate change. So more people, livestock and wildlife will die. Iregi Mwenja, a Kenyan bushmeat researcher posted pictures of the onset of the El Nino rains in Voi today. One of the casualties of the big water was a masai goat that died in the floods.

The blog Sukuma Kenya took UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) to task on its use of gas guzzling SUV's that release more CO2 into the atmosphere than smaller cars. The blogger wonders whether for one day, the UNEP officials would heed their own advice to cut CO2 emissions.

The blogger on Katch up shares their experience climbing Mt.Kenya, one of the few snow capped mountains in Africa. The blogger mentions changes in the ice coverage as pointed out by the tour guide, and also notices other changes in the environment. A brief story from the blogger's mother illustrates just how fast the environment has changed.

I come from a cold place and my mother tells me how fast certain types of crops used to grow, rain was abundant, seasons were more than one and it was colder. Not anymore. Those days were definitely better and we have been losing.

South Africa

Rory of Carbon Smart writes about community empowerment and climate change. The effects of climate change on the majority of Africans will be severe, and any strategies at dealing with climate change should provide support to the communities.

In Africa particularly, stresses are already being felt - climate change is not something that relates only to the future. The most vulnerable communities are those who struggle the most, as they are living on the edge - quite literally on the periphery of economic activity, whether they are subsistence farmers or urban slum dwellers. In this position, they don't have ‘wiggle room', or the flexibility to adapt their lifestyles to the changes they are experiencing. As a result, strategies for climate change adaptation must ensure that communities do have the means and understanding and support structures to enable them to keep ahead of environmental changes. A key point to be made is that the answer lies not primarily in technology or aid, but crucially in building relationships - institutionally, socially and financially.

Poetry and Poesie shares a poem on global warming

The bergs look limp
to me nowaseasons,
I shouldn't read
National Geographic,
that once was a tree
now covered in blinding shots
of glaciers gliding all the more
readily
sweating in the gloaming -
a new word I coined
for global warming.

I don't need to read
journalistic twilight musings,
I can see when a bear
is panting to death,
I can see the whales flail
in the a-krillic blue sea,
I know the götterdämmerung
is going to be a hot event
Inuitively.

Uganda

Climate Change. Its not just Koalas.

Rebecca writes on Jack Fruity about her experience in the Global Change exchange program, that will be documenting the effects of climate change and partnering with established bloggers in the Global Voices community.

It can be easy to forget that climate change is about more than trees and cuddly animals and fish swimming around in some distant ocean — all of which I care about, don't get me wrong (especially the cuddly animals). But climate change also has real, physical effects on humans: it's altering weather patterns in unpredictable ways, causing crops to fail for lack of rain in some places while floods wash away entire fields in others.

Ghana

Jemila Abdulai writes on Circumspecte blog, she looks at the climate change deniers, and those who believe it to be a hoax, debunks their arguments and sets forth the lessons for Ghana and Africa. The lessons include Information, Education and Accountability.

Ghana and other African countries are relatively better-off (I think) when it comes to pollution. How can we reduce what pollution we have, and how can we prepare for the future?

We should be doing our research and looking at all these models (failed or otherwise) to inform our own policy decisions. If we don't keep ourselves informed, we will have a situation similar to our current economic systems; we'll have policies, laws and structures that do not work for us. Already, many multi-lateral companies get away with polluting our countries without so much as a slap on the hand for this. That's where our concern should be: strengthening our legal structures to protect our environment and consequently, our population.

A great roundup of Ghanaian blog posts on Blog Action day is done by Mac-Jordan of Accra Conscious.

We end with the voice of ‘cuppatea' on the blog A colourful life of a Gay Kenyan:

So in summary, stop polluting, plant trees and be nature friendly! It will save mother nature and planet earth and you'll make nature fans like me globally happy! The future generation depends on nature. Positive action today, Better tomorrow for future generations.

Note: For previous Global Voices posts, kindly see these links.
- Reading the world on Blog Action Day
- Israel: Blog Action Day for the Environment

- Rising Voices summarizes blog posts from its grantees.

Register your blog to add your voice!

This is the Global Voices entry.

Over the next couple of months Global Voices is going to be following environmental and climate change issues extra closely. We're hoping to amplify unheard voices in the debate around the United Nations meetings in Copenhagen in December (COP15).

In November, on Conversations for a Better World, a blog sponsored by the UNFPA, two of our authors, Eduardo and Belen, are going to be cross-posting stories about population dynamics and climate change. I know they'll be looking towards Latin America.

Throughout October, Global Voices bloggers have been mentoring 31 young men and women from Africa and Denmark who are organizing an online campaign under the auspices of MS ActionAid in Copenhagen, Denmark. They've asked us to relay stories about ‘what developing countries need to help correct damage from climate change'. So we'll try to do that too.

Some mentor entries

For Blog Action Day, Jillian encouraged her readers to visit the blog of her mentee Edith, while Ali says his mentee Peter turned the tables on him and inspired him to write a post on climate change.

Another mentor, Gayle, has written a longer post highlighting the situations of farmers in Ghana, Australia (her own countries) and Zimbabwe (her mentee John's country).

Gayle used Twitter to put the call out for farmers in Australia. To her surprise, she was re-tweeted by ABC Radio in Australia, and came directly in touch with several farmers by email. She read interviews with Ghanaian farmers online, and even spoke to one directly.

And among dozens of links and interesting sources, Gayle found information on how local communities use traditional knowledge in rural Ghana to cope with climate change.

Gayle did something that bloggers on Global Voices do all the time. She went looking for voices you rarely hear speaking for themselves in international mainstream media.

In the past week on Global Voices

Bhumika Ghimire wrote a post today about the future of bio-gas in Nepal, including a video by a Japanese university research team that shows how bio-gas is used in rural Nepal.

A landslide caused by Typhoon Ketsana in a village in Pampanga province. Photo by Flickr user susancorpuz90

Earlier this week, Mong Palatino wrote about how Filipino bloggers are drawing connections between climate change and the devastating floods in Manila that killed more than 500 people.

Saffah Farooq wrote about how citizens of the low-lying Indian Ocean island state of the Maldives, feel their fate may be decided by the success of treaties like the Kyoto Protocol.

Wildlife blogger Samuel Maina in Kenya, wrote about how Kenyans are so desperate for rain they are awaiting El Niño rains that may displace thousands with mixed feelings.

There is a constant flow of stories on Global Voices' environment topic feed by bloggers all around the world.

Looking ahead

On this Blog Action Day, where we celebrate the collective power of bloggers to push for change, we'd like to encourage everyone not only to write about climate change but also to read what other people are saying.

Over the next many weeks, we're going to be overwhelmed by news stories by journalists quoting politicians, activists, and many others - but when the UN meetings are over and the cameras are off, the people who face the consequences of climate change immediately, will still be telling their stories on the internet in hopes of reaching people who care.

As we say at Global Voices, ‘The world is talking. Are you listening?'

