African week

African week in Widen Primary school. 

The primary school Widen offered to all their Students workshops about Africa. The programm was about the Ashanti and Northern Kingdom of Ghana.

We begann the workshop with songs of Africa. There already they get prepared and dived into the African Art.

In this workshops we had three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon. Every day the student got more into the mood of the African week and the program get successful every day. On Friday we presented  a show to the entire village of Widen. 

These are one of the most wonderful workshops I used to give. 

Worldmusic in Icon club Zürich

The event company rumdum invited us to perform together with them in the Icon club in the heart of Zürich. The performance was a workshop with drumming, dancing and singing. The members of the rundum company are from all over the world and they are organizing traditional music from various countries in Africa, Europe, America, Asia and Australia. It was very interesting to work with them and they also brought a very good motivation to learn African music and dance. In the end they asked us if we can combine our African music with the DJ-work. A lot of songs were played, some familiar ones and some were unknown to us. But we used the skills of African Ghanaian traditional rhythms and melodies and made a nice jam session. Once more I saw, Ghana music, percussion and bell fits to every style.

We use the name wings of a dove percussion power to travel with you all over the continent.

Lets party together.

We are at yout service. 

African music and dance from Ghana and Westafrica: Music Gymnasium (art highschool) Münchenstein, Switzerland

During three days, we worked with three different levels of the Highschool of art in Münchenstein. The subject was African music, singing, dancing, drumming, rhythmicity and also concentration, coordination and communication in music and movements. 

We used elements from all over Africa, texts in Haussa language from Northern region of Nigeria, which is actually a used as an international trade language in Africa. Additional we used the language Ewe from Westafrica, which is also spoken in Togo, Ghana, Benin. Some songs were in Akan language from the Ashanti region of Ghana, Kumasi, and Fanti from the Central region of Ghana, Cape Coast, Elmina, Winneba. Many dances, rhythms and songs were new to the students. they put all their efforts in theses days and in the end we got a very good performance as a result. The audience was also taking part and we sang with them. The cheering and the applaus was immense. I always feel very happy in this school.

Invite our workshop in your school and let your students profit from the richness of African music, dance and rhythms with different percussion instruments.

A report of the integration project  „Mit Musik Brücken bauen“  

and the festival of meeting in Muri (AG) 15. June 2013 in Switzerland

The idea of the project developed in 2012 after the festival of meeting in Muri, where wings of a dove percussion power performed music, dance and storytelling from Westafrica.

The organisation Zäme Läbe Freiamt of the Kanton Aargau was happy about the performance and asked us to create a project for them, which will continue the  integration work with immigrants and refugees who live in the region. Through the idea of building bridges between  people of different nations we found the name „mit Musik Bücken bauen“. In the same time this was our Motto.

In August 2012 Power Sound Production began to develope the content of the project „mit Musik bücken bauen“.

The leading ideas were to work together with immigrants, refugees and swiss with respect, togetherness and improve our selfconfidence.  We planned to have a workshop every two weeks from September 2012 til June 2013. The aim was to present the results on the festival of meeting on 15. June 2013.

From then on we started to compose songs and write a theatre about the daily conflicts of living abroad, which is of course partly taken from our own experiences in Switzerland and other countries. In the mean while the organisation Zäme Läbe Freiamt was looking for participants.

This project was a very big challenge for Power Sound Production, because for many years we are using these ideas as a Motto in our workshops. It became a leading idea of our company.

Nadja Donkor, studied theaterscience and John Kofi Donkor as an artist, musician and actor, working together with different experiences. We merged the ideas to a theatre with the aim to send a message to the public about those difficult situations in daily life abroad.

One of the main subject is the communication. How do you communicate  when you just arrive in a foreign country with a foreign language? Making a lot of mistakes and misunderstandings have to be accepted and it will help you to continue your life. People will help you and speak to you correcting your mistakes. Through this many of them find you funny and you will find new friends.

As we read later on in the report of the Newspaper of the region (Aarau, Wohlen and Muri) about our perfromance on the festival 2013 „ Mit Musik Bücken bauen“, those ideas were successfully taken and understood by the public.

When we started the workshops, we had about 20-25 participants from all over the world .  Soon we realised that the founding of a choir with the immigrants and swiss was the best way to communicate and get to know eachother. We let the participants vote for the main workshop language.  It was chosen to be English and German.

