Category: Allgemein

How I came here

With two bags, two suitcases of clothes to be precise. 

They were overweight. Re-arranged at the airport. 

The lucky making it across the sea with me. 

Years of clothes, clothes that held memories I didn’t want to let go. 

Why so many clothes? You may ask. 

Have you been to those retail shops? 

A blouse costs 30 euros, 30 euros! 

Clothes are expensive. 

The last thing I want is my money running out on shopping sprees. 

But they were primarily summer clothes. 

Yes, two bags full of clothes for the summer. 

To dwell in a country of four seasons. 

A country where the winters are coldie coldie coldie as my son describes coldness. 

What was I thinking? 

Was I prepared for this new life? Or refusing to face it truthfully? 

I didn’t even have a winter jacket. My confidence drowned in the summer semester, typed boldly on my admission letter. 

“Why is it so cold?” I asked the administrator at the international students’ office when I arrived to register as a student. 

“I thought it is summer” I added. 

If she did answer my strange and stupid question, I don’t remember what she said. 

Here I was, expecting an April to be summer. 

Yes, the same German April that does what it likes to be sunny and warm. 

Don’t marvel, but that was the superpower I had. 

Things turning around my way and being just as I wanted, even the weather. 

Funny, isn’t it? 

When I look back, I wonder, what was I thinking? 

Why didn’t I check the weather? 

Why didn’t I ask what to bring along? 

I’d been to Germany before. Even that June, Summer had been coldie. 

Was my self-inflicted decision to return home only when I had finished my two years of studies what I was running away from? 

Maybe that was why I had packed two suitcases of tee-shirts, blouses, dresses, loafers and sandals for 2 years of summer, winter, autumn, and spring hoping, just hoping that they may all be summer for me. 

How to plan a funeral in 10 days

About seven years ago, I got an idea for a book. It is about two friends, women, very successful in their chosen fields. I started writing excerpts for the book and have been working on it for a while. It has metamorphosized into something that looks rather like a short story but has an unsatisfied writer sitting at the other end of it. Each year I ask myself what to do with this piece. I intend to finish it, but seriously do not know how to mend it all together into  something someone would enjoy reading.

The heading in itself sounds odd, how to plan a funeral in 10 days. In this story or book, I am supposed to give the reader ten steps into planning their own funeral. Yes, you read that right. This has nothing to do with future plans to save your family from giving you a non-warranted and non-appreciated funeral. The story is about faking your death so you can have a life away from a demanding family and society. A society which keeps pressurizing you to do things you would rather not do while they in themselves contribute zero to your life.

Okay, before you begin to judge and say this is crazy, check this out. Last year while scouring the internet for inspiration for my story, I came across a very interesting news item related to my idea, which happened in real life in Nigeria. A 19-year-old girl faked her death to avoid financial pressure from her mother.  So, it did not turn out as she and her friends had planned, for they planned it poorly. The whole social media thing was a weak link in the equation. Now she lost her job and is seen someway bi by her family.

So, you get my point, there are many people living under the heavy pressure of performing to society’s expectations such that they would rather disappear into nothingness to avoid this pressure. But is this really a viable solution? Faking one’s death? Sacrificing all that is true to you and pronouncing yourself as dead, wishing death on yourself to gain peace. I don’t know. Not everyone is that strong, not everyone can do the “I don’t care” thing. Some people cannot say no to pressure and would rather crumble under the expectations. For some hiding is their refuge.

The thing is changing society and its expectations is possible, but hard work that takes time. And until then, what do we do? There are people living half of their lives because of financial pressure for people’s wants. People living in misery (some in jail, some dead) due to society’s expectations of marriage, children, or wealth. Anyway, until I figure out what I will do to this half-baked story, may we soon achieve mastery in staying focused and not allow society to wreck us into living only a quarter of our lives.