For those far removed from the front lines of climate change, listening and linking is one the few ways we can succeed to make the problem feel real and in need of solutions today.

Related posts

• Blog Action Day 2009: Rising Voices Projects Discuss Climate Change
• Posts in Portuguese on Blog Action Day ‘09
• Greek Posts on Blog Action Day ‘09
• Africa discusses climate change
• Caribbean: Blogging About Climate Change
• Israel: Blog Action Day for the Environment
• Morocco: Blogoma participates in Blog Action Day
• Ghana: Blog Action Day ‘09
• Global Health: Can Condoms Combat Climate Change?

　

She wrote:

‘In a dusty, browning album belonging to my late father, I found the above photograph of the first President of Ghana, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. The album, covered in red psychedelic flowers houses my father's pictures from the mid-1960s up to 1973. The photos follow a natural fashion time-line and show how extremely tight -fitting trousers, beehives and mini-skirts gave way to unkempt bushy hair, bell-bottoms, afros and platform shoes. It's like Austin Powers meets Shaft all in Ghana.’

She continues:

Somewhere in the middle of the album is the mysterious photo of Nkrumah. For a few years I have looked at the picture and have wondered:

• Where did my father get the picture from?

• Where and when was it taken?

• Do the kente cloth in the background and the coat of arms on the front of the podium indicate that it was taken in Ghana?

What was the speech about and who were the audience?

For the generations of Ghanaians born after the death of Nkrumah, we have learnt that he was an extraordinary man of vision. VISION Not only did he possess great foresight but also charisma and intellect. He dream was not only for Ghana but extended to a Pan-African ideal of a united continent.

And she was certainly not alone in her thinking.

‘I don't think any African country has had as visionary a leader as my country has been so lucky to have. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah dreamed of a united, free Africa. I cringe to think what he would think of what we have become. Read his 1963 speech to the OAU in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.’

wrote Orangebutterfly, reflecting the sentiments expressed by many bloggers internationally upon the centenary of Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s birthday, September 21, 2009.

I shall quote Nkrumah’s Addis speech throughout this roundup of blogs to illusrate of his enduring vision:

‘Our continent certainly exceeds all the others in potential hydroelectric power, which some experts assess as 42% of the world's total. What need is there for us to remain hewers of wood and drawers of water for the industrialised areas of the world?

we shall link the various states of our continent with communications by land, sea and air. We shall cable from one place to another, phone from one place to the other and around the world with our hydroelectric power…

A decade ago, these would have been visionary words, the fantasies of an idle dreamer. But this is the age in which science has transcended the limits of the material world, and technology has invaded the silences of nature.’

Gamelmag took a unique approach to commemorating Nkrumah’s hundredth birthday:

‘My approach to remembering Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is to attempt to answer the question: “If Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was alive today, what would have been his aspiration for Ghana and Africa?”’

And imagined what Nkrumah might have envisioned for modern, internet-savvy Ghana and Africa, thus:

‘Kwame Nkrumah…would advocate for the Internet to be available in every Ghanaian, home, work place and school. After ensuring this he would then make a statement like: “Ghana's connectivity to the Internet would be meaningless unless it is linked up to the wiring up of the whole African continent.”’

And of energy they wrote that Nkrumah may have imagined cheap and affordable energy:

‘The fact that he constructed Ghana's sole hydroelectric power plant and proposed the one that is currently under construction is prove of the above claim. In the wake of the recent oil discovery in Ghana, our first president would ensure that there is more Ghanaian involvement in the actual drilling and refinement of the oil. He would lead the effort to build more oil refineries to process the crude oil locally, so as to increase the value of the oil exports.’

For those who do not know Nkrumhah, Laura Adibe wrote:

‘Was born Sept. 21, 1909 (although his autobiography states Sept. 18), in the former Gold Coast, now known as Ghana. From 1957 to 1966, Nkrumah served as president of Ghana until he was overthrown. Spending his final years in exile, Nkrumah died on April 27, 1972, in Bucharest, Romania. Hailed by many for being ahead of his time with his vision for a unified Africa, he is remembered for his dream of a “United States of Africa.”’

And she was fortunate to attend one of numerous events celebrating the life of Nkrumah which was held at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture on the 20th of September in New York:

‘…the event was packed with speakers such as Amiri Baraka, Dr. Leonard Jeffries, Dr. Molefi Asante and Dr. Ama Mazama. New York State Sen. Bill Perkins was also in attendance, presenting a copy of New York State Resolution 3068 to recognize the 100th birthday of the late Nkrumah to Minister-Counselor Ebenezer Appreku and members of the National Council of Ghanaian Association.’

Of conflict and development, in his Addis speech Nkrumah said:

‘There is hardly any African state without a frontier problem with its adjacent neighbours. It would be futile for me to enumerate them because they are already so familiar to us all. But let me suggest that this fatal relic of colonialism will drive us to war against one another as our unplanned and uncoordinated industrial development expands, just as happened in Europe?’

Many bloggers cited Nkrumah’s efforts towards forging a united, peaceful Ghana as his greatest legacy and inspiration.

‘So what is Nkrumah’s greatest legacy?’

asks Maya of Mayas Earth. Her thoughts, captured here, are representative of many in the blogosphere (and, on a personal note, of discussions I have had with many Ghanaians on Ghana’s peaceful status):

‘In my opinion it is breaking our tribal barriers. In his quest for panafricanism, he had to first break tribal barriers before breaking national distinctions. By transferring civil servants to places in the country that they had no tribal link to, e.g. sending an Ashanti to Accra, a Ga to Koforidua and a Fanti to Tamale, tribal interaction was forced on Ghanaians. A young Fanti who’d been stationed in Tamale for four years would sooner or later look for a spouse and marry out of his tribe.’

Also focusing on Nkrumah’s legacy, like Maya, Ghana Unites refered to Nkrumah’s impact on unity and his initiatives to promote understanding among Ghana’s numerous ethnic groups by implementing schemes that encouraged Ghanaians to work and live together:

‘He implemented similar initiatives at the professional level, where Ghanaians from different ethnic groups were offered civil service jobs in languages other than their own. The current National Service Scheme is remiscent of this initiative; although many Ghanaians today will move heaven and earth to ensure that they remain in Accra or large cities like Kumasi and Tema. Adjibolosoo acknowledges that although Nkrumah's initiatives did not rid Ghana of ethnic rivalries, it did have a significant impact on ethnic dynamics in Ghana. And I concur with that observation.’

Incidentally, it is rather serendipitous that September 21 is also the United Nations’ official Day of Peace and Ceasefire. That Ghana is officially the second most peaceful nation in Africa (after Botswana) and almost devoid of ethnic conflict is, in large part, thanks to Nkrumah.

As Maya wrote:

‘I am half Ga, half Akim. My husband is part Ga and part Akuapim. Among my friends and family, one is part Ewe, part Fanti and part Ga, one is part Akuapim and part Ga and another is part Akim and part Ashanti and there’s a whole mixture of Ga, Krobo, Fanti, Akim, Nzema and Hausa. Speaking to other African nationals I realize that this tribal mixing is very unusual outside Ghana.

