Sonntag, 28. April 2013

it has been a long time...

...thats what the people in ghana always say if you havent met them in some time. and thats also the case here...sorry, i was not all that good in posting in the past 2 months ;)

im fine, but there was a lot going on, so i did not find time wo write - and also the internet is really bad in my village these days. uploading a pic can take up to 1 hour...and then you are likely to fail in the end again! so its not what i prefer to do as you can imagine.

anyway, i want to show you some pics!

first of all my old friend BAEEO visited me! he was the first visitor - followed by my mother, who visited me in april! pics of her visit you will see in the nex post (haha, hopefully sooner than in 2 months!).

hope some people will follow to visit me here!

its really nice in ghana...see for yourself!

the fishing village of miamia

nice, clean ocean

baeeo...

stones...

...and more stones!

breaksfast - you are invited!

waste in the ocean is used by shells

fishermen leave at night for work

rubber trees

view from the fort in axim

at that fort

...the view into a differrent direction

a alter kicker der ernst...!

ankobra beach

almost too nice - kitschig!

long, empty beaches in ghana

fishermen

beach and roots (rock, reggae)

cancer

a shell

the red house was ours

when i asked the conductor about the destination in the end he said the bus was going only to accra...hmmm...!

chief and myself talking to the school kids about protecting the environment of our community

not to miss in the north: corcodiles

mr. b. has been a pleasure to have you as a guest in this beautiful country!!

...not only beautiful country! life is beautiful!!

seeds...

...again!

termites

i recieved manner schnitten - look at the mistake they made. it was packeged like this (which i have never seen - but have taken plenty manner before!!!)

volunteer mirijam is a serious card player!
 on the second day of my mums visit somebody (not myself!) had a car accident with the car of the NGO i am working for. it was sumersulting, and people were so lucky. most of the times we used to transport people on the back of the car - on that very day the back was empty! god is great, all passengers left the car without any injury. since then we thank god for that... see yourself.
if i see cars like this standing on the roadside, i always assume that somebody has died. here everbody was fine!



Donnerstag, 21. Februar 2013

trailer

hi everybody!

it has been a long time...hope you are all well.

please check out the trailer of "the forgotten kingdom? the chronicles of the north..." it is the documentary i showed you some pictures about.

the trailer is out now, but it is only a raw cut - of course in the end everything will be much more professional, with inserts, subtitles and so on...

hope you like it, and please also share it with other people! it is important for this NGO to get more popular, since it aims to raise enough funds in the end to build a university in the north of ghana through this documentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En6XBIqSPTk

see you

Samstag, 12. Januar 2013

burkina faso, togo...and a happy new year!

see some pictures about the previous month!
on the 7th of december we had elections in ghana - this is how polling stations look in our village!

baobab trees
 most of the time i was in my village working, but for some time we also went again for our documentary shoot.
since i live in a small village, and my work is a lot, i need to be able to have a strict line between work and free time. for this reason here on my blog i rather tell you about different happenings than my day to day business! if you are interested though, you can check out some of the things we do with the NGO i am working for on

http://braveaurora.blogspot.co.at/

http://www.braveaurora.com/

but now, see where we went for the documentary, and see some different pics!

after our interview in sandema

we also needed some shots with crocodiles...our 2 technicians in the picture

warriors in sandema

when they arrived and wanted to greet the chief, we head to finish our interview - tradition is very important here!

later the same day we went for an interview to tongo

magdalena, volunteer, found a friend!

still in tongo
 during the interview people started to play the drums. we learned that a chief would be enskinned later on, and the drums were telling the chief we interviewd that the competitors have arrived. the people sitting down on the picture are competing for the skin (instead of a throne, chief sit on a skin in the north...and they are enskinned!)

just before christmas we went to burkina faso, to shoot some interviews. the reason is that the big kingdom the documentary is about used to cover a huge area - including half of burkina and some parts of togo. therefore it was necessary for us to travel - and i was even so happy, because in my job i was always too busy to travel like this.

the reason why parts of the former kingdom are in ghana, parts in burkina faso and a part in togo is the europeans, who came and did the dimacation of the land, decided togo and burkina should be french teretorry, while ghana should be "british". by today about 15.000 mamprusis live in togo, and in a big part of burkina are the mossi, whos origin is in ghana.
all this dimacation is the root of so many conflicts all over the continent of africa...one of the many things people did long time ago, then they left - but the conflicts stayed in the places.


different beers in burkina - my favourite was the "castle"!

entering burkina faso

in ouagadougou, burkina fasos capital city

a german truck

our sound technician, pasal, is an artist. he made a sketch of mirijam, and later of me...

with al hassan and fuseni (this is how male twins are called here - and in burkina!)
bus station

at te university of ouagadougou, where we interviewd an historian

our team

...eating
after ouagadougou we went to tenkodogo, where the first settlement from todays ghana was founded. here is the strong connection we want to prove
on neutral grounds austria played against ghana - and we won them easily!!!! respect to big j!!

street life in tenkodogo

burkinas money - the same they use in togo and i guess in amny other west african states

here efamily is different - thats my brother!!

loading a truck

filling station (petrol station)

in tenkodogo we found german beer... "... nach dem deutschen reinheitsgebot!!"

a beggar close to th border to ghana

an illegal gold mining village in burkina faso, close to the border
we returned on teh 24th of december to guabuliga, and thats where we celebrated christmas!

some days after christmas together with one of OUR employees i organized a football turnament in the village. it was quite good, but with some confusion in the end.
one of the pitches

our team from teh orphanage - with usk elsbethern jerseys!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYBODY
as mentionned before we also went to togo for a shot
at teh government chief in...

...mampugu - where does the name come from?!
mandiaya and pascal, drinking pito after our interview with the traditional chief

with the traditional chief - he goes to nalerigu, to "our" king, for enskinnment


i was also at home for some time...

...thats how it was possible!

me, dancing in traditional clothes with the village people on new years day



...again...!

may we all live long as them, my neighbour and his brother

me and some of our employees wish a happy 2013!!!