Happy Day of Thanks to all!

There are certain times of the year where it seems all the world (at least in your mind) is at peace. The Thanksgiving Holiday is one of those times for myself. This is a day where family is able to gather and fellowship while chomping down probably the most worked on meal of the year. With that being said, please remember what you are thankful for and cherishing it.

I will leave you off with many Blessings and a post from aol about the biggest turkey of the year and I’m not talking about the bird. Enjoy!

Bird Brains Compete for ‘Turkey of the Year’ — Sphere News, Opinion and Analysis: http://bit.ly/5Id4wt via @addthis <—Must read!!!

I’m Back

Blogosphere,

So after a 2 month hiatus from blogging for six weeks in Ghana, I am back. Now with a new title and look on life. Follow Garin en Florida is now the name of my blog. Thanks to the expertise of fellow NYUan Phillip Molnar I decided to role with this title. Also, using “en” the spanish word for “in” was fitting because of my initials, GEF. So what, I thought it was interesting at least, lol.

So there’s been a lot to go down since August and I will dedicate my first blog to recapturing these moments:

• The debate for Health Care Reform is out of control! Read the legislation before you make a judgment
• There’s a vaccine for H1N1
• Kanye West stole Taylor Swift’s spotlight, but she got it back thanks to Beyonce. It was bad, but world forgive Ye
• The I-Phone has picture text messaging! And more importantly forwarding texts! The cell phone lords were listening
• The Olympics are in RIO de JANEIRO.
• David Letterman sleeps with staff members. Whoopty Do

Thanks always for those of you who take the time to read my blog.

Gone,

Garin E. Flowers

The come up – everyday Ghanaians working hard

This is my final project produced from Ghana. Please leave a comment and tell me what you think!

I am not my hair PART 2

SHORT HAIR

BY GARIN FLOWERS

ACCRA, Ghana

Rosemary Senu, 16, a student at Saacky Addo, plans to grow her hair out one day. As for now she cannot. It’s not that she doesn’t want to or that she isn’t capable, but her school says no.

“I think that would be better, because you don’t think of doing your hair, you think of learning,” Rosemary said proudly about her school’s policy.

For as long as many can remember, most state schools, enforce a strict policy of men and women maintaining close-cropped hair.

At La Yahoushua Junior High School, an inspection occurs every Tuesday and Thursday, and students are required to have their hair trimmed prior to, according to school policy.

Lomotey Joseph, 50, of South La and Mensah Fancy, both teachers at La Yahoushua, explained this rule has been in place ever since their grade school days and they agree with it.

“If they are allowed to keep their hair, they would rather concentrate on hair than learning…[it] brings competition among the girls, trying to find hairstyles that are popular,” said Joseph.

“A young girl will look grown up,” said Fancy. “A male teacher will think she’s grown and that could cause child abuse. They see themselves to be mature, whereby they are not…[this] makes them more childish, puts them in their rank. So to themselves they know they belong to this level of life.”

Many express indifference with this rule, however some disagree with it. “I don’t want them to cut their hair,” said Mercy Aku Hammond, whose two daughters have full-grown hair. “It’s [meant] for hair to grow,” she said.

“Some think if you do your hair you look nicer,” Rosemary said about her classmates.

In addition, most private schools, which make up one percent of the schools in Ghana, do not require girls to cut their hair.

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A story I wrote about the city of Kumasi…

I wrote this story about a city in the central region of Ghana, called Kumasi. In Kumasi there is a huge and interesting place named Central Market. Here you can buy a variety of things, the pictures below show it all. My story is about Roman Hill, a large area behind the market where people make shoes, buckets, trunks, canteens and more. I hope you enjoy:

HEAVY METAL ON ROMAN HILL

BY GARIN FLOWERS

KUMASI, Ghana — Treading through the narrow pathway of the crowded marketplace, loud clanks created a beat in the distance. Adjacent to the marketplace, a large structure resembling a junkyard stood tall in the air, from where the noise transcended.