Nkrumah espoused that unity, post independence, was fundamental to peaceful and prosperous development.

‘Is it not unity alone that can weld us into an effective force, capable of creating our own progress and making our valuable contribution to world peace?

Ghana Unites compares Ghana’s experience with Malyasia and the USA in unifying ethnically or geographically diverse segments of the population:

Nkrumah knew that in order for Ghana (and Africa) to prosper, we would have to put our differences aside and work together. United we stand, divided we fall. And boy, are we racing each other to the depths of poverty, instability and all the other inefficiencies that plague our country and continent. All nations who have achieved some semblance of democracy and development, have had to let some sleeping dogs lie and work together. In Malaysia, the native Malays and the Chinese and Indian foreigners did this. In the United States, the north and south divides came together. In Ghana…well, let's look on the bright side, things are better.

Of his extraordinary efforts to forge a united Ghana, Maya says:

In a time when Ghana stands happily among few of the African countries that has not experienced a civil war, as so many others have in the past and present, we must be eternally grateful to Osagyefo for this legacy.’

My African Diaspora says Nkrumah’s greatest gift to the world was:

‘…birthing the idea of Pan-Africanism, his early vision of a United States of Africa.

Nkrumah died in 1972, his vision unrealized and his rule ended in exile. It makes one wonder about the dream. Long after first reading about him in college, I developed my own vision of the dream. It’s an ambitious one – it expands on the original theory to encompass the entire African Diaspora. The same reasons, benefits and logic hold true, but the dream continues to be elusive.

The question is why. Why is it so difficult for Africa (and the diaspora) to see the benefits of unification? Would the model of the United States and the European Union not work in Africa?

While My African Diaspora asks why it is so difficult for Africa and the diaspora to see the benefits of unification, Ghana Unites illustrates that the reality of development today in Ghana—infrastructure maintenance, education curriculums—is brimming with challenges that require Nkrumah style vision and leadership to overcome:

But at some point, the roads, schools, bridges etc that Kwame Nkrumah set up will be in need of serious repair, or will have to be done over entirely. It's time that we quit nit-picking, and go on a full-out campaign to work and make necessary changes. Who cares whether high school in Ghana goes for a term of three or four years? What, pray tell us, are students supposed to be studying over that period of time? That is what we are supposed to be focusing on, the curriculum, the essentialities, the specifics! We need to have a vision and long term goals, and then, we strategize step-by-step and determine how we will achieve these goals. Enough, of the short-term planning already! If we don't commemorate Nkrumah's 100th birthday in any way, I hope we at least take a page from his book on leadership, and strive to be visionaries and work not just in the present, but also for the future. In his own words, “Forward ever, Backward never.”

Ghana Voices interviewed members of a new political party formed to honour Nkrumah’s vision.

‘The party, christened Nkrumah Never Dies Party (NNDP) is formed to honour Nkrumah, through whose exploits the nation was formed and founded. The part is also to usher in a new political paradigm where tribalism, poverty, hunger and diseases do not exist.

‘”Today, Ghana is far from what it ought to have been. We have become more or less (adikan abedie akyire),” Mr Amusu stressed. Mr Amusu regretted that after 50 years of independence, the country was wallowing in poverty, squalor and disease. He said Nkrumah left so many legacies that successive government could have built on to relieve the country from its economic doldrums.’

A
nd others look to a new generation for change and leadership, remembering Nkrumah’s own initiatives. In his research, Ghana Unites discovered just how advanced Nkrumah was for his time:

Hidden in the depths of chapter four of Critical Perspectives in Politics and Socio-Economic Development in Ghana by Tettey et al. (2003) was a section on how social and ethnic unrest in Ghana influenced (or rather impeded) its development efforts. The author, Adjibolosoo, explored Kwame Nkrumah's attempts at dealing with these tensions. The Ghana Young Pioneers movement of June 1960 which aimed at character building and citizen development amongst youth was one of the initiatives that led to the ideology of patriotic nationalism or “Nkrumanism.” Through the Ghana Young Pioneers initiative, educational programs were implemented to educate children in the concepts of social solidarity, political action, value stabilization, individual integration into changing social structures, the direction and meaning of life, and learning to think in terms of a nation rather than ethnic groups. I think Nkrumah's target group alone (children) is indicative of how forward-thinking this man was.

Continuing this theme, Gafaru of Wake Up Ghana said:

‘Kwame Nkrumah’s human story must serve to inspire another generation in many ways, and above all, to believe in themselves. Even more importantly, it must inspire the older generation to believe in and trust the youth because Nkrumah’s story is one of youthful optimism in the face of traditional resistance to new ideas.’

As September 21 was celebrated by Ghanaians as a national holiday, the JJ Rawlings blog, quoted a statement issued by former President Jerry John Rawlings:

‘”As we celebrate Nkrumah today let us have unity of purpose as far as the socio-economic and socio-political development of Ghana is concerned.

Concluding, former President Rawlings said Nkrumah’s ideals of unity for Africa had proven to be more relevant than before with the creation of powerful economic blocks in Europe, the Americas and Asia and called on African leaders to work seriously to give true meaning to the aspirations of Africans.”’

On the whole, Nkrumah’s legacy is largely undisputed. As Kofi Yeboah wrote:

In spite of all his foibles, as human as he is, his admirers, critics and enemies alike unanimously acknowledge him as the greatest African of the second millennium.

Others, including Edward of Path Ghana, were inspired to write poetry in his memory:

The Immortality of Nkrumah

In the beginning there was nothing

And out of nothing Yahweh called everything

First the angels and demons to keep the mortals busy

Then the women of the earth to remind man of his existence

After all was set and after all had been written

Yahweh called Nkrumah to stay in between the mortals and the immortal

To call for war at a time everything seemed peaceful

A mission to save the lost from its leash and its destiny

And begin a new path into a different generation

After that mission was done and all covered,

Nkrumah crossed the line

The line that separated mortals from those who never saw death

And built a home amongst the living and shared in their greater pain

From far up in the skies Yahweh unchained the punisher

The hibernating demons that lay in wait and smelled the blood of heroes

This time to spark a begging of the end of immortality among men

And so history was ordered to record it, Nkrumah the last immortal man

And yet others recounted intimate family stories. Emmanuel Bensah wrote of his family’s connection with Nkrumah and his father’s reaction on September 21:

‘It's a story about how their [Bensah’s] father–then 32 years young–imbued by the pride of being an Nkrumahist wept on the morning of Monday 21st September 2009 as then-President Professor John Evans Attah-Mills delivered a dawn broadcast to honour the great Osagyefo Dr.Kwame Nkrumah–academic; theologian; pioneering Pan-African; and Founder of Ghana.

