Afrovision Song Contest anyone?

Eurovision 2009 Winner Alexander Rybak

Source: http://www.eurovision.tv

After the annual Eurovision Song contest.... Yes, you heard me...'Eurovision': the most popular and much-hyped European reality song contest you would have NEVER heard of. Well, at least I should admit I had never heard of the Eurovision song contest until I was in England in 2005. Apparently the contest has been around since the 1950s. It is surprising that I had never heard of Eurovision considering I was brought up on a healthy staple of ABBA classics and subjected myself to camp television that included Pop in Germany in the 1980s. If there is anyone out there who has actually watched Pop in Germany, please let me so I know I did not just imagine this show. Why the ABBA reference you ask? According to the good people over at Wikipedia, ABBA won Eurovision back in 1974 with Waterloo. Waterloo also also happens to be my favorite ABBA song. Anyway, I digress, ever since the hype over Eurovision 2009, I have been wondering...would a trans-African song contest ever work here in Africa?

Too many questions come to my mind:
1. What would the official song language be for the Afrovision competition? Would the Francophones think it is unfair if it is English, would everybody be allowed to compete in their own language?
2. Would the competition be dominated by South Africa or Nigeria....or even the current African bastion of democratic perfection Ghana?
3. Would the Afrovision Song Contest be open to countries on the land mass of the continent like when it comes to football or just us over on the so-called "Sub-saharan Africa" side of the continent?
4. Would the entire world think it is unfair that we devoting time to frivolous things like song contests when we should be worrying about disease, war, poverty, debt and foreign aid?
5. Which country would host the competition? South Africa or Nigeria....or even the current African bastion of democratic perfection, Ghana?

Although it would be a logistical nightmare, I think an Afrovision contest is a possibility. After all, we have done reality shows to perfection across the continent. There was Idols South Africa, Idols West Africa and one of my bestest buddies from high school was in the very first Big Brother Africa. Coming to think of it, all these competitions seem to be a tad Anglophone dominated. *Sigh* let's face it, maybe we are just too diverse for a trans-African competition. We are probably not ready for a trans-Africa union either....Mmmm...no wonder the African Union does not really seem to be working out for us either!

Got Twitter ? : Confessions of a Social Network Addict

Let’s face it, the world is turning into one big social network. Being an ardent procrastinator, social networks are heaven-sent. They are the perfect way to while away time you do not have on the internet. Anyway, here is a quick tour of my social distractions:

1. hi5 = Well, I must confess I left this one a couple of years ago but in its heyday, hi5 was the best thing since sliced bread. Nowadays if you send someone a Hi5 request you may risk being accused of being "colo" (ancient/behind the times)

2. Friendster = I must have logged onto my friendster account like once. This is (or was??) similar to hi5 but seemed to be more popular among Americans.

3. Facebook = the undisputed ruler of the social networks..I just became friends with someone from primary school whom I have not seen in 20 years it is that cool.

4. MySpace = incessant references to MySpace especially in the media made me want to get my own space. Well, I got one and still don't know what it is all about!

5. LinkedIn = this is a supposed to be a social network for professionals…So if you feel you are too serious for any of the afore-mentionned networks. LinkedIn is the place to be. I find that it is the perfect let-me-show-off-my-CV social network!

6. Google Blogger = Home of Ramblings of a Procrastinator in Accra, need I say more..

7. Twitter = Finally, we arrive at my latest addiction. Well, I consider myself a semi-addict since I’m still not sure exactly how it works

I joined Twitter a couple of months ago. I think it was around the time that there was that plane that landed in the Hudson River in New York City. Apparently the news was all over Twitter but was yet to reach any mainstream media outlets. At first I felt I had to have an iphone or at least be able to get Twitter updates (known as “Tweets”) to my mobile phone to really participate . To some extent I still think that is still true.

What is Twitter anyway? It is basically a network that revolves around updating the question “what are you doing now” but you are restricted to 140 characters. Anyone on facebook would recognize that Twitter is like a social network entirely devoted to updating your status!

At first I used to update my Twitter status every couple of weeks and did not see the point. I also did not know that Twitter was open-access so the whole world could see that I was contemplating going to the beach, planning escape routes, craving fufu and groundnut soup . It was only last week that I discovered the SEARCH button and topic trends on Twitter and really became hooked!

The topic trends basically tells you the hottest topics on twitter. So I clicked on Grey’s Anatomy. Indeed, everybody was buzzing about the Season finale of my show. Unfortunately, some Twittering twit ruined everything for me by updating their status with the earth-shattering events that ended the season. @#$#@% B#$!