~ peace

~Nana Kesewaa Dankwa

Why a good cookbook is just not enough

Instead of a college degree, according to an internet meme I recently saw, faith, a bible, and a good cookbook is all a woman needs. A bible can be purchased. Faith can be developed. Finding a good cookbook? That is the challenge of a lifetime. Okay, the internet meme is ridiculous because what a woman needs are what she decides she needs. A decision she requires no permission for or advice on. But this meme got me thinking. How much of my lifetime would it take to find an ultimate good cookbook? I define a good cookbook as one that caters to my dietary and cultural preferences as well as my values, and my unique sense of  creativity. Is this even a realistic expectation? Finding a good cookbook that encompasses all I have mentioned above will be a challenge.

I did not grow up with the culture of cookbooks. At home during cooking, I never saw a cookbook being referenced. My first experience with a form of cookbooks was in junior high school during the catering (vocational skills) course. These cookbooks were required textbooks and recipe compilations. My foundational cooking knowledge and skills were acquired from my mum, my sisters, and my cousins. Over the years, I have honed my skills with inspiration from friends, the internet, observing others and helping out in the kitchen. My first cooking experience at age 9 or 10 with the mission to cook waakye was a disaster. I learnt then that cooking was an avenue where one was to experiment, fail, and get better.

My first cookbook was a gift. A book on German cuisine in english. The second was also a gift. An American cookbook. The rest I bought or picked-up on the streets. Each cookbook I own is unique. I lean on them for new ideas and new knowledge. My favourite is a used book with the major German cake recipes. Baking is one of the skills I had little experience in until I moved to Europe. I love this book because it is simply structured and easy to learn from.

Indeed, cooking is an art. An art expressed by the uniqueness of its performance. Take my home and sisters as an example, though our cooking skills were nurtured by the same teacher(our mum), it is easy to guess who made what by the appearance, taste or even the clang of kitchen utensils. About a month ago, I video-called my cousin to teach me how to make kenkey. I could have called my mother, but I preferred my cousin because in my opinion, she highly carries the transferred knowledge and skills of preparing kenkey in our home. Over the many years we lived together she made kenkey on countless Saturday mornings. If I wanted tips for uncommon traditional dishes I would go to my mother. For tips on northern dishes like Tuo Zaafi I would go to my elder sister. I prefer these conversations, that impart the needed cooking knowledge and skills, to reading a book. So as one from a culture that heralds the transfer of knowledge in oral form and advances practice by doing, what are the chances of finding a cookbook that embodies these values?

Instead of a college degree, according to an internet meme I recently saw, faith, a bible, and a good cookbook is all a woman needs. A bible can be purchased. Faith can be developed. Finding a good cookbook? That is the challenge of a lifetime. Okay, the internet meme is ridiculous because what a woman needs are what she decides she needs. A decision she requires no permission for or advice on. But this meme got me thinking. How much of my lifetime would it take to find an ultimate good cookbook? I define a good cookbook as one that caters to my dietary and cultural preferences as well as my values, and my unique sense of  creativity. Is this even a realistic expectation? Finding a good cookbook that encompasses all I have mentioned above will be a challenge.

I did not grow up with the culture of cookbooks. At home during cooking, I never saw a cookbook being referenced. My first experience with a form of cookbooks was in junior high school during the catering (vocational skills) course. These cookbooks were required textbooks and recipe compilations. My foundational cooking knowledge and skills were acquired from my mum, my sisters, and my cousins. Over the years, I have honed my skills with inspiration from friends, the internet, observing others and helping out in the kitchen. My first cooking experience at age 9 or 10 with the mission to cook waakye was a disaster. I learnt then that cooking was an avenue where one was to experiment, fail, and get better.

My first cookbook was a gift. A book on German cuisine in english. The second was also a gift. An American cookbook. The rest I bought or picked-up on the streets. Each cookbook I own is unique. I lean on them for new ideas and new knowledge. My favourite is a used book with the major German cake recipes. Baking is one of the skills I had little experience in until I moved to Europe. I love this book because it is simply structured and easy to learn from.