In his hand was a copy of the now-defunct “Evening News” of January 1964, which their father found online, recounting how their great grandfather Hon E.K.Bensah, Minister of Works and Communications, had laid a wreath on the grave of a security officer killed by the bomb attempt on the life of the Osagyefo.’

And so I couldn’t help but end this round up where we began.

Abena of Chardonas wrote:

As we celebrate 100 years of the birth of Nkrumah next Monday, I have made a pledge to myself to find out as much as possible about the man.

Maya had also discovered a photo of Nkrumah hidden away and asked:

<

‘Like Abena, I have so many questions to ask about it, but now I can't stop wondering, is there a picture of Kwame Nkurmah in every family album?’

On one hand, the traditions encapsulated in indigenous knowledge are culturally unique, using local understanding to solve local problems. This makes it an important component in the fields of ecology, education, agriculture and health security. On the other hand, the internet is lauded for spreading information to help people, but it is also a bazaar, tilted towards large corporations and the economies of scale: Amazon.com, Google, Microsoft, PayPal. Indigenous knowledge has certain spiritual and ceremonial components; the internet is largely agnostic, and makes a good deal of money peddling pornography.

For all their perceived differences, the indigenous knowledge and global knowledge systems have become much closer in the past decade. Indigenous knowledge practitioners have begun leveraging different media to exchange ideas and publicize traditional learning to the larger world.

A researcher in Ethiopia argues Internet and Communication Technologies, called ICTs, can be used as cheap methods to capture, store and disseminate various forms of indigenous knowledge for future generations.

ICTs also increase access to indigenous knowledge systems, especially to schools, where this learning can be incorporated into classrooms.

Moving into education systems

As stated above, ICTs provide a perfect example for integrating indigenous knowledge into both formal and informal education systems. Technology could facilitate disseminating ideas about local cultures to students and provide schools the possibility to teach some curriculum in a local language.

Before we get into specific examples, let’s follow this debate with two bloggers on the importance of making students aware of different knowledge systems. For one, does increasing access to traditional knowledge give it more credibility in the eyes' of students?

Perhaps. George Sefa Dei, at The Freire Project blog, argues that in both development and education issues, scholars and practitioners need to find a balance between tradition and modernity.

Students have often queried why and how is it that certain knowledges count more so than other ways of knowing. There is a realization on the part of learners that knowledge is operationalized differently given local histories, environments and contexts. Unfortunately, the processes of validating knowledges fail to take into account this multiplicity of knowings that can together comprehensive speak to the diversity of the histories of ideas and events that have shaped and continue to shape human growth and development. In questioning the hierarchy of knowledges learners also allude to the problematic position of neutral, apolitical knowledge. It is important then in our teaching of Africa we lay bare and grasp the processes through which for example, Western science knowledge positions itself as neutral, universal and non-hegemonic ways of knowing, and furthermore seeks to invalidate and devalue other ways of knowing.

This sounds good in theory. How well does it work in practice?

Passionate Pedagogue, in a comment to the above post, illustrates a major hurdle.

I spend hours combing the Internet looking for sites about the peoples I teach in my history classes written by the peoples I teach. Oftentimes the sites I locate are too complicated or tacit for students to understand. Other times, the sites (rightfully so) are so culturally-specific that a teenager with no cultural capital about the area or peoples involved cannot possibly understand them. This leaves little actual “indigenous” information that is accessible to students.

I trust that during my career as a teacher critical pedagogues will work to create student-centered access to indigenous knowledge. My hope is that the information that we gleam from the invaluable contributions of indigenous peoples does not become relegated to university sociology textbooks or primers in critical pedagogy. While it is of course wonderful for graduate students and academics to take the lessons that Native Peoples the world over have to offer to heart, perhaps we should be weary of becoming Napoleon’s in our own right; publishing surveys of Native history by Natives that only serve the higher echelons of academia.

Where there are no sources

When finding source material becomes too difficult, some teachers have decided to make their own. Here are two examples of projects where technology can be a boon for students learning about different cultures. The first comes from Australia, from Scot Aldred, who writes the blog e-learning.

Specifically, I'm interested in developing a WIKI section devoted to indigenous Australians; their diverse culture, history, language and their land. While there is some publicly available information in hard copy publications, it is not substantial and does not detail all of Australian indigenous nations and their people. Online the situation is much worse with very little accurate information available.
Just imagine if all of Australia's school students had an opportunity to contribute to a public WIKI with information about the indigenous people native to their geographical area. Much of Australia's indigenous history is passed down by an oral tradition of story telling. The old people, the elders and some historians have information that could be shared with all Australians and the world.

… What about having a shared Webspace available to all of Australia's schools (public and private) where schools would submit a list of eligible persons who could create content and collaborate. Additional roles/permissions for moderators who would again be nominated by the schools.

A comment from Ginga, who is from the American state of Alaska.

Your ideas on collecting indigenous knowledge, and sharing it with the world in a collaborative environment (wikis and more) run parallel to several projects happening in the Bering Strait School District in northern Alaska.

Our staff and students are creating wiki-dictionaries in Inupiaq, and Siberian Yupik to document the native languages in our area. Students post a sound file, local image, and other information they have collected. We're also trying to develop other projects that have flexible formats for student sharing and collaboration on our wiki.

The tower of Chinglish?

At least one expert argues that with all the promise of ICTs, many traditional organizations feel they get lost in the “overload” of the Internet. Their websites lag in search engine relevance and (sometimes) lack a polished feel.

One problem is language. It is hard for a website written in say, Greenlandic (spoken in Greenland) or Cha'palaa, a language from Ecuador, or Bisaya, from the Philippines, to compete for page views with websites written in Spanish, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese or Arabic. Translating pages is often difficult and time consuming.

However, ICTs have the potential to expand a language’s reach. Perhaps it is through online classes or through tutorials or small applications for phones and computers. This is especially important because of the sometimes-frail environment indigenous languages now live.

Here is a good discussion of the issues surrounding language and technology from Heather, who lives in the US and blogs at flex your info. She brings up the fact that technology may provide a good means to communicate for members of her tribe living in distant places. However, “[t]echnology can be put to even better uses: cultural revitalization and preservation.” This does come with its own share of issues.

Native languages have long been endangered by a combination of urbanization and modernization, as well as past governmental policies of removal, relocation, and termination of native populations.

Today’s technology is such that you can easily record information and make long-distance contact with others, so it seems as if it should be easy to record, preserve, and make available native language information. However, there are a number of other concerns which must be balanced with the urge to preserve language through recordings, primarily issues around ownership and access. Language is closely tied to culture; even if tribal members don’t use their language day-to-day, they probably use in their ceremonies. Language and ceremonies may only be shared with certain people: sometimes with all members of the tribe, other times with only a select few. There may be people who are protectors of knowledge, language or otherwise. It’s important to make sure that programs created to record and preserve languages are sensitive to these issues.

