Healthy Glow: Healthy Eating, La Mode & Ramblings
I have always had a fascination with Nigeria and its culture. Probably because it is much like my family’s West African Culture (my parent’s are from Ghana), I have Nigerian friends, I love Nigerian music, and its history.
When I read about the Nigerian Nostaglic Project, I was immediately interested. Created by a Nigerian girl named Olayemi, a Yoruba girl based in Texas who has a self-described infatuation with with vintage photos and the history of Nigeria.
What is the project? Accoring to the site’s creator it is a internet collection of, “…photographs (including video and sound-bytes) depicting scenes and people from Nigeria between the mid-19th century and 1980.” The objective? “Reconnecting the Nigerian psyche to pre-existent, indigenous and proper thought giving base to national pride and a foundation for a sustainable future.” I love it because it is an African collecting and archiving her own history.
Here are some of my favorite images:
Now that I have a large relatively sterile place (while temporary) I am always looking for ways to make it my own. I am a person that loves bright colors and loud prints. After browsing one of my favorite blogs, African Prints in Fashion, I loved the post about interior design! Surprisigly enough, (I have ceased buying clothing, jewelry, and shoes for myself) I have dedicated a large amount of my salary to decorating my home. I am hoping that Mr. Bannis’ designs are going to be a mainstay in my home!
Read more about my new favorite interior designer…
Andrew Bannis is a man on a mission to make African cloth fashionable, starting in his London loft. Read more of the article about his company here.
Andrew Bannis runs Royal Hut together with his business partner Louise Kay. There design company specializes in making African cloth become a mainstain in everyone’s homes. His line includes: bedlinen to bath robes and just about everything else in between!
My Ghanaian Culture: Ghanaian-Canadaian Designer, Yaw “Tony” Asante Takes Fabric to Another Level
Architect | Painter | Illustrator | Furniture | Designer of Many Things
Ghanaian graphic designer Yaw “Tony” Asante, is based in Toronto, Canada.
“Heart of Toronto based artist and born with the gift to create and form amazing art, Yaw mastersin architecture, visual arts, photography, illustration, graphic design andplays with carpentry. Hedabbles in all the arts, except he can’t sing or act but he loves being able todo what he does with his talents to create solutions for his clients.”
When I have finished my career in public service I am headed straight for a career in textiles. The attention to detail, explosive use of color, and brillance of his textiles is what really drew me to Yaw’s fabric prints. The prints are unique but still have West African feel.
Check him out! Tumblr, Behance, Twitter.
via ghanailoveyou
(via obruniradio)
My African Culture: Lake Retba in Senegal
A boat floats on what looks like a huge strawberry milk-lake. The wooden vessels were photographed from the air bobbing on Lake Retba, in Senegal. From above the mass of water - which spans one square mile - looks staggeringly similar to a giant milkshake. And just like the Dead Sea swimmers are even able to FLOAT on the water with ease.The bizarre colour is caused by high levels of salt - with some areas containing up to 40% of the condiment.
Michael Danson, an expert in extremophile bacteria from Bath University, said: “The strawberry colour is produced by salt-loving organism Dunaliella salina.
“They produce a red pigment that absorbs and uses the energy of sunlight to create more energy, turning the water pink.
“Lakes like Retba and the Dead Sea, which have high salt concentrations, were once thought to be incompatible with life - hence the names. But they are very much alive.”
Salt collectors can often be seen scouring the expanse to remove the valuable mineral - but first have to coat their skin with sheer butter. This helps protect their skin from exposure to the intense salt levels in the three metre deep lake. Salt crystals cling to the bodies of miners who work the lake everyday to extract its contents.And towering piles of collected salt litter the shoreline. Villagers then process it before selling and using the valuable mineral. (via)
(via streetetiquette)
My African Culture: Get to Know the African Leadership Academy
picture via ALA
This past Tuesday my boyfriend invited me to the a formal dinner celebrating and sharing information about the African Leadership Academy (ALA). During the dinner, I met some of the current students, alumni, and supporters.
The African Leadership Academy (ALA) is a residential, secondary institution located outside of Johannesburg, South Africa for 15–18 year-olds, from all 54 African nations and around the world. ALA seeks “to transform Africa by identifying, developing, and connecting the next generation of African leaders.” Their Leadership Development formula is relatively simple: harness potential, practice continued leadership development, and guide young African leaders toward opportunities in their lives and the long-term transformation of Africa.
ALA was founded in 2004 by Fred Swaniker, Chris Bradford, Peter Mombaur, and Acha Leke, and in September 2008 started with their an inaugural class of 97 students. ALA teaches a two-year curriculum in African studies, leadership and entrepreneurship, as well as the usual academic core subjects.
I am trying to direct my life toward finding a renewed sense of purpose and dedication and ALA has renewed my spirit.
Have a awe-inspiring day!
My African Culture: Portraits of women with headscarves in Burkina Faso by Guillaume & Pauline
African head wraps have been a part of both the African and the African American culture for centuries. The colorful cloths represent the history of the African people and are worn proudly by both men and women. African Americans who wish to preserve their heritage typically choose to wear head wraps even today. The head wrap has a different meaning when worn by men than it does when worn by women. Even the colors of the head wrap have a different meaning.
