TGIF : Ghanaaaaa

Hello there!

It’s Friday again which means….TGIF post.

It was Ghana’s Republic Day on July 1, and in commemoration of it I will be doing the Ethnicity Tag ???. 

This should be fun. I love talking about Ghanaians. *The pictures are not mine unless stated otherwise*

1. Where are you from?
I am fully Ghanaian, born and raised. I come from Akyem Tafo, it’s close to Koforidua in the Eastern Region of Ghana- not to be confused with Kumasi Tafo. I lived in Tema, Nkawkaw and Tesano for the first few years of my life and then we moved to Adenta where we still live now.

2. What is your Ghanaian name?

Well, my entire name is Ghanaian. 

Nana because in my tribe in Ghana if you’re a girl you get names like Nana which means grandmother/queen or Maame which means mother to sort of start your name off right.

Akua, because I was born on a Wednesday. You get names depending on the day you were born, my brothers are Kwaku and Kofi because they were born on a Wednesday and Friday respectively. 

Amoafoa, because I was named after my great grandmother. 

Mensah because that is my family name. Mensah traditionally is the name you give to your third child, so someone up my family tree was a third born. 

3. When was the last time you visited your country?

I was in Ghana for the month of May. I wish I’d had longer, but I do have a bit of a wanderlust problem, and I had to come back for summer class.

4. What is your favourite ethnic food?

This is the one I was waiting for. I really like food. I’m pretty picky, but if it’s food I like I will not stop eating it. 

Now, there’s waakye and 3t) and bayer3 ampesie but I’m gonna be real. My favourite thing is jollof. 

I mean, look at it.

Most people like fufu and banku and Ghanaian fried rice makes me very happy ( I like it so much more than fried rice here. Shoutout to Koffe Lounge and all the check check places I have stopped at)

But yeah, Jollof chale. When you have it with grilled chicken, and the Jollof has ground beef inside…. My cousin makes the meanest Jollof eh. 

People fight about which country owns it; Ghana or Nigeria, resulting in things like this

And I think Senegal has Jollof as well, but Ghana Jollof has my heart.

5. One household item that represents your culture.

Ermagerd, there are so many. Main one I think is the broom.

We call it pray3 in Twi (Twi is the language i speak btw)
You will always have this broom or a few chilling at the back of your house. When I came to America and had to use a Hoover, I just really wanted my broom, because nothing cleans like that broom. 

6. What is your favourite music?

I love love love Ghanaian music. I know we have done azonto and alkayida beats to death but I don’t even care My favourites are Efya, 44 , Guru, a couple songs from Shatta Wale, VIP, and Sarkodie also. He’s not Ghanaian but I love Wizkid too.

I’ll link some right here

Wiz kid || Jaiye Jaiye
Guru || Alkayida
Sarkodie ft Castro || Adonai
^the last one is my favourite one
7. Do you speak your language?

?? a little too much sometimes. I remember in high school I almost never spoke English. People used to tell me to ease up a bit because my Twi can sound thick sometimes but I didn’t even care, and when I went home over the summer I didn’t really speak English so when I got back to school my English was a little weird. The language is Twi, again. It’s spoken by The Akan tribes in Ghana although different ethnic groups have different dialects so to speak(pun intended) Ghana has quite a number of ethnic languages; Twi, Ga, Ewe, Hausa, Dagbaani, Dagaate… 

But I speak Twi, and speak it whenever I can. 
Okay, so that’s the end of the ethnicity tag. I hope you learned a bit more about Ghana through this, and I will probably do a post on Ghana soon .

I hope you like the music because I lurve it, and I will write to you all later.

Peace, love, and funk,

Amoafoa.