Another issue to be considered is misappropriation or exploitation of this information. Indeed, some tribal elders have chosen to not share their knowledge with non-tribal members; by recording it, the chance that an outsider will access the information increases. Not recording such information allows tribal members to retain control over their cultural information. Another way to maintain control is to closely involve tribal members and elders in the design and creation of preservation programs. As more Natives become involved in the work to preserve their languages, they inform the protocols and practices used to collect and make available information. Whether a tribe decides to record and preserve language or to continue to share it only with tribal members orally, their positions must be respected.

Language learning on the telephone

With this in mind, she announces a new application for a mobile phone system that will teach the language of the Cherokee Nation, originally from the southeastern part of the United States but in the 1830s forcibly removed by the US government to the center of the country.

…The application includes flashcards, recordings, and games for language learning, and there is also a version for the Nintendo DS. The idea of using popular technology to help preserve and revitalize languages is exciting, because it makes language information available to all tribal members, not just those who live near tribal lands, and in a way that can be easily integrated into their lives.

…The use of technology, such as the Cherokee language iPhone application, can help dispersed tribal members to learn their tribe’s language. Software can be used to create multimedia teaching materials for lessons, while web conferencing technology can be used for teaching and for oral practice with other speakers. However, such programs must be sensitive to the issues of control and access by closely involving tribal members and elders, and respecting their wishes.

Today, my electrician Barun has a dual-SIM mobile phone - he tells me that one number is for his boss and the electrical shop which sub-contracts him and the second is for his ‘personal clients' that his company does not know about. This second business is growing, he informs me with pride, and soon he will no longer have to work for the electrical shop. His family, of course, can contact him on either number.

Mobile technology and low-cost mobile telephony options have empowered service providers like Barun to offer better services and enhance the reach of their businesses. The story is similar everywhere, across the developing world. A reader's comment on Brough Turner's post Mobile phone adoption goes crazy in Pakistan reflected this reality way back in 2005:

Another contributory factor…was the introduction of Calling Party Pays regime in late 2000 early 2001. Prior to the introduction of CPP, both the calling party and the called party were charged for airtime. Since CPP, only the calling party is charged. Consequently small traders and service providers such as plumbers / TV repairmen / electricians (whose services are in high demand) bought a mobile connection and were reachable throughout the day whether they were on call or in their shop.

However, the impact of the mobile phone is no longer restricted to connectivity alone. It has grown into a tool that enables, farmers,  small traders and service providers to take information-based decisions, thereby leading to their economic empowerment.

Thus, from the fishermen in Kerala tracking market prices and negotiating best deals for selling their catch the next day, to farmers in Andhra Pradesh using the mobile phones as business helplines to gain useful business development related information, small traders everywhere have woken up to the immense potential of mobile technology in helping them better their lives. And in this they are not alone. As Martine Koopman points out on her blog ICT4D in Zambia and Ghana, the story is similar in places like Ghana, for example. On a field trip to visit some farming communities living about 6km from Salaga, she observes:

Now they have seen the advantages of phones all of them would like to have one. They not only use it for accessing market information, but all their crops (yams, maize, ground nuts, vegetables, etc) are in the system. If market traders visit the village they have a better negotiating position. They also have contact with market traders in Accra and Kumasi by phone.

Apart from imparting business/market information, the impact of the cell phones can be felt when increasing cell phone usage helps to improve distribution efficiency and reduction in search-of-information costs as well as tackling price dispersions across local markets, as was seen in this study conducted in Niger.

In all of this, the end-consumer is also a beneficiary.  We get the benefit of convenience–from the basic facility of having an on-call service provider to ordering the fresh catch of the day from the fish-monger on his mobile, right up to using the virtual marketplace on our cell phones to buy fresh produce directly from the local farmer–in addition to enjoying competitively priced goods and products and services in the long run.

“Nimai”, thundered my mother, “get yourself a mobile phone. Otherwise, next time I am calling Barun.”

The “unfamiliar gays” or the “newly coming out” are the target for this activity as they are lured into what is referred to as a “honey trap.” This is when unsuspecting persons are lured into dark alleys or traps with promises of sex or sexual favors, but actually meet with wicked characters who threaten, blackmail and sometimes assault.

This always starts with visits to the internet in search of love on dating websites, without suspecting that the alluring profiles on most of the sites are fake.

Easy Track Ghana suspects that the majority of these profiles are fake:

On international gay chat sites, there are a disproportionate number of young men from Ghana professing to search for true love. Many people get excited when first reading all the lovely gay profiles professing a search for romantic love. Well, none of it is true! Let us be direct and say that 98% of these guys online do not rank above a 3 on the Kinsey Scale of Human Sexuality. Only a small 2% of the guys on these gay chat sites are ‘gay' in the sense you think of it in the West.

A page on Squidoo has:

If you look at the online dating sites, you will notice that many of the guys from Ghana claim to be as young as 18. Many of these people are not actually gay. The ones that are, may not be genuinely looking for what they claim. The pictures are often fake and their profiles may well be copied from other peoples.

Due to the governments’ inability to counter assault and blackmail towards people of different sexual orientation, some bloggers have taken matters into their own hands to protect their own by shining a spotlight on the fakers.

An online movement against scammers

Fakers2Go

The blackmailers work in groups; with the police and cyber café owners whose main aim is to squeeze the slightest cash from foreigners and the rich just because they can:

In Ghana, On-line criminals are targeting men who have sex with men (MSMs). They aim to extort money through kidnapping, violence and use of Ghana's archaic colonial law.

As homosexuality is illegal in Ghana, MSM's have no protection under the law and reporting a crime can lead to the victim being criminalised.

Furthermore, the police often work with the criminals to extort money and therefore cannot be trusted.

Easy Track Ghana writes:

Just remember, this is a business here. At many Internet cafes there will be 3 or 4 African boys working together, each having multiple chats with foreigners. This is the reason the chat and profiles all sound so similar. Some people are illiterate and hire typists who move from computer to computer answering chat messages. They work together to help each other formulate responses to questions in chats and email. They cut-and-paste sweet love.
Even more shocking though, there are some Internet cafes that are *completely* devoted to this type of activity. It is truly a business, with finders fees paid for arranging a meeting with a foreigner, and 11 and 12 year old year-old boys watching pornography en masse and learning how to chat ‘gay'. On the Internet, anybody can be anything, so you really do not know who you are chatting with.

Gay Ghana warns visitors to Ghana:

Dating sites are the most frequently used ways to meet a (potential) lover or gay guide in a foreign country. At sites like Outpersonals or Gaydar you will find that Ghana is the country in Africa with the most registered hopefuls. No other country in Africa has so many boys and men looking for a partner on Outpersonals with picture (often naked) than Ghana. Does this mean Ghana is the Gay paradise in Africa? No…! It may mean that there are plenty young men desperate enough to seek greener pastures elsewhere, whilst developed enough to have access to the internet and a digital camera.