“Roman Hill is very interesting, we do so many things here. [It’s] only here that we do these things,” said Tetteh Christian, 16, of Kumasi.

Roman Hill is a part of the central market located in Kumasi, the capital city of the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The Kumasi Central Market is a vast area where vendors sell anything from African cloth and beads to raw fish and parts of animals.

Rising tall above the market near the back, Roman Hill serves a different purpose from the rest of the shops. Some items sold in the market are actually created here, such as: silvers, metals, canteens, trunks, and japas (pots used for cooking). Men in this area work in an assembly line.

“We borrow the metal, after the metal we make the bucket and sell it small, small, small,” said Mr. Alex Enyeminko. Enyeminko, 47, from the Volta Region, moved to Kumasi in hopes of finding a better job.

Shoemaker Benjamen Ofori, born and raised in Kumasi, said he performs his craft because that’s what he was taught. “We can make 50 in a week, even 70.”

First they drew the imprint of the shoe on the tough material used as the base. From there they cut out all the pieces necessary and compiled them all together. Once all of the shoes are assembled, the trunks fastened and the buckets hammered into place, vendors from the central market come and purchase the items to re-sell to customers. The tedious labor and jarring beats that echoed throughout the market didn’t get in the way of the work at hand.

However, life boils down to one thing here the workers expressed – they work long hours for low pay.

If anybody, it had to happen to me…

If you want to get to the juicy stuff scroll down to the area in bold, but otherwise, here’s the story. All right, so my night begins at a place here in Accra named Citizen Kofi. This place is probably the tightest building in Africa! It’s a huge purple and orange colored building about 10-15 floors high; and it is a club slash sky bar slash club slash lounge. And everything is super clean on the inside. From the sky bar and restaurant, which is about 400 feet in the air, you have this 360 view of the whole city of Accra. There they have the best drinks and the setup of the bar is nice…kind of looks like an I-phone store if you’ve been to one. Well anyways I was with my friends Tre and Kareem, and fellow NYU people Phil, Courtney and Sharon. Tre has the hook up here so we were treated like VIP status all night. I ate lobster tail….yes I said lobster tail…priced at 45 Cedi’s for free! On top of that Tre has his own drink there, titled tre jolie, so we were sipping on them all night!

Fast forward we ate, tipped the waiter and headed downstairs to the club, which is usually 30 Cedi’s to get in, but once again we had the hook up. It was now only me, Tre and Phil. The dance floor was empty. So with assistance from the tre jolies, we all hopped in the middle of the dance floor and started setting it out…dancing to some 80’s slash 90’s esque type music. Next thing you know the dance floor started poppin – so we set the party off. After a few hours of hanging out we finally decide to leave. Outside, just Tre and I now because Phil left earlier, we see someone outside drunk, the last person who we thought we would see (and that’s a whole other story that I cant put on here so just ask me later lol). After debating whether to get a cab we just end up walking back to our dorms. On the way back we just held a few conversations with people, saw a friend near another club etc etc.

So we continued to walk and took this shortcut, which shaved about 20 minutes off of our trip home. Both of us pretty drunk were just reminiscing about the night and talking about random stuff about Ghana. Fast forward, we get to a junction where Tre goes left to his dorms and I go right to get to mine. I’m walking and I turn down the street my house is on. Next thing you know I hear a lot of wild and crazy barking blaring out from in front of me. My first reaction was nothing because there are a lot of guard dogs that live in the massive houses we live next to and they always go crazy at night when they hear people walking by. So a couple seconds later I see two full grown dogs – one brown the other black and white – running full speed towards me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn’t believe what was before my eyes and I thought I knew something like this would happen!! So obviously I started to run the other way. Noticing they were gaining on me at a fast pace…I stopped, looked at them, and then started to run towards them. Why? I have no clue, that might have been the liquor thinking for me…anyways there was enough room on the rode to run around them and I did just that. This move actually slowed them down a lot. This gave me the chance to catch stride while they had to stop and turn around. So they still continued to chase me and they once again were gaining, little by little. Eventually I made it to this small curve in the rode and once I reached that point they slowed down and stopped. I was so relieved! But I still ran…at this point my adrenaline went down and I noticed I was as tired as tired can be!! I made it to my dorms, the security guard opened the gate, and I fell to the ground breathing heavily.