Of course the mainstream media has finally caught up with the Twitter craze and you can follow CNN, BBC programmes on Twitter. So lets say you are a fan of BBC World Have your say like me and have some sort of contribution, if it is less than 140 characters, you can tweet it. They are usually good about reading out tweets during live broadcasts. Early Monday morning this past week, there were quite a few people tweeting that the Tamil Tiger leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran was dead. I checked the BBC and there was no news there. Lo and behold, in a couple of hours it finally hit the BBC.

If you are a celebrity fanatic, you can follow Oprah, Richard Branson, Ashton Kutcher, Mitt Romney on Twitter and find out what they are doing. Still not sure why anyone would want to know what Mitt Romney is doing at any time of the day! User be warned, some of these celebrity profiles are fake.

One thing I've noticed is that there are a lot of Ghanaians on Twitter but it seems that there are very few people Twitter-ing out of Ghana. Of course if you happen to do a Ghana search on Twitter right now the topic on everybody’s lips appears to be:

“Obama's coming to Ghana!”

Harmattan Rain: A Unique Phenomenon

Some weeks ago there was some media buzz in Ghana surrounding the launch of a debut novel from a young Ghanaian writer named Ayesha Harruna Attah. The book was entitled Harmattan Rain which is an interesting oxymoron since rain during the Harmattan season is a unique occurrence. From what I heard on one of the radio stations, it chronicles the lives of 3 generations of Ghanaian women from before independence. I made a mental note to look for the book at some point in the future. However, the buzz around it continued and fellow Ghanablogger Kajsa highlighted it in a recent posting. Indeed, I became more curious. Finally, a tweet from my undergraduate college about Harmattan Rain virtually put me in my car bound straight for the Silverbird Bookshop in search of my copy. As it turns out, the author happened to attend my undergraduate alma mater Mount Holyoke College. Our times at MHC never overlapped since she was a member of class of 2005 and I course graduated erm...closer to the turn of the decade (*yikes*).

Although I just started reading Harmattan Rain a few days ago, I'm already hooked. It is beautifully crafted, vivid and entertaining and I can't help but be amazed that this is the first novel from this young writer. Oh and I'm not plugging this book because it is written by a young Ghanaian woman or because she attended the same undergraduate college as me but rather because it is refreshingly brilliant.

Return from Eden: Lessons learned in "The Field"

At last, I'm back from a week-long field trip to the glorious Volta Region . All part of my job as a medical researcher. Our surroundings were serene and beautiful, the people extremely friendly and all insects, mosquitoes, gnats etc. were extra hungry! I'm still covered in all sorts of strange rashes but it was worth it. The field-trip had given me a lot of angst before-hand but in the end it was not the logistical nightmare scenario that I had dreamed up. It was full of valuable lessons that have definitely enriched my life and made me a better person. Mmm, perhaps I exaggerate but:

TOP TEN LESSONS LEARNED ON MY FIELD-TRIP

• When sharing a guest-house with a so-called Man of God, be sure to bring ear-plugs unless you want to groove to the "Thong Song" at 3am or other hits of the late 90s

• You can keep in touch with the outside world thru MTN internet. Nothing like updating your facebook status while you walk through someone's cassava farm

• You can keep in touch with Blogs through Google Reader on your phone via MTN internet..So much fun! You can read but not really blog.
  

• Bring strong insect repellent or risk being covered by strange bumps

• Make sure you do not have any pages missing from photocopies you pick-up from the printers BEFORE sitting down with people in their home to administer questionnaires. Can be very embarrassing when you have to stop when you realize page 3 and 4 are mysteriously absent.
  

• Politely decline when offered Akpeteshie (local gin) when administering a questionnaire or you may find yourself downing 2 shots and being rendered dazed and confused. Alas, it was a hard lesson learnt for a young man in my group

• Make sure you secure your trash above ground or goats will attack!
  

• When you are leading a team that includes men much older than you, you will have to baby-sit them. If not, they WILL connive to avoid work and be preoccupied with arranging the purchase of goats to take back home with them
  

• When you call your mom to lament about having to baby-sit grown men who are more interested in procuring goats than field-work, she will definitely empathize with you and give good advice. Alas, she may also ask how much goats are being sold for over there and how hard it is to procure one to bring home!

It was a good trip but it is great to be back. I missed my bed, missed my daily cup (or two) of Kenyan coffee (*yum*) and of course, missed my blog!