GALCK, a Kenyan website, has a post titled, “Have you ever been blackmailed?” where they try to tally the amount of money Kenyan gays have been dishing out to the fakers in return for their silence. Gays are vulnerable and scared of the stigma from workmates, neighbors, friends because they know that their are life would be in danger and profession would wither under the glare of a homophobic community.

GALCK claims that blackmailers ask for as much as KSH 2,000,000 (approx $25,000) and as little as KSH 500 ($6)…

Have you ever been blackmailed because of your sexual orientation, or know someone who has? GALCK would like to establish the true cost of being Gay in Kenya. Blackmail and extortion are the twin crimes that afflict the LGBTI community in Kenya today, but majority of the cases are never reported. By compiling this report we shall be able to establish the extent and total cost of what we have paid to “keep the silence.”

From the stories we have gathered so far, our people have paid from Kshs. 500 to Kshs. 2,000 000. The latter having paid only a month ago. Let us join and compile this report - we shall not use real names, unless you want us to. You may also write your story down, and email it to info@galck.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , if you do not want to come in person. Call us on +254-20-2426060 to arrange an interview.

Some basic safety advice

How do you identify the fakers on the net? Most write with horrible grammar. It is reported that most are illiterate and rely on typists who are hired to do the dirty work. Over-disclosure: they profess their love to you and narrate their background, a family member who needs a hair or nail transplant. At the first meeting, they ask for money even before you know them:

Any person who comes at you with instant love is a faker or a scammer. The instant love they feel for you is love for the opportunity that you present and the money you have. The scams sound sincere, but all involve you sending money. Even if you are a poor person in your country, you are a very rich person by comparison to most of your African chat buddies. This disparity in wealth profoundly affects any relationship you develop.

Safety Tips from Fakers2Go:

How not to get beaten up and robbed
Take great care when meeting people on line. Below are some of the things scammers have said to people when arranging to meet them:

1. Bring your phone (because they want to steal it)
2. Dress sexy / wear your good clothes, etc (because they will strip you naked and sell your clothes)
3. Come alone (so that there is no one to help you)
4. Come to Tema!

Sometimes they might text you a sexy message and ask you to respond. If you text back something sexual they can use that as evidence against you with the police. Yahoo chats and your online photos can also be used as evidence.

GALCK says that the first question a blackmailer asks any unfamiliar gay is whether they’ve heard of GALCK, if response is yes, they leave in a huff:

Secondly spread this information around to your networks. In fact every time you meet a new person, ask him or her if she/he knows about GALCK. This has two advantages, one - if your friend does not know about GALCK, s/he gets to know about our activities which s/he may find helpful some day. Secondly, GALCK is now the code word to ward off blackmailers. Indeed I have been told, the first question blackmailers ask their potential victims nowadays is if they know of GALCK. Do yourself and your friends a service, lets all spread the word, and especially the GALCK contacts so that our people can not just feel but actually be protected at all times.

In addition to having a recreational center library, movie sessions, forums and discussions on men who have sex with men (MSM) and gay pride events (CSWs), they have people who defend the gays and they stress that every lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered or any queer identified persons should have their phone number saved on their phones….

Here is what to do when confronted with challenging circumstances.
First of all, we should all save this number in our phones - 020-2426060. This is the GALCK number, GALCK will always rush to your defence when confronted by difficult legal situations regarding your sexuality. And this includes even when you have been caught in the ‘very act’ - especially if you have been caught in the act. So comrades, shed off the fear!

Ghanaian food expert, Fran Osseo-Asare, has much to offer readers of her blog about Ghanaian cuisine. There she explains her motivation for writing about food:

I got fed up (pun intended) hearing the negative and distorted nonsense people said about West African cooking, so started writing about it from my perspective…Since the 1970s I've been eating and learning in the kitchens of family, friends, and colleagues how to prepare Ghanaian food. As a sociologist, a writer, and a “foodie,” I've also looked for the stories behind the food. Since marrying my Ghanaian husband in the 1970s I've spent decades looking at his culture from the inside out, and/or the outside in…

And Apoorva gives her interpretation of the concept of ‘food’ in Ghana:

Food’ here…is roughly translated from Gonja, Dagomba, Twi, Nanumba, or any other Ghanaian language as “the starchy portion of what we eat”. This is in contrast with “soup” which refers to “the stuff, which contains the meat or fish that we pour on the Food”. All people have Food, most people have some Soup, and if you are not poor, you will have abela [meat] in your Soup.

The philosophy of heavy main meals in Ghana was described by Fran Osseo-Asare after interviewing hundreds of Ghanaians about it:

Ghanaians generally eat one or two main, or “heavy,” meals a day, supplemented by snacks or a lighter meal. The interviewers initially had some problem determining what constitutes a “meal,” since those interviewed considered only a heavy meal a true meal, one that consisted of soup and fufu, or kenkey (a fermented cornmeal dough steamed in corn husks) and fried fish, or rice and stew. Only “heavy” food counts; as another proverb proclaims: “One blows the horn with a full stomach.

Another way of putting it is: “Belly full, blow horn.” In other words, if you want to work hard, as work traditionally is in Ghana, you have to fill your stomach. And Fran lists Ghanaian cooking basics at her blog:

Ghanaian stews, gravies, and sauces usually involve frying; the soups, however, are boiled. Many soup ingredients may be ground: tomatoes, peppers, legumes (most commonly peanuts, but also several varieties of cowpeas, such as white, brown, black, red, or bambara beans), seeds (like agushi, a melon seed), small, egg-shaped eggplants, and cocoyam leaves (nkontomire) or another kind of green (Ghana has forty-seven different kinds of edible green leaves, each with a distinctive flavor). [11] …The starch component of the meal…most likely it consists of rice, yam, cassava, plantain, millet, cocoyam, or white corn/maize…[12] ). The starch can be creamy, crunchy, tangy (or sometimes bland), grainy, fluffy, elastic, or chewy.

And there is “the ingredients”, as her Ghanaian sister-in-law, Afua, taught her when she began recording recipes in the 70's that ultimately became a book, A Good Soup Attracts Chairs:

Still, Afua made a lot of allowances for obroni. In her oral culture, writing down recipes signaled incompetence. With amused tolerance she nevertheless wrote down cryptic recipes for me, always referring to the sacred combination of pepper (generally habaneros or scotch bonnets), onions, and tomatoes as “the ingredients.” These vegetables formed a holy trinity, providing, in the appropriate amounts, the base for endless varieties of soups, stews, sauces, and gravies

Of course, a discussion of Ghanaian cuisine would not be complete without fufu, the cult classic and staple of Ghanaian chop bars, restaurants and family compounds across the country. St Peters Trekker wrote:

…fufu sits in its bowl like a rotund butter colored island rising up through the lake of fragrant stew.