Indeed, cooking is an art. An art expressed by the uniqueness of its performance. Take my home and sisters as an example, though our cooking skills were nurtured by the same teacher(our mum), it is easy to guess who made what by the appearance, taste or even the clang of kitchen utensils. About a month ago, I video-called my cousin to teach me how to make kenkey. I could have called my mother, but I preferred my cousin because in my opinion, she highly carries the transferred knowledge and skills of preparing kenkey in our home. Over the many years we lived together she made kenkey on countless Saturday mornings. If I wanted tips for uncommon traditional dishes I would go to my mother. For tips on northern dishes like Tuo Zaafi I would go to my elder sister. I prefer these conversations, that impart the needed cooking knowledge and skills, to reading a book. So as one from a culture that heralds the transfer of knowledge in oral form and advances practice by doing, what are the chances of finding a cookbook that embodies these values?

My aim here is not to share long notes on finding the (perfect) cookbook. I want to raise awareness to the skewed tone of that internet meme. Frankly, I will never find a cookbook that encompasses all I ever need. I can have many good cookbooks each fulfilling a purpose and have a favourite due to my preferences (which are often nurtured by the demands of the immediate environment). A book cannot incorporate the cultural relationships surrounding food creation nor embody the societal machineries of food. A cookbook is not even a thing in my culture. It is something that hardly comes up in any conversation. And so, woman in the context of this meme thankfully excludes me and my kind.

Reading The sun does shine by Anthony Ray Hinton

“This is not fiction”, “This is not fiction” were the words I kept repeating to myself while listening to and reading this book. Anthony Ray Hinton is a man who was wrongly accused of two counts of murder and sentenced to death row. I have been emotionally battled in the three days of reading this story. I could not hold back the tears, the anger, the laughter, the joy this book embodied. In a place where hope is not meant to be nurtured, how do you find and keep hope and hold on for thirty years. What was the motivation of the state of Alabama in keeping an innocent man in jail? The scary part of all this is that the person who committed the crimes went on carrying them. What was the point to be proven? I realise the 80s was a critical period for blacks in Alabama where if black people could not be openly oppressed then the “legal” ways of lynching were devised.

The sun does shine has taught me to reflect critically on and appreciate the power of the mind. It is possible to not allow your physical or visible circumstances to kill your soul. If Ray had given up, his story would have never been told. Never give up.

“Hope to keep on fighting, to keep on living, to believe that you can change, or your situation can change. Remember none of us are the worst thing we have done, and right now, wherever you are, whoever you are, you can reach out to your fellow man or woman and bring your own light to the dark places.”

“I want you to know that I’m fixing to go. I’m leaving here. It took me thirty years to get to this moment. It may take thirty-one years for you. It may take thirty-two or thirty-three or thirty-five years, but you need to hold on. You need to hold on to your hope. If you have hope, you have everything.”

I’ve never been one for the death row because I believe no one is beyond redemption. This book makes that also clear. I need to be more supportive of initiatives such as Equal Justice Initiative. I think there is no greater calling then Byran Stevenson’s work, but then again, why does he have to be doing such work. Why should the state not be doing everything in its power to ensure no (innocent) human being ends up on death row. Justice should not be a preserve of the rich. Perhacs was never motivated by Ray’s innocence. Money was his motivation. He wanted to cash out on Ray and even render his mother homeless.

“To be sure, the death sentence must never be carried out in a way that allows the innocent to die.”

“They said it was a waste of time. A stay was granted one day before my hearing, and the attorney general said in his brief that I should be blocked from establishing my innocence because it would “waste three days or two days of taxpayer money.”

I like that the book gives voice to Henry Hays and how (black) hate is passed on from generation to generation. This is very well visible today, and I wonder the benefits this hatred yields for such families. Imagine how much black people could contribute to the US if they were not prejudiced by systems driven by hate.

