These are all I can give you to represent how I feel!! I'm inspired, motivated and determined and I was one of the organizers! I hope the kids took away even more.
iStandAbove!!!

Some looks, lotsa hugs and a kiss.

DAMN!! So boxing day, Dec 26 2009, this aimless girl who would much rather lie in bed eating kitkat and chatting her life away, promised a bestie 8 months ago to go out that night. Here I am, flowy white dress, black heels, black bag whose most important component was hand sanitizer, girl by my side, man in bed (mtchew). We go!

First stop: Citizen Kofi.
Lord have mercy. The place was ok (…it was wack but chale…) so here I am sitting outside looking “gorgeous” and watching ppl. You can’t laugh. If the party disappointed the fashion show didn’t. Three piece metallic silver and red suits (imagining the sweat, I’d HATE to be that suit or the girl he puts him arm around forcing her into that armpit space), painted on trousers, lace tops with bras/no bras, shades at night (…no comment), neon green sneakers that went with nothing, and even a bandaged foot (and nothing else he was wearing was white so yes hello very obvious foot!). There was this gorgeous purple shirt some man was wearing… but that’s all that looked good. No offense.
It was fun seeing the different gaits employed in order to keep the already really high hemlines down barely over bottoms. And the accents…the accents…oooohhhh the accents. I’m pretty sure I split my sides a couple times.
Just imagine the highs and lows of this person's speech with some British and Ghanaian accents. Try hard: "So I was walking past this girl yeah and she was behaving like …something.”
*Wiping laughter tears away*
Second stop: Epo!
Ok that s*** was just weird and awkward. I’ve been stared at before but chale! Lost my hunger and left. MTCHEW! …of course the hunger came back later but what can man do? Ah well… bright side bright side… oh I got a free spring roll. And apparently my friend and I qualify for models of the universe. (Is that actually a show/pageant?)
Third Stop: Twist
LOVELY! Peoples peoples! People I hadn’t seen in years! Catching up, sharing woeful heat stories, playful accusations of who was more brown. Needless to say there were a LOT of hugs and smiles and whatnots. I didn’t get beyond the car park before we left again. Lol. Oh and schmoozing is nice! ;)
Fourth Stop: Tantra.
HAHA! Didn’t go beyond the gate. But again peoples peoples. …Heh I’m a flirt oo… damn. Hmmm. But those …Lebanese? Eritrean? Children too!!? You would think I had birthed them and then threw them on the street ah ah. “Maa oh maa” and when it wasn’t working they’d call a brother then a sister then finally sent their mother. GRACIOUS!! Then I found my brother. LOL He didn’t even bother getting to the gate. He had his girl and he was jus A-Okay. Hahahaha.
Chale I’m not doing the night justice smh.
Fifth intended stop: The Office.
But people where broke and didn’t want to face the crowd or pay the 20GHC, why I don’t know. Which after going to Cinderella’s I’m sure they would had done gladly.
Fifth actual stop: Cinderella.
…Dingy. Weird. And the DJ would not stop foreskinning Asamoah Gyan. Oh!!! Leave the man alone! Better still leave the music playing so we can pretend to dance! Aaah!! Then there was this person who would not stop staring at me. He only had the courtesy to blink when I looked at him. Short of that he may have been saying “Shawdy what now? Leave me to stare lah! I don’t care that you are giving me looks.” My friend and her boy are lovingly working through they little spat. Hehe.
And finally we decide we should go sit in the car and have a chat, better than the club. But before we could do that MORE DRAMA!!!! Aaahhhh!!! And I was the lookout. Haha in my dress and heels. At least I apparently made a good-looking lookout. Compliments are nice oo. =D
Sixth Stop: Epo.
YES!! WE CAME BACK! Less ppl. Less food. Grr, again no food. But that’s ok, we were simply switching cars and heading home. This is 5:38 am.
But in our search for the right car, I meet this guy who asked my name and I was cool talking because I thought my friend knew him but I failed to remember she’s friendly like that. He complimented me (=D) introduced himself as Trey, kissed my hand, said we’d meet again and left. Men, please take a lesson!
Almost home and mum sleepily calls, “Its 6 in the morning!”

Aahhhhh my darhling bed. I have missed thee.

What a night!

My revolution is mine.

Your revolution will not blind these dark brown eyes

Your revolution will not contribute to my demise

Your revolution will not happen between these thighs

Because my revolution will not believe your lies!

Magnanimous Warrior! (Warning: Graphic, even more so in interpretation)

Magnanimous Warrior! She in whom the spirits come quick and hard. Hunting mother. She who forages. Who knows the ground. Where the hills of fufu are concealed. Mother who brews the most beautiful tea from the ugliest bush. Warrior who sheds her skin like a snake and travels into the darkness a fireball. Mother who catches the eidon and sees them to their rest. Warrior who labors in the spirit. She who plants gunga on the graves of the restless. Mother who carves the power-stone, center of the world. Warrior who places the blood-cloth on the back of the whipped slave. She who turns her attention to the evildoer. Mother who binds the female drumhead with parchment from a goat. Warrior who gathers grave-dirt in her pocket. Pieces of chalk. Packs of cards. Bits of looking-glass. Beaks. Feet. Bones of patoo. Teeth of dogs and alligators. Glass eyes. Sulfur. Camphor. Myrrh. Asafoetida. Frankincense. Curious shells. China dolls. Wooden images. She writes in her own blood across the drumhead. Obeah-woman. Myal-woman. She can cure. She can kill. She can give jobs. She is foy-eyed. The bearer of second sight. Mother who goes forth emitting flames from her eyes. Nose. Mouth. Ears. Vulva. Anus. She bites the evildoers that they become full of sores. She treats cholera with bitterbush. She burns the canefields. She is River Mother. Sky Mother. Old Hige. The Moon. Old Suck.
Rambling mother. Mother who trumps and wheels counterclockwise around the power-stone, the center of the world. Into whose cauldron the Red Coats vanished.
What has become of this warrior? Now that we need her more than ever. She has been burned up in an alms-house fire in Kingston. She has starved to death. She wanders the roads of the country with swollen feet. She has cancer. Her children have left her. Her powers are known no longer. They are called by other names. She is not respected. She lies on an iron bedstead in a shack in Trench Town. She begs outside a rumshop in Spanish Town. She cleans the yard of a woman younger than she. She lies in a bed in a public hospital with sores across her buttocks. No one swabs her wounds. Flies gather. No one turns her in the bed. The pain makes her light-headed. They tell her she is senile. They have taken away her bag of magic. Her teeth. Her goat's horn. We have forgotten her. Now that we need her more than ever. The nurses ignore her. The doctors make game of her. The priest tries to take her soul.

Can you remember how to love her?

- Michelle Cliff, No Telephone to Heaven

This struck me and stayed with me as I read the book for class this morning. Some of these things I simply cannot identify with, but it forced me to think of my motherland, my continent and what it has suffered and continues to suffer but still forcefully tries to pull through despite everything, despite mother children leaving hardly ever to a better fate in this concrete jungle. Its harsh language, harsh enough to make you remember…