We brought the idea that everybody can bring its texts or songs towards the motto of Unity and Togetherness. The songs appeared in many languages: Amharic, Tigrinnia, Lingala and French. Power Sound Production brought its songs in German, Akan and Haussa.

With the text of the songs we all felt happy to try another language and had a lot of fun with the pronounciation.

Our motto was always: music brings energy, energy brings happyness and happyness brings togetherness. And this is how we all feel, looking back on those many months of meetings in Muri for the workshops of the project „ Mit Music Bücken bauen“.

The main challenge was to present the results of the workshops on stage. All the participants were not professional artists. Some of them joined even the first time a music group in their life and stand the first time on stage to perform.

They really put a lot of efforts and enjoyed the performance. Additionally wings of a dove - percussion power was backing them and the dancers of the group were on fire.

To make the festival of meeting on the 15th June full and rich we engaged several professional music bands and dance groups:

Willi Hauenstein and the steelband Fassination, took us to the carribean islands. They opened the festival, drew the crowed in front of the stage and brought immediatly a good mood in to the tent.

Roger Konrad and Alpenfunkeln brought the swiss traditional music mixed with world music.  They surprised the audience with joddeling and alphorn playing. They used the whole tent as their stage and communicated with music. Sometimes you can only see the alphorn appearing in the tent to respond the joddeling and they all arrived in the end together on the stage. This was beautyful.

Afterwards the Hip Hop kids of Sivia  was taking the audience to a different music and show catagory. In the end they showed an African dance from Awa Dietemann. They impressed the audience so much and the audience responded and gave the heat to the performance.

The Extrem Bosnian Blues Band immediatly capture the audience and travelled with them a nice music journey. They really entertained the audience.

Valeria Eva came with ist special surprise dancers from Brasil. Valeria sang a lot of songs which are known to the public and they responded. The special dancers and their coulorful costumes heated the audience addtionally.

Christian Fotsch with ist Sassa group and a magnificant belly dancer took all of us to the Orient. They started with calm music which cooled the audience down and made them listen. In the end of their show a wonderful belly dance was performed.

It continued with the oriental touch with the belly dancers Dunyia’s dream. Each song was performed with its special costumes and dance. The audience was fascinated, watching and enjoying the performance.

After the festival we got a lot of compliments from the audience, newspaper, friends and people we didn’t know before.

We also got a nice feedback from the parents of the children who took part on our schoolworkshops we gave during the project „mit Musik Bücken bauen“.

 

Power Sound Production is looking successfully back on the project and the performances. We gathered a lot of new experiences and looking forward to work with people and organisations who are interested in music and art.

PowerSoundProduction, July 2013

With music we build bridges

PowerSoundProduction was travelling to Ghana and back to Switzerland.  With it‘s research we formed a theater together with „zäme läbe freiamt“. We call it “with music we build brigdes“.

We meet every second Tuesday since October 2012 with various migrant of the region. We formed up Unity songs, which gave ideas to all participants to create their own songs about unity. At the moment we got 6 to 7 songs in different languages and we are working on it.

PowerSoundProduction find it’s dynamic strength and energy, togetherness and harmony, creating rhythms towards all the songs. With music you don’t need language behind it. we are working in Harmony and it is wonderuful to see other cultures merging in one music.

Additional PowerSoundproduction provided a theatre about immigrant who arrived in Switzerland and had a lot of missunderstandings because of the language. We took the positiv side and made a nice story full of humor.

If you travel you may find yourself in thoses weared situations sometimes, when people don’t get what you want to say…or how can you let them understand you.

Your thoughts are still in your mothertongue and you just translate it to the other language...which mostly leads towards those missunderstandings.

Sometimes you can laugh and sometimes you don’t realize it for many months untill you come across it again. By then you understand the other culture better with it’s language. You go back and laugh again.

That is the idea PowerSoundProduction got to bring this festival up. It doesn‘t matter which language you speak, we can always missunderstand and understand eachother.

For us to make it in the positiv way, we put all into a commedy.

Come and watch it on our Festival on 15th June in Muri (AG) switzerland and it maybe reminds you of some of your mistakes which you are laughing about it til now.

At the moment we are looking for artists, who have interest in dance, music and theatre. To join us on 4th, 25th, 26th May and 8th,9th June in the aula Muri, Marktstrasse 5630 Muri and on the main rehearsal on 14th June.

The performance will be on 15th June on the festival.

Come and meet profession dance teachers and musicians, who will lead you to strengthen your talent and make you to perform in a show.

