Time with Afi

Football is generally considered the terrain of men as opposed to women. I hate to make this sweeping gendered statement but it is the fact and essential to what I intend to say. So why did Citi FM; the acclaimed “wokest” of all the radio stations in Ghana have a picture of a woman with evidently long legs taking center stage in this advertisement of a premier league match? Why not a man or none at all? Or a picture of the act of football being played? Are the crest of these teams not enough to advertise the game? It is in these sma ll often not thought about ways that the body of a woman continues to be sexualized and objectified. The far reaching effects of such images are not really appreciated but the constant bombardment of such images to sell food, cars, sports and anything you can actually think of only reinforces the thin and slender ideal of what a woman is supposed to look like. The service industry is probably the most complicit in this; usually using femininity t...

Lesson One: Sleep Lighter Let your spouse know you are not “fine” with them otherwise, you will keep a grudge and realise you were on your own the whole time! There was one night I was so upset, I don’t remember what I was upset about even though its not been 3 months yet. That shows you how trivial some things are. I was steaming the whole night. I could barely sleep and was wondering whether I should wake Kojo up for a face off. I woke up with a frown and had a long face. Then I could not take it any longer and decided to confront Kojo. He was totally baffled. He thought we were cool. He did not have any idea that I was giving him the cold attitude and that I had a fight with him. For him, it was a really good day because I let him have his piece of mind to watch his series. To think that I had spent the whole night and morning steaming when the person I was beefing with was not even aware, was downright hilarious. I could have got whatever was worrying me off my chest and slept ...

I always wondered what brides did the night before the wedding. I always imagined that there would be a lot of anticipation with family members milling around to make things worse. What I did not expect the expectant brides to be had to deal with a barrage of whatsapp messages from last minute friends who decided they wanted to be at the wedding after all and as such directions must be sent to them as well as those sending messages to inform you they could not make it for the wedding for one reason or the other. Those people are ever so polite. I have never done that. So i had to do a lot of WhatsApp messages and fight with my mum too who would barge in every second and ask why I was doing so much whatsapping. I just hid my phone and pretended to be getting my beauty sleep just so she would not be a suffering ewe mother. My mother can worry. What I did not anticipate too was neighbours knocking on the door every 2 secs to ask if there was anything to help ...

They came over the fence when no one was looking and jumped into the room whilst Mama was at the store. They thought they had chanced on wealth and riches. They saw from afar a beautiful house, on the outside it was beautiful but when they broke into the house they were amazed at what they saw. Is this the house of a rich man they asked each other? There was Water Dispenser and a Microwave and a Refrigerator. There was nothing they could carry away in the middle of the day. They said to themselves, “there must be something of value that we can carry along and we would find it”. So they did just that. Upside down they did turn the house. Even the old dusty bookshelf was not spared. Mattresses were flung from their frames, clothes baskets were turned over. They lifted, they turned, they searched and shoved but came up with nothing. “Is this the house of a rich man?” they asked. There is no money and the floor is not even tiled. They were dismayed! What is this ...