“McGregor passed away, and he wrote a book before he died. He mentions me in the book and says how evil I am. How clever a killer I was. How he knew just from looking at me that I was guilty. I forgive him. Someone taught him to be racist, just as someone taught Henry Hays.”

May we not give up in any situation we find ourselves, but also remember to stand up to those who believe they hold the keys to our lives. May our lives be filled with people like Lester and Bryan, and never give up hope like Ray.

“Life is a crazy, strange mix of tragedy and sorrow and triumph and joy.”

Hate Underlined

About two decades ago, when I was in Junior High School, I had a classmate who consistently provoked me. In a conversation with Kizito, a classmate, I complained to him about this classmate of ours.

“I hate this annoying classmate of ours”.

Kizito’s face blew in surprise.

He was alarmed.

“Never say that again,” he replied with the seriousness of a headmistress.

I asked him why? Because that guy was annoying. For one, he had punched me in the stomach for no valid reason.

Kizito asked me if I knew the meaning of hate?

He said, “When you hate someone, it means that you want them dead, to not exist”.

I paused. Well, that did make me feel sorry for saying that. I could not stand the guy, but I did not want him to die. In my need to express my dislike, I guess it had been translated by the use of hate as my desire to see him die.

Hate. The seed we plant in us and nurture till it bears fruits. Only it is a plant that sinks its roots deep into us and poisons us.

Hate. It is what we choose and justify based on the way others are. Luckily, there is always a reason to choose it.

Hate. It is what we pass on to our children, in hints, conversations and our crossing to the other side of the street.

Hate. It is why we fall sick. It is the poison we bury our soul in, so our enemy may die.

The jar of dreams

Once I sat by my window watching the passers-by.

On the road, her presence made clear with each step the metallic shoes greeted the street with.

She had a brown bundle tied to her back.

Her brown copper hair, braided to her right side, refused to blend in with her colourful blue and green dress that flowed.

She was new, unlike the attention she attracted.

Her smile said she had been expecting this.

I abandoned my home and followed her.

I watched her take out all that her brown bundle beheld unto a mat on the floor of the town square.

There was a jar.

A transparent one that called for mine attention as well as the others too.

The jar filled with rolled papers.

She said it was made for the people who chose to dream. Each rolled coloured paper a dream.

Everyone went for the yellows.

I chose that too.

But it itched, the moment it grazed my hands.

I switched it to my pockets, and it poked.

I found it do no such thing with the others.

I asked her why and she said to change it.

I refused.

For it was what almost everyone had.

No one seemed to complain.

They were all so content, but me.

Then my roll began to fade and fall apart, for which I fixed.

I took it to the best, and they did their best.

I held on, and yet it seemed it was not mine to have.

It crumbled.

So, I asked her why?

She said, “you have a whole jar there, choose another”

She told me the dotted blue roll which none seemed to like could be mine if I chose it.

I listened.

The minute I touched the dotted blue roll, I knew it was mine.

It felt so soft and so at home in my palms.

It brought me to a smile no one could take away.

 

Dear Dad

Dear Dad,

On this day as most people remember fathers, I seek out time to write something about you and to you.

I strongly believe you will read this. Now that you are no longer limited by your body.

Not that today is the only day I have thought of you. That would be impossible.

I carry you in every breath of me. I literally look at you when I look at myself.

This letter wants to find out how you are doing. I am sure the limitations of the body with its sicknesses and pain cannot find you anymore where you are.

This letter is also a way of me finding some form of contact with you.

You and I were not always the best of friends.

Truth be told we were never friends.

You were my father and I your daughter.

You did what you believed was right for me and for society.

You had your own way of loving me and I my own expectations of love from you.

I broke your heart several times and yours mine.

Looking back, I question my inability to relent and accept you wholly as you loved. To accept your ways of loving. And to accept the fact that it was how you knew best to love.