The teachers are Mike Larbi, Awa Dietemann and John Kofi Donkor.

It is free of charge – we are even paying your petrol and if you are arriving with a train we pay half of travellling costs. Food and drink will be provided. Come and realise your golden voice and your skills of movement and dance and your touch on the percussions. you can Register yourself till end of April 2013.

We are looking forward to meet you.

Yours

PowerSoundProduction
+41 41 788 05 77

Report of my visit in Ghana: Sound effects

Last year 2012 I went back home to Ghana in December. It was a very successfull and adventures arriving. Already on the next day I started my day with costruction work. The whole day I am driving a wheel truck. From far I can hear how people passed by and wisper: „Oh he just arrived from Europe and he is doing hard work like this.“ Some called me : „Rasta – this shows that you are not lazy in Europe!“

As I was working I walked around and found out, that the area was full of plastic bags and not clean. In the evening I said to myself: tomorrow morning I will organize my friends and we clean the area. I send people to get me a lot of brooms. In the morning at 6 c’clock the three of us started to clean the area. Immediatly friends who passed by and didn’t know that I am in town started to join in and helped while we are conversing. Within half an hour we were about twenty people. The assembly man saw us from far and as he got closer he said: „Hey Rasta – when did you arrive?“ He then also joined us. I used that possibility to extend the work further. By 11 o’clock around my area was so clean.

Suddely in the afternoon I saw my neighbours around me also began to clean up their area. An elderly woman passed by and said to me:“ You brought energy from Europe and shared it around. This is very good work. For me people could clean up, but often they are feeling shy to do it. Thinking the others are watching them and seeing them doing a dirty work. But I don’t call this a dirty work. This is a communion labor, which we have to do it and clean our area. But who will start it for someone to join in. The assembly man was often organizing people to clean the area. But suddenly they don’t want to do it. All is simple feeling shy that they are doing cleaning work. I am happy you are showing them, cleaning work doesn’t stand for one person. Every body is allowed to clean its area. Even ministers are joining in communion labor.“

This conversation I had with the old lady gave me a push. Every Saturday I am doing it and people are joining in.

This spread in the area. I was happy to walk around and see cleaners in the area.

I also often traced my roots and go to old places where I haven’t been for a long time. I saw a lot of development in Ghana. I went to an area, which quickly klicked my mind and I remembered a friend which I knew in Austria. 1995 he came to Ghana as a reporter for a festival sura za africa in Vienna. I lived then with my wife in Ghana. We got a letter from VIDC that somebody is coming from the ORF to make a report. His name is Dr. Bilek. So the time reach and we want to go to the airport to fetch him. As we arrived at the airport, we meet a lot of friends who are driving taxi. They all asked us if we need help. We gave then the name of Dr. Bilek to them on a piece of paper.

They all hold then a paper with this name on. The funny thing was, as he arrived he saw his name on about ten pieces of paper.

We didn’t know him personally. Suddenly Nadja was saying: „This is our man, he is starring around and look like an Austrian. Shall we ask him“ So Nadja went and asked him: „are you Robert Bilek?“ and I heared them then speking austrian German. Then I asked him: „But didn’t you see your name on the papers‘“ he replied: „Oh yes, but there are too many and I don’t know where to go.“ There I relized, that this was a mistake to involve so many people.

 As a Nima boy I didn’t know much about hotels. So me and Emmanuel stand there and decided to bring him to a hotel, so that we will accompany him in the next day for him to choose a good hotel. We just follow the names of the hotels and choose one. Emmanuel then brought him there and me and Nadja went home. Emmanuel came back and reported to us, that he got a good room for him. So in the morning the three of us went there and we saw him sitting in front of the hotel. I did only then a bit a research and found out that we brought him to the lions dungeon. I watched the face of Robert and said in my mind, sorry! I told him that he should pack his things and we go and find a better place. So we did.

I brought him to the next hotel and it was so quite in that area. We booked a room for him there. I went around again and made  a bit a research of the area and I found out that this place is a tigers dungeon, but they are all tamed. So I didn’t get panic and let him be there. Immeditaly we have to go and set appointments with musicians, such of Nana Ampedu, the leader of African Brothers band and also with panafrican orchestra, Nana Danso and others.

As we reached Nima to show him where I was born and grew up, I think Robert got interested in that place. Immediatly he started to do some recordings. Emmanuel and me were laughing behind, because we didn’t understand why he did those recordings. He recorded the voices of birds, cocks, chicken and sound of cooking pots – for me I didn’t understand why he was recording those things. I would have recorded music. But he knew what he wanted as a journalist.