And Ampoorva explains why the big deal:

Fufu…you make in a GIANT mortar and pestle and pound the living be-hoobies out of…

Indeed, preparing fufu is a labour intensive process, as St Peter’s Trekker found out:

The making of fufu takes special equipment and teamwork. Fufu is made with a large mortar and pestle. The pestle is made from a tree limb or sapling about as tall as a person and as big around as can be comfortably grasped by an adult hand.  The pole is smooth, stripped of its bark and pounded on one end to look like a frayed mushroom cap.  This is the end that crushes and mashes the vegetables into just the right consistency, working them until the dough sticks together and forms a smooth ball. The mortar is a large flat bottomed bowl mounted on a low stand.  One person, standing above the mortar, pounds cooked wedges of cassava and chunks of plantain together with the pole while a second person sitting on a low stool next to the mortar moves the vegetables around the bowl in between strokes. The person sitting beside the bowl has only a tiny window of time to stir the dough before the beating stick comes down again.

Betumi elaborates:

Usually one person would turn and another person pound, though for a small amount of fufu one person might both turn and pound. A little water would be added from a bowl to keep the fufu from getting sticky, and lumps would be picked out as it became smooth. This labor-intensive process takes an even rhythm and split-second timing to ensure that the pestle never descends on hand or finger. Gradually, the mass gets more elastic. The fufu softens the sound as the pestle hits the mortar with a soothing thumping as women prepare dinner. Eventually the mass becomes a smooth, springy ball of dough that looks a little like a cross between freshly kneaded dough and a dumpling.

Fufu even made the history books, as Betumi cites:

Sir Richard F. Burton, the famous nineteenth-century European traveler, writer, and translator, enthusiastically described fufu as playing a role equivalent to “. . . the part of European potatoes, only it is far more savoury than the vile tuber, which has already potatofied at least one nation.

So intrinsic to Ghanaian life is fufu, that many sayings or proverbs include references to it (as they do the entire food spectrum in Ghana). At her blog, This is Ghana, one blogger wrote that during a speech to the bride and groom at a wedding ceremony, a Ghanaian woman dispensed wisdom, comparing fufu to a relationship:

The analogy in Ghanaian folklore follows that creating a good relationship is like making fufu: one partner is the cassava and the other is the plantain (or yam if you're up north). When you pound cassava and plantain into a sticky ball of fufu, which ain't easy, like you're average long-term relationship, you hit lumps, like you're average long-term relationship. So, what next? Ghanaians believe that it is the sole responsibility of the two to address the issues–those lumps–in the relationship. In other words, to discard those things that don't help the relationship, and keep pounding away at the rest. And to solve it yourself…

And then there is the soup. Of ground nut soup, facing the wall exclaims:

Ah, how delicious you are, GS! Made of groundnuts (that's peanuts to most, monkey nuts to the weirdos) and groundnut oil. Eating this gives you huge pectoral muscles and increases your tolerance for Celine Dion ballads. Easily one the best things in Ghana to eat.

On a trip in Ghana, Mickey Ashmore is invited in to watch ground nut soup being prepared in a restaurant:

Groundnut soup is rich, nutty, and brown; thickened by its main ingredient, groundnut paste, which is boiled with a touch of water and churned with an instrument resembling a small canoe paddle for several hours. Before adding the groundnut paste to the stew, a whole chicken (cut into pieces) is stewed with previously boiled tomatoes, onions, and hot red chilies plus a whole bunch of ground ginger (done by mortar and pestle), chopped garlic, and raw chopped onions. For added flavor, standard Maggi chicken seasoning is added to the stewing pot. After cooking the chicken with these ingredients for a while (not sure how long), the rich groundnut paste is then added and stewed for many more hours making sure the chicken is tender and falls off the bone.

Betumi gives more details about the three main soups of Ghana, which accompany fufu, and which she serves her family:

Creamy, spicy “groundnut soup,” nkatenkwan in Twi, made with “the ingredients” plus chicken, okra, and peanuts, remains a standby in our family. We most frequently prepare “light soup” or nkrakra (especially with lamb or beef and smoked or fresh fish, mushrooms, okra, and tiny eggplants, the “garden eggs” of Ghana), but for sheer richness, color, flavor, and texture, palmnut soup or abenkwan (pronounced ah-BEHN-kwan) surpasses all other soups. Abenkwan is made with the small red fruits of the palm tree, called palmnuts, and includes the strained pulp and oil from the fruit surrounding the palm kernels at the center of the palmnuts, but not the inner kernels themselves.

Now: To swallow or to chew? That is the question. While all self-respecting Ghanaians swallow fufu, many foreigners struggle not to chew. So many visitors have blogged about this that the ‘chew challenge’ almost seems like a traveler’s rite-of-passage. One goes so far as to declare chewing ‘unethical’.

First, Betumi explains the correct way:

Fufu is not chewed, but swallowed whole, carried down the throat by a soothing peristaltic motion. Eating it is a very sensual experience.

Apoorva explains the reality:

Like all Food you must rip off a piece, dip it in the soup, and eat it – and by eat I mean SWALLOW IT WITHOUT CHEWING. Complicated stuff people. Chew accidentally and suddenly the whole circle of eaters are guffawing at you and you are looking confused and bewildered.

Facing the wall blog wrote:

…the method is to pull of a piece about the size of a large shooter marble, dip in the sauce, and swallow whole without chewing (or gagging, for those trying it for the first time.)

Accra flight cautions:

…if you are eating fufu in front of some African person then try not to chew it but just swallow it, as in Africa it is considered unethical to chew fufu. But no matter how you eat fufu, it tastes great…

Indo Dreamin’, who was on a mission to find Ghanaian food in Guangzhou, describes the challenge when he finally found fufu:

The unique thing about fufu is that you do not chew it. You have to cut a piece using your index and middle fingers, form a small dimple in the piece you have cut (using your thumb), dip the piece into the piping hot soup, and once placed in your mouth you swallow. You DO NOT CHEW FUFU.

Maragaretb said:

You don’t chew fufu, you simply pick up some with your fingers, yes soup with fingers is much more fun than with a spoon, and put the fufu in and swallow. It’s not that it’s bad; it just doesn’t have a whole lot of taste…

Gunbunnycrosswalk gave another explanation:

you are not supposed to chew fufu as it is considered rude to the cook…fine with me…gets it out of my mouth sooner…

A McGraw seemed relieved:

I’ve finally learned not to attempt to chew fufu or bangku but just to swallow…

So that Ghanaians and foreigners alike can get their hit of fufu wherever they may be, Betumi lists sites that you can visit to find fufu near you:

Peace Corps volunteers developed “The Friends of Togo Fufu Bar” Web site, where one can find, among other things, reviews of African restaurants world-wide, including whether or not they serve fufu (http://www.concentric.net/~jmuehl/togo.shtml); Doug Himes, who holds degrees in African Studies and Economics, has established The Congo Cookbook Web site to make available literary and scholarly information about West African gastronomy, including historical information and recipes for fufu  (http://www.geocities.com/congocookbook/); Ellen Gibson Wilson published A West African Cook Book, which includes fufu recipes “out of necessity,” since her “British husband, who spent some happy and formative years in West Africa, developed an appetite for African food which could not be satisfied solely on widely spaced return visits.”(Ellen Gibson Wilson, A West African Cook Book [New York: M. Evans and Company, Inc., 1971]; see p. 92.); Elizabeth A. Jackson, a nutritionist born and raised in Nigeria, also published a West African cookbook and has since developed a helpful African culinary Web site (Elizabeth A. Jackson, South of the Sahara: Traditional Cooking from the Lands of West Africa [Hollis: Fantail, 1999]; http://lizard.home.inr.net).