The cutest baby i’ve ever seen!

So we were in Labadi town watching a game of “draft” or known as “checkers” in America. Its amazing how skilled and quick they are in the game over here. It’s really one of the past times they have versus our video games, television, computers etc. Afterwards we were walking to leave and I saw this little guy. Probably the cutest baby ive ever seen.

Becoming immune to the system

Living in Africa has truly been a blessing. I have met so many great people and seen so many great things. However, coming to a third world country you are going to see and encounter situations that are difficult to understand and or deal with. As you may know there are many poor people in Africa. An average Ghana can make anywhere from 50 Cedi’s to 1 Cedi a day. So many of them work very hard to provide for themselves, their families and their education.  A lot of them earn money by selling products: on the street, at markets etc. And in their culture they are friendly, forward and open. That leads to my next point. Knowing that my fellow students and I are most likely from America, when they see us they assume we have money to spend. All the time, every step you take someone new is in your face, grabbing you trying to get you to come to his store (most women don’t do this, actually a women has never really been aggressive with getting me to come to their store). At first, you feel really bad every time you can’t go to someone’s store, especially after they beg you. But after being here for 4 weeks it has become easy to say “dabi” or no. They take different approaches with everyone, but you hear the same “pick-up” lines if you will, everywhere you go. For me, especially being the only African American on the trip, they like to shake my hand and say something of the sort: “My brother! How are you? Where are you from? I like you, you are a good man” then say – “I am a painter or come to my store.” It can be very misleading at times!! So, I really get tired of everywhere I go (near places of business walking down a random street), people saying the same things and pretending to say my brother and friend just to make money. It’s really bad at the tourist spots. At the slave castles, the vendors will follow you in begging you to give them your name and to spell it. So when you come out, low and behold, you will have a brand new seashell with your name on it. This is intended to make you feel obligated to buy something or make a kind donation to the local “kids football team,” and remember football is America’s soccer in most countries. So now and days, if someone introduces him or herself and immediately says they are trying to get me to come to their store, I will respect it a lot more. Hence this weekend, ten people waited outside our bus when we showed up to the stool village to buy some crafts. Most of them shook my hand then were asking all sorts of questions and just talking, I don’t quite recall what they were saying. But one guy waited in the back, spoke politely and told me about his store so I went. I actually ended up bartering a pair of my pants for a sculpture that represents unity – it was a good deal. 

One thing I will say that is very hard to become immune to is having children come up to and beg you for money or food. Fortunately, this is a rare occurrence, but nothing can prepare you for a situation like that. The very first week I was here two little boys from Niger grabbed on to me and wouldn’t stop following until we gave them something and this broke our hearts. I ended up giving them some money, but that was my first and last time for kids. There are many from Niger, with the same puppy dog look and routine that will try to get you every time. But like they say, in the long run that really won’t help them by just giving a dollar here or there. It’s hard to say what they go through; where their families are etc etc, but I know that you will never enjoy experiencing encounters like that.

A Must See GiG production

This video is for everyone back home. I thought my trip to Cape Coast was absolutely amazing so I had to share this experience. I hope you enjoy.

 

Ghana Night Life!

I know you’ve been wondering…yes there are clubs in Africa! We particularly made this night, guy’s night, because of the extremely outnumbered program we are in (10 girls – 4 guys). It happened that two of the guys went on an excursion to the west of Ghana this weekend, so it just ended up being me and Phil, however the festivities didnt stop! First we went to a club titled Champs, then one called Tantra. Both were heavily mixed…with no further ado, here it is…