I remember once we took him near to the 37 hospital and he was recording the bats on a tree. And me and Emmanuel couldn’t stopp laughing. Today I got to know, that those things are the sound effects. Now on this trip I was also chasing those sounds of Ghana.

As I went to the village Eguafo I got up early morning and did some recordings of the village sounds in the morning. Often the elders are asking me: „Eh – you don’t want to find something more insteresting?“ In my mind I just remember and said to myself, you don’t know I was just also in the same position, but now I can see the value of all this.

Dr. Bilek did a very nice report about Accra. I quite remember as I arrived in Austria. A lot of Ghanaian friends gave me complements, which I didn’t understand why

A friend took me to his home and played the report of Accra for me to hear. I went to the house and I heared a report on a tape and everything was so familiar to me, but it was in German. So I just didn’t say anything. Suddenly I heard a sound of Nima, the cocks and the cookingpots in the background and the Haussa language as a background sound. On and on I heared my voice, that is where I interfeared and asked my friend: „What is this?“ this is a report from Accra. The one who was doing this on the radio ORF is called Dr. Bilek. There I was remembering of course the funny recordings.

I was so interested and asked for a copy. Then I slowly became a bit famous through this report. I said to myself, that all the people didn’t know what Robert Bilek went through in Ghana. Thank God he is a journalist and he can stand a lot of things. In the whole world if you travel to a different country you meet good and bad. We let the good things overcome the bad ones. That was exactly what Dr. Bilek did. His wife  Karin came also to Ghana and the research became more and more interesting. I think the work of the husband had entered her. She was brave and powerful and there was nowhere she cannot enter. For me, I like people like Robert and his wife Karin.

I found out that he had a big position in the ORF, but you cannot see it from him. That’s why we could go anywhere we want in Accra.

Robert Bilek - I want to tell you – come back again! Do another report! Now all the areas we know are very much interesting than before. I know you came to Ghana several times, but we need another report.

John Kofi Donkor

Did you taste being a star?

I don’t want to miss any kind of festival in Ghana. I watched in the calender and noted up every sort of festival in Ghana. I attended Elmina Bakatue festival, Winneba abokyir festival, Cape Coast Fetu Afahye. Odwira festival, Homowo festival, Fir festival in Tamale, Damba –Takay festival etc.

One day preparing to go to Hobotsotso festival in Anloga, East Ghana, I saw a boy running towards to me saying:“there are two white people looking for you.“ “ Where ?“ I asked him and he continued.“They are going to your mothers house in Nima“ I was closed to my house so I run.  As I arrived in the house with my friends Emmanuel and Dodge. We saw two white men standing in our house. We welcommed them and asked them where they come from. It happened that one was from Israel one from Argentina. I asked them, how they got to know my name. They respond: „We have a friend called Hamid from Israel and he got to know you from the AAMA academy in Accra.“

I was surpised: „Ahhh Hamid¨“ they also explainded:“ We also don’t know him much, but we meet in travelling and spoke about travelling experience and we end up talking about Nima, and we said anytime we are coming to Africa we will go to Nima.“ I asked them.“ When did you arrive?“ They replied.“ Oh we arrived yesterday night and spend a night in a hotel near Accra and then we went to Kokrobite the AAMA academy to book ou rooms. There we asekd about you and they said you are in Nima and they directed us to come here.“ And I responded:“ Oh this is the right place for you.“

 I told them about the festival I wanted to visit the next day and asked them if they are interested.“ They were interested and we made an appointment to go to the Hobotsotso festival. The next day we came together. My friends Dodge, Emmanuel and Yaw also came with me to accompany our European friends to the festival.

My friend Emmanuel came from Aniako and gave us the idea why don’t we do an nice excursion with a canoe on the Volta delta to Amalga. Thats what we did. Arriving in Aniako we immediatly were invited by Emmanuels uncel for a special dish from Aniako: Akpele (like Banku) with special fried fish from the river. We were doubting if our European friends could join us for eating, because it was fresh chillipepper, tomatoes and onions with the fried fish. This was very tasty. Our friends also liked it so much, although it was so hot, but they didn’t care about. After eating we went to the delta. We rent a canoe. We ate so much, that we were just happy to sit down and enjoy the site - seeing. We arrived in Anloga at the right time. The festival was just about to start. We meet our artist friend, who came with a student from US, specially for the festival. We greated eachother and joined them. The festival started and we walked towards the parc. As we arrived the chiefs and participants took their positions. One of the elders and the festival organizers came directly to us and ask to come and sit down on a special place they had for us. Through this US team, we also could take part like officials.