Everything I am comes back to you.

All the skills and values you instilled in me from day one  till you left I use each passing day.

The distance between us had taught me how much I am just like you and how much I loved you.

It had taught me to love you more and learn that love means accepting you for all you were and are to me.

I wonder in moments when I am by myself how different things would have been if you were here.

What advice you would give me and how you would prefer me to live at the moment.

I have lost your fatherly protection and humour.

But your sarcasm, your resilience, your fighting spirit and zeal for learning thrives in me.

I love you dad. Take care and hope to see you when I cross over to your side.

Your daughter

Nana Kesewaa

40 days to 36 : Three things I have learned.

At a very earlier point in my life, I assumed there was a life stage where one came into full knowledge of who they were and what they were to do on earth. I thought as the child I was. I have come to discover in the later days of my life how finite but infinite life is. I have come to learn that there is nothing like the approved way of walking this life journey and there is always something new to discover each day if I let myself. As I forge toward 36, I am amazed at how the last five years have been the most transformative years of my life and then again amazed to learn that I still have many years of learning and transformation before me. I am almost 36, just about 40 days more. It has all happened so fast like a blink and then again taken so much time. My gratitude goes to God Almighty for the blessings of health, wealth and love I have enjoyed till date. If I were given the chance to share three things, I have learned living life, especially in the past decade, it would be the following:

Do not judge others: During my first visit to Germany in 2013 to my uncle, I remember commenting several times on my cousins’ non fluency in Twi. I found it astonishing that their parents had been unable to pass on this heritage to their children. Today, while braiding my hair, my first meeting with Mina, my hairstylist, flashed through my mind. She has three teen-boys. All born in Germany who speak little Twi. During our first meeting, though I was a younger mother, I recall giving her (unwarranted) advice on how she could raise her children to speak Twi. As I write this, I shake my head at my ignorance. Why was it so important to me then to comment on how others raised their children and what and what they passed on to their children? And what makes this even more ludicrous is that I am also raising a child in the same environment unable to implement this advice or critique I gave others. Unless you stand and share the same situation with someone, it’s best to keep quiet. And if you did really share the same load, you would probably not be critiquing. Because often the judgments we pass on others come poking back at us, asking us to walk that path too.

Mind my business: Minding my business has brought me a lot of peace over the past year. Though it is still something I am learning to do. I mind my business. Focus on me and all that I am and have to be, and avoid making a fuss about what other people are doing or how they live their lives. Minding my business also means not yielding to the pressures of society to be someone or meet an expectation. If I say I have achieved this in its entirety, it would be a blatant lie. But my vision is to walk this journey immune to the pressures or trying to live like others and being appreciative of what I have.

Loving myself is not as easy as I thought: Each day,  I learn something new about myself. However, in the past years, I have learnt to be kinder to myself and to learn to accept myself but work on improving myself. To believe in me, to believe in my ideas, to accept my mistakes and to seek to be better. I tend to push pressure on myself, which I may have acquired in my early years due to the desire to be of the top three, five or ten in class.

I am getting there to this person, the better version of me, each day. It is truly humbling and scary to know that a greater person that the one I met today when I looked in the mirror is still hidden inside me. I yearn earnestly to meet that person soon.

Blame and Sleep

There is a quote that I think I ever saw, paraphrased says “if the only contribution you will make is to tell who belongs and who doesn’t, you may well be part of the problem”. I probably made that up because I have been searching the internet for the quote. Can’t find it. This phrase has popped up several times in my head since I had a conversation with a friend who is persistent in his claims that the issue with Ghana is the church. In his opinion: Ghanaian Christians are to blame for the current state of the nation. I find it challenging in such arguments to present an objective opinion as I am Christian and have benefitted immensely in my personal growth and career from the church.