Arguably, next on the hierarchy of Ghanaian favourites and most blogged about, is Banku. Of Banku, Facing the Wall asks:

What happens if you let maize ferment in a pot for three days and then pound into a thick sour mush? You get banku of course! This is actually really tasty, but it's an acquired taste for some. Often served with light soup or okro stew.

Mickey Ashmore writes about his experience learning to eat Banku while living with a Ghanaian family:

Eat your ball!” “Use your ball!” “Look, I am eating my big ball!” A dinner at the Kukobo house (our homestay) with banku or akple is entertaining..The size of the ball of banku is determined by the size of the person eating. Naturally, our father gets the largest ball. To eat like a true Ghanaian, one would have to use your hands. Our father tears of portions of his “ball” and sloshes it in the stew sopping up flavors, juices, and a bit of vegetable such as okra (known here as okro stew). Personally, to tolerate the fermented flavor of Banku, I have to tear my ball into very, very small pieces dropping it into my stew to sponge up other spices and sauces…
This is our father’s favorite dish. Therefore, it gives him great pleasure as I begrudgingly reduce the size of my ball. “You have too much ball left, Mike!” he notes. If I start to favor my stew with a spoon and no portion of Akple, he quickly notes, “You are not using your ball, Mike!” “Use the big ball.” Then, often, he will demonstrate - licking his fingers clean of sauce and fish while comparing the size and amount of his ball that has disappeared. “Look at my big ball … almost gone, Mike!

I cannot breathe, Mike.” he moans. “I have taken too much food.” “My stomach is now a big ball!” he laughs. Of course, our father understands that Banku or Akple is not enjoyed by the typical western tongue. But I try my best to impress him

The variety of food eaten in the northern half of Ghana differs with that of the south, partly due to the environment, costs and distance. Ampoorva explains:

There is only one real growing season in the north – that is now. Farmers plant around the first rains (Early to Mid-May) and harvest through to September. Because (as I have mentioned before) not only is the word Food solely associated with the starchy bits of the diet, so is the cultural idea of Food. Famine occurs when there is no maize, no cassava, no yam, no rice (well there is never no rice, thanks to the goddamn cheap dumping of American rice here – but that is another story). Why? Gonja, and Dagomba and other northern tribes are Sub-Saharan peoples. Their main caloric intake comes in the form of the carbohydrates and starch obtained from grains. Animals are only so many and cattle are not even originally native to the area – so to keep a family, and a people alive, they farm grain.

And the staple of those living north of Tamale is derived from maize and millet grown during the rainy season. Facing the wall describes the staple, ‘TZ’ for short, like this:

TZ, pronounced tee-zed, is almost like banku. Instead, regular old corn meal is boiled into a thick paste. Typically eaten with okro stew. This dish is much more popular in the north of Ghana than in the south.

Ghanaian Maximus Ojar writes in the Ghanaian Journal of TZ:

I don’t want to keep you from your Tuo Zaafi any longer. Did you even cook it yourself? Just thinking about the one cooked at Asanka local on Sundays is making me hungry. Enjoy your meal. A-chi-ray. Chop time no friend…

“Chop time no friend” is often said with good-humour in response to “You are invited”. The latter is an invitation for you to come and eat. The former means, “don’t worry about me, go ahead…”. In other words, survival (chop/eating) first, friendship second—and they are heard everywhere.

Seoul-based blogger, Aliensdayout took a metaphorical trip down memory lane and a real trip around Seoul in a quest to uncover Ghanaian food in South Korea’s capital:

For those of you who don't know me, I grew up in Ghana (and also Ivory Coast). Ghanaian food is freaking amazing. Groundnut stew, fufu, banku, fried plantain, jollof rice…my mouth is watering. I miss it all sooo much.

I heard a long time ago that there's a West African restaurant in Itaewon, since there's actually a little West African community here in Korea. I've been meaning to try the restaurant out with my whole family so that we can reminisce about our glory days, but so far, that hasn't happened and I've been getting impatient! So this week, I FINALLY went to check it out and order some takeout for myself.

Even though the restaurant wasn't much to look at, something about walking into that space and hearing the different languages made me feel like I was back in Ghana….Since it was my first visit, I decided to go with my all-time favorite West African dish: Red Red (although the menu just calls it “beans”). This dish is made with black-eyed peas and is traditionally accompanied with fried plantains. I was going to order the plantains too, but the waiter said that they didn't yet have plantains ripe enough for frying. I guess you can't blame them for that… It's hard to believe they can get plantains in Korea at all. They must ship them in from somewhere. The waiter/cook also confirmed for me that they don't put fish in the red red (sometimes in Ghana, fish sneaks its way into the dish). I actually got to chat with him for a bit about about how/why I'm vegan. He said he's from Nigeria, but upon hearing that I lived in Ghana, he pointed out which of the men sitting around the restaurant were Ghanaian. haaa. While we were chatting, my Ghanaian accent was just itching to come out! hehe. I was suddenly very aware of how Americanized my accent has become. So anyway, I got my takeout and couldn't wait to get home and eat it. It was delicious! It was slightly thicker than the red red I've had in the past, but it absolutely had the same African taste. And it was spicy, just like it should be. I'm definitely returning to try their jollof rice, fufu, and fried plantains.

And IndoDreamin’ wrote about his unique mission to find Ghanaian food in Guangzhou:

Now my cousin, having been born in Ghana, has never really lived there. I figured it might be a cool experience for him to finally taste the food of the country he was born in 35 years ago. I had heard about a Ghanaian restaurant in Guangzhou…I found the building in one shot…I went up to the 24th floor and stepped out of the lift. The aroma of home cooked food and spices hit me like manna from heaven. There were no signs to follow or people to ask directions from, so I just followed the smells…finally I found the elusive Ghanaian restaurant. The establishment even had a name, Ghana Dish, run by Madame Atta…it makes a huge difference when Ghanaian food is served by a large Ghanaian woman. It just feels more authentic. She is from Kumasi and has been living in China for 3 years now. It was great fun chatting with her…the restaurant had a few flags up on the wall and even played highlife music on the stereo…They only offered a few simple dishes though like Banku, Fufu, light soup, groundnut soup, Kokonte, gari, and rice…So I ordered us some fufu and light soup…My cousin had no idea what he was into…Needless to say, I was an extremely happy camper…my mouth is watering just writing this…GHANA DISH is the best Ghanaian restaurant I have been to in Guangzhou.