Activities went on for hours, they played very hot Agbadza. I invited all the American and European friends to go and dance. On the parc you yould hear a lot of cheers and laughing. Because they just arrived in Ghana and they never took any course in dancing. So they didn’t know what is Agbadza. They were all shocked and said. „We cannot dance this.“ And I told them just to watch us and do the same. They followed us and we started dancing. The cheering, clapping and laughing became more and more and more. After we finish, we sat down the music stopped and president of Ghana, J.J. Rawlings got up and gave a speach. He said in his mother tongue Ewe: „You see how best our friends can dance our music. I am so impressed!“ The cheering and the laughing became so big as he spoke Ewe, everybody understood, except our friends. I then translated it to them: „Do you see how the president was appreciating your dancing and you were hesitating in the beginning.“

Afterwards we were going back to the palace and we had to walk in groups. The chiefs were carried and all the agbadza groups and adzagbeko groups.

The adzagbeko groups invited us to join them to dance and walk with them to the palace. So we walked with them all the way throught the city to the palace. This festival is always attendend by thousands of people. After all activities finished on daytime, the American group was invited for eating by the officials. We were invited too. But our friends wanted to go and have some cold beer. Everywhere we passed, the poeple were calling us: „Oh yevo (white man), theses are the people the president was speaking about.“ We got lots of fans. We meet a very good friend from Nima, which we didn’t even know, that he is coming from Anloga. James saw us from far and shouted my nickname: „Koria!“ so I knew it was somebody who knew me from Nima. We shouted, run and hugged eacheother. We introduced our European friends to him. His freind was walking with him and said: „James you missed something! These guys put up a show in the parc and the president was so impressed.“ As James was walking with us, he saw the fans we got. He offered to us his family house, if we want to stay over night. Our European friends decided to go back to Accra, because they had an important meeting in the next morning. So we decided to stay. We then went to his house and he requested an evening meal for us. So we went back to the city again to enjoy the festival. We danced so much and took part in all activities. We came back and had our meal. As we were eating, a lot of people alsways wanted to come in and great us. We almost had no time to eat and enjoy the food. We were occupied so much aout this short show inwhich the president recommended us so much. After we continued to party into the late night. Although our European friends were not with us, we got still a lot of fans. As we are returning back to Accra I was thinking a lot about how famous people are cooping with their life. They got famours for many years and we just got it for some days and I was exhausted. Even in the car to go to Accra we still get people greeting us. And on the Aflao station in Accra we heard people shouting: „Ahh here they are!! Well done!!!“ And people were faning us. This moment was following me a lot and I wonder how stars can deal with it for many years.

Today I am watching this and understand, how fame can rise you up and you have to breath.

John Kofi Donkor

Showers of rhythms

With this story anybody at all knows me in Nima, knows how I live. So I was so scarred and feeling shy of where I should enter with my friend. Hamid enjoyed Nima so much, that he even didn’t realise that there are drops of rain.

It started raining. I woke up, sitting down on the mat, but Hamid was fast a sleep. It reach a place, that the roof of our littel shelter could not stand the rain anymore, so it started to drop on us. That is where Hamid woke up and also sat on his mat. He did not say anything, but just watched me. I just wanted to turn everything to fun way and told him:“Did you see how it can also rain in Ghana?“ sometimes the rain comes with wind and you can hear on the roofingsheet, that thre are a lot of rhythms which you cannot describe. I wanted to make everything funny so that we can stay there for longer. I started to speak about the rhythms oft he rain drops: „This rhythm fits to Fumefume!“ then you can hear the wind blowing and it was changing to another rhythm: „This is Kpanlogo“ and I kept on mentioning a lot of rhythms until the rain would just stop and we can continue sleeping. But the floor could not take the water anymore, it turn to mud. The water began to flow the shelter. There was no possiblity anymore than packing the mat and go inside. I did so and run to the room. Hamid followed me. Both of us stand in the room and Hamid could see that there is no place for him. - I don’t know what to do.