In our conversation, my friend claimed that if churches were for the good of the nation, why did they not offer their services for free and why did they charge fees for the education or health care of Ghanaians. My counterarguments were that the church needed money to run these institutions, pay teachers and health workers, procure state-of-the-art equipment, etc. My friend’s opinion was that if the church could not run these as free public services financed by the offertory raised during services, then churches should close down. We had to end our conversation because apparently, we both had taken our stands on the subject matter. As he could not convince me otherwise, and I could not convince him otherwise. We ended with each other respecting our opinions and forging on in the thoughts that best served us.

Later, pondering over the arguments, my mind settled on the Akan adage: which paraphrased says “when you point one finger at others, remember the rest are pointing back at you”. It is a very easy thing to point a finger at others. An easy thing to blame others, to quickly identify the misfits and non-conforming in society. I think the part we remain blindsided to is that the other three or four fingers point back at us. Another Akan adage says, “it is only the mislead who says they are referring to others but not me”.

I return to the quote I started with, in the context of the conversation with my friend, and ask why is it so necessary for us to find scapegoats? Why is it so necessary for us to segregate? Why is it important to invest so much time and effort in justifying others as the problem? A wise person once told me “your criticisms are a reflection of yourself“. The things you are quick to identify on others are only a reflection of yourself, and often have nothing to do with those persons.

Some time ago, in a country or in many countries, leaders, groups, people, arose and said this and this particular groups of persons because of this and that are the reasons we are having hard times in this country. So, the solution for those people at that time was to get rid of them. Get rid of the institutions, get rid of the persons, like how we do with pests. Unfortunately, these strategies have been repeated time and time over again. The identification of fault in persons and groups situates the person doing the identification as faultless. Without blame. I call it “blame and sleep”. Blame others and go to bed. Let them fix themselves and all will be good. Because I am good to go. There is indeed a lot of work in getting ourselves in order. No matter how much a pig bathes and polishes up, it has no right to call its parents dirty. Because it was in this dirt it was nurtured, in the dirt that it became who it was, all-knowing, powerful, and sparkly.

There is great courage in accepting oneself as part of the problem because it is only in that step, we find out how we can be part of the solution. It takes a lot of humility to accept to be the cause of a situation even when you are.

Am I intelligent?

On a run, there are many things that cross my mind. My mind cautions me to take many aspects of my life seriously, especially my writing. I get many interesting ideas when on a run. Most of my ideas for literary pieces came during a run. However, much fail to show up on a white background in black fonts or on any background or in any fonts at all.

Today, my thoughts questioned the definition of intelligence, who is deemed to be and who not? Who defines what intelligence is and on what premise is this built?

As a black woman in a predominantly white biased field of academic research and living in Germany, I am still learning what intelligence means. I say I am learning because I think intelligence is subjective. In academia, I think, the whole principle is to prove who is the most intelligent. Whose ideas are priceless, and who is a genius?

The question again is who decides? I think the environment decides, the institution, wealth, the nation, all those factors are contributors to deciding who gets heralded as intelligent or not.

Let me go back into history to make this more practical and easier to explain. When whites invaded Africa, in their reports back to their supervisors and country people. They claimed to have met savages, untamed, unintelligent species, which in a way was “objective” because the definition of what was acceptable, human, and intelligent was theirs and not the Africans.

I am not even going to talk about modern-day slighting of the intelligence of persons of colour. That will be for another day if ever. A recent conference I attended had over 70% of the keynote speakers from Europe but mostly from the US. I asked myself if these were the only ones who could speak to the subject or were they the ones we wanted to speak to the subject? Was there none from other continents who could speak to the subject or present other perspectives as well? What would such a conference look like?

Intelligence is subjective. I think what counts are: knowing what you know, validating your thoughts as solid and equally contributory to the needed change in the world regardless of how financially sound your institution is or which school you attended. Because at the end of the day, even a Nobel Prize does not guarantee a stamp of intelligence as much as what you perceive of your ideas and thought processes.