Update

Spent the last 5 days on a wonderful whirlwind tour of Ghana's Upper West region, with Uncles Negro and Nasir. Back in Accra today for Kalila's visa appointment (2 hours from now!) If all goes well with the appointment, planning to fly out tonight to Dakar, Senegal, spend a few days there, and then make my way overland to Banjul, the capitol of the Gambia, to visit Ceesay of EU Action Factory 2009 fame.

Then on the 18th back to Accra as originally described here.

Update coming soon on Kalila's surgery - finances, date, etc.

Ghana's Most Beautiful

Faiza (Kalila's mom), Uncle Nasir, and I went on Sunday evening to the season finale of Ghana's Most Beautiful at the National Theatre. It's kind of a beauty pageant reality show with a big dose towards promoting discourse about the intersection of Ghanaian culture and economic development.

(The first picture shows Faiza with me wearing the beautiful African dress she had her seamstress make for me and which I wore to the show. Thanks, Faiza!)

The show started out I guess 4 weeks ago or so with one contestant from each of the country's 10 administrative regions (kind of like states). They lived together in a house and one was voted out by SMS voting each of the last few weeks. With 6 contestants still left, the finale was a ridiculously 3.5 hours long (we didn't get out until 1am, and then the car wouldn't start so it was a very late night...) One of my host family's many cousins was the contestant from the Upper North region, and wound up coming in 4th overall.

A few key observations:

• I very much appreciated the fact that the women did NOT seem to have to fit any particular strict definition of body proportions, height, etc.
• Winner of Most Bizarre award: Ghanaian male models escorting the competitors (exquisitely garbed in traditional-yet-modern dresses) in outfits consisting of cowboy boots, the loudest boxers you've ever seen, and grim-reaper-style hooded cloaks. I kid you not. The photo hardly does the image justice (especially because they don't have their hoods up), but hopefully you get the idea...
• The show's production was not very professional. I was especially unimpressed with the lighting, which was a constantly-shifting kaleidoscope of color. I wish I could have seen what it looked like on TV, but I can't imagine it was very good... The dancing, however, did at least make up in enthusiasm what it lacked in precise choreography!
• The integration of education about economic development (when was the last time you went to a beauty pageant where the contestants had to recite the UN's Millenium Development Goals?) was impressive.
• I also appreciated how very explicit and thoughtful the discourse about preserving Ghanaian culture was -- especially interesting was the clear consensus that some parts of Ghanaian culture should NOT be preserved because they hindered development and kept people in poverty, while other parts certainly should be preserved.
• Winner of the "American Cultural Exports Suck" award: An otherwise quite touching song about baby Jesus in which all the dancers were dressed in Santa outfits. I can't imagine a less climate-appropriate theme.

Anyway, the next time someone refers to "GHB," I expect you all to think of Ghana's Most Beautiful, not the date rape drug!

This one's for you, Dad...

Two days ago Nasir and I visited the University of Ghana campus just outside Accra. Nasir studied political science there years ago, and much of the family has some kind of undergraduate or graduate degree from the university, which is one of the best in West Africa.

I bought a couple of books at the bookstore and sat in on a geography lecture, but the highlight was definitely non-academic: We were driving past a 2-on-2 pickup basketball game and I joked "maybe I should challenge them" or something like that. Nasir took me more seriously than I was taking myself, and it also turned out that one of the players was a relative (nephew?). So we stopped and, clearly completely bemused, one of the guys gave me his spot. In my skirt and Chaco sandals, and Sarah's nice blouse which I had borrowed to visit the courts, I proceeded to go 2-for-3 from the field (draining and 15- and 10-footer), talked a little trash, and then decided that was as good as it was going to get and I was also in real danger of injuring myself and ruining my trip, and gracefully exited.

(Nasir managed to take that photo of me playing defense. Also, in the interest of fair and balanced journalism, I should probably mention that I did get dunked on, and also that they clearly had mixed feelings about even attempting to put any kind of pressure on me when I was shooting. But still, for someone who hasn't shot a basketball in a couple of months and is playing in sandals, I felt pretty good about the whole thing.)