My mother got up, my father also. They don’t know what to do and my father wanted to mention his name and said.“ Emid. Come and sleep on the bed.“ I know where I can lay my mat in the room to sleep. Hamid said then „ thank you Daddy!“ jumped on the bed and slept immediatly. I was not asleep and saw my mum and my dad standing in the room around 2 o’clock in the morning, till I fell asleep. I didn’t know how they made it til the next morning. I woke up and heard the first prayers of the moslems, which was my alarm clock to catch the first bus. I immediatly started to wake Hamid up for us to leave. Hamid got up, saying good buy to my mum and my dad. I didn’t know what to say to them and I just said: “I am going back to the school“. Hamid took a packed of Zigarets out of his pocket and gave it to my father. It was still raining, but not so much anymore.

On our way to the bus stop, we got a vehicel, going to Caneshie. We sat in the bus, I don’t know if I should feel embarrased or I should just think it was an adventure.

Around 6.30 in the morning we were back to the academy. The programm as usual continued around 8 o’clock.

This was a story I never shared with anybody in my life till today.

After I left AAMA I went back to Nima. Back to my root and my group. Business as usual began. From rehearsals to rehearsals with Kusumgboo dance ensemble. As I came back I was so interesting with art.

One day Mr. Tyson from the art Center of Ghana came to our training gound and watched our rehearsal. After he left, the leader called all of us and told us, we have a performance next week Friday in the Novotel and Sunday in the Academy A.A.M.A.

I was very happy about, because now I am going to perform with my team there. We decided to performe on this day the dance drama: „Together we build“. In this drama I was palying the main role. It is about two families who are fighting about one land. I love this drama very much, because there is a lot of emotions in and it has a happy end. So on that day in the Academy I gave all my power. In the brake time the leader of the group told me, that I have to perform with Mustapha Tettey‘s group Obonu. I was happy an dshocked at the same time and asked: „What I didn’t have a rehearsal with them?“ But the leader said: „But they chose you to go and play with them!“ as I was in the academy, I often watch the rehearsals of Obonu to prepare their tours. I know how powerfull and dynamic they are. They have a lot of brakes in the rhythms, which makes the music special. That is their style of playing. I had to go and play the bell. That means I have to keep the timing and drive the music. I was shaking, because the little mistake I will do and fall out of the rhythm, I think I will not find my way back and I will then destroy their whole show.

Suddenly they called me. As I was there I shaked hands with all of them. I was standing there dreaming, really scarred to go to the stage with them. By then I wear the costume and saw that now I have no other possibility than be strong and play with them. As usual before they go to the stage, they have chanting songs with other percussion instruments. This was helping me a lot to vanish the scare in me.

We went and start the performance. Finished it without mistake. I could feel how they accept me in their music. I enjoyed it so much. As an artist if you entertain the audience and also enjoy the music – this is great, beautyful, enormous, you cannot name it. We got a huge applause and cheering. The same way we came in, we went out of the stage and went closer to the audience, walked inbetween the people and chanted with songs and percussion instruments. In that moment I was so proud and happy of myself. As we went backstage, removing the costume, they said thanks to me and I responded back: „Thanks to you!“

I went back to my group for the second part of the performance. In the dressing room, they started to laugh at me and made a lot of teasing – but positive. They then told me, that they saw me smiling so much: „You really take part inside their show. Do you think you are Mustapha?“ we are all laughing and I was so happy that day. -That’s how I got to know Obonu.

How to share your Opinion with the world

How to teach,what I have learned and experienced in my life as a traditional artist, was the difficulty. I found through the Acloa dance company my solution with A.A.M.A (Academy of African Music and Art). This academy is located near Accra about 25 km on the Winneba road, near the Kokrobite beach. This place opened my eye to know, who I am and what I can achieve. With this I found my opportunity to lead my life. All what I learned in life, I have to now proof it in the academy. With the help of Akloa dance ensemble, I got a better understanding of art in the Academy.

The academy gave me an opportunity to understand how you can share your oppinions with other students from all over the world. Additional I meet famous artists from Ghana and abroad. Thanks goes here to Amono, Freddy and Lae. Last but not least to the owner of the academy: Mustapha Tettey Addy – our hero.

The academy gave me improvement to get to know a lot of students from all over the world and their aim. I meet a few students, whith whome sometimes I shared my daily life with. Some of them appreciated where I was born and they were eager for visiting the place.

One day I meet a student called Hamid, he was there in the academy with his sisters. Hamid became my close friend and he always asked me when he could come and see Nima, my area. He heard about Nima from me, as a place full of art and music, so he always wanted to see it. As we are all busy in the academy, we cannot just leave.

One day we got our free time and I invited him to come with me to Nima.

We left in the evening around 6 o’clock. By then it was not easy to get to Accra in time, because of traffic. So we arrived around 8 o’clock. We were lucky that on this day there were a lot of activies going on. We arrived with trotro in Nima. Immediatly we heard music from Northern Ghana. They held a calabash which was filled with seeds and shaked it around with two hands. This was amazing for Hamid to see, while he was just dropping out from the Trotro. I approached one oft he followers of the musicians and they said, that they were goin to a funeral in mamobi. They showed me the place where the funeral is going to be. They are going to pass my area in Nima and we follow them up until we reached our place.

In Nima the people were at this time not used to see foreigners from outside of Africa.So our arriving in Nima was a big boost in my side. Everybody wanted to speak to my friend Hamid. Through speaking with a lot of people we got an idea where traditional music is going on today. I knew all the corners they meant. So within two hours he saw a lot of different sort of traditional music.

That reminded me of my friend Scott, who was my first european student in Nima. With him I got a lot of credibility and appearance in everywhere I am. I end up introducing Scott in Nima as my brother. As I mentioned in my blog that Nima is full of Immigrants from Africa and anything can happen. To make him safe was to introduce him as my familymember. That showed as usual that if anything happen to him, will happen to my family. I quite remember sometimes if he comes to Nima, mothers , fathers and children, brothers and sisters informed me: „ Your brother is around, I saw him looking for you.“ Sometimes I got confused and didn’t know exactly who they meant. I have only one real brother who is known as Accraman and in my oppinion not looking for me. So I also asked them: „Who do you mean?“ and they will say: „ The white man!“ and I quickly remember that it is Scott. I then run to the area and I find him nearby either in a drinking spot or in my area know as trafalgar square. In Ghana we chose a lot of areas oft he world, US or Great Britain, which non of us has travelled to the place, but we took it to be a symbol of our area. If you arrive in Ghana, Accra, Nima and you mention that you want to go to „California“ everybody knows where you want to go. If you mentione „Bronx“ everybody knows where you want to go. Even if you want to go to Bankok or Russia, everybody knows where you want to go. Nima is full of places all over the world. That is how we lead our territory to be known fast. If they mentioned „your brother the white man“ then I knew it is Scott. I looked for him and found him among a lot of my friends. So Hamid had to face the same things like Scott.

In that night I brought Hamid form the academy to Nima and everybody in Nima we meet, was calling him Scott. Then he will tell them: „I am not Scott, I am Hamid.“

Because he is also white, they didn’t watch the difference of the person they just called him also Scott. Me and Hamid had a good time in Nima. But the bad thing was, that we room around so much that it was too late and we could not get a vehicel back in the same night to the Academy. So I decided that we should sleep in my parents house and take the first bus to the academy in the next early morning.

By then I stay with my parents in Nima. Just in a one room flat in a compound house. Hamid enjoyed Nima so much, he did not think of where he is going to stay. I brought him home, waked up my parents to say hello to him and there he found out, that the whole family just lived in one room.

After my parents and compound people wellcomed him, everybody went back to his room. Hamid said: „ I would like to drink some tea.“ I took him to the main street. Where a lady works from 6 to 6 in the morning and sells tea, hot choclate, bread and eggs. You can request as much as you want. Hamid invited me and we enjoyed in the middle of the night tea, bread and egg. This was just close to my compound and we headed then to the house. I went and took one big mat from the room and told Hamid to sleep outside and enjoy the fresh air of the night. Alhtough it was raining season, I was happy the sky was clear at that moment, because I don’t know where I should place Hamid in that one room flat, where already my three sisters, cousins, nephews, my mother and father were sleeping.

A friend of us, known as Baba, whose mother has a local restaurant in a compound, had a shelter. I decided to sleep under the shelter. Because I know they will come there 5 o’clock in the morning. By then we should have left already, because we have to catch the first bus. We just layed down the mat, slept about one hour. Then all of a a sudden I heard the rain dropping on the roofing sheets, which sounded like a rhythm in my sleeping. I got up in my dream and saw that it is going to rain. I was praying to god that it should not rain, because I don’t know where we are going to fit in the room with my parents. But a heavy tropical rain started.

 

How we survived I will tell you next week.

Koria Peter John Kofi Donkor