Read more: History of the African Head Wrap
via dynamicafrica
My African Culture: Arise Magazine Fashion Week 2012
Ugandan model Daphine Tony on the new cover of Arise Magazine, out in February.
Arise Magazine Fashion Week 2012 will be held in Lagos from March 6th-12th.
via dynamicafrica
![My African Culture: The Africa Fashion Guide
Jacqueline [Shaw] concepted Africa Fashion Guide with the focus to promote the African fashion and textile industry to the greater global textile industry. It is a one stop shop and platform for fashion professionals, students, retailers, magazines, bloggers and all those interested in African fashion and textiles as a way to promote this industry and bring links between African designers, craftspeople, manufacturers and texile designers with UK and EU fashion design companies and consumer markets, as well as with retailers worldwide.
The book features 45 African Designers including Jewel by Lisa, Tiffany Amber, Chichia London, so we are in very good company. You can purchase the book from here.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luwqcwk0g01qzoz4do1_500.png)
My African Culture: The Africa Fashion Guide
Jacqueline [Shaw] concepted Africa Fashion Guide with the focus to promote the African fashion and textile industry to the greater global textile industry. It is a one stop shop and platform for fashion professionals, students, retailers, magazines, bloggers and all those interested in African fashion and textiles as a way to promote this industry and bring links between African designers, craftspeople, manufacturers and texile designers with UK and EU fashion design companies and consumer markets, as well as with retailers worldwide.
The book features 45 African Designers including Jewel by Lisa, Tiffany Amber, Chichia London, so we are in very good company. You can purchase the book from here.
Here are the latest stories and news from the August issue of Africa Renewal Magazine.
WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT
North African women on the barricades
Activists press for freedom, dignity and rights.
Also in this issue
Global food crisis: time to break the vicious cycle
Current hunger in the Horn of Africa exposed the maladies of the global food system: delaying reforms will guarantee recurrent surges in food prices
After independence, what next for South Sudan?
Building a new nation amidst dire poverty and the scars of war
Africa’s least developed: lands of opportunity
At the UN conference on least developed countries, focus moves away from aid
‘Renewed energy for women’s empowerment’
Interview with head of UN Women in Southern Africa
Africa Wired: Social media boosts Nigeria’s polls
Elections redefined, as candidates and voters go online
‘NEPAD is an African spirit for renewal’
Ten years old, the plan scores some gains, faces key tests
Found on www.theafropolitanexperience.com. A website with other interesting topics related to the universal cosmopolitan African diaspora . I post Taiye’s integral text below. Enjoy this read!
“It’s moments to midnight on Thursday night at Medicine Bar in London. Zak, boy-genius DJ, is spinning a Fela Kuti remix. The little downstairs dancefloor swells with smiling, sweating men and women fusing hip-hop dance moves with a funky sort of djembe. The women show off enormous afros, tiny t-shirts, gaps in teeth; the men those incredible torsos unique to and common on African coastlines. The whole scene speaks of the Cultural Hybrid: kente cloth worn over low-waisted jeans; ‘African Lady’ over Ludacris bass lines; London meets Lagos meets Durban meets Dakar. Even the DJ is an ethnic fusion: Nigerian and Romanian; fair, fearless leader; bobbing his head as the crowd reacts to a sample of ‘Sweet Mother’.
Were you to ask any of these beautiful, brown-skinned people that basic question – ‘where are you from?’ – you’d get no single answer from a single smiling dancer. This one lives in London but was raised in Toronto and born in Accra; that one works in Lagos but grew up in Houston, Texas. ‘Home’ for this lot is many things: where their parents are from; where they go for vacation; where they went to school; where they see old friends; where they live (or live this year). Like so many African young people working and living in cities around the globe, they belong to no single geography, but feel at home in many.
One of my favorite essays.
![My African Culture: Ivory Coast launches War Crimes Inquiry
Inquiry will establish truth of facts in six months ‘in order to take legal action against perpetrators, if necessary’.
Ivory Coast is to set up a commission of inquiry into crimes committed during the country’s post-election violence, a council of ministers statement said.
The statement, released on Wednesday after a meeting in the capital, Yamoussoukro, said the commission would “help understand how and why people were able to conceive, plan and execute such grave violations of human rights”.
“As a duty to memory, Ivory Coast intends to provide the means to establish the truth of the facts in order, ifnecessary, to take legal action against the perpetrators,” the statement said.
Alassane Ouattara, the president, signed the decree establishing the commission, giving it six months to reach conclusions.
A presidential election in November last year plunged the West African nation into violence when Laurent Gbagbo, the former president currently under house arrest, refused to accept his loss.
Gbagbo instead used loyal soldiers, gangs of armed youths and mercenaries to crush dissent.
The power struggle between him and Ouattara rekindled a civil war that the election was supposed to resolve, killing at least 3,000 people.
More than a million people were displaced while tens of thousands fled to neighbouring Liberia and Ghana.
The conflict ended when Gbagbo was captured by French-backed pro-Ouattara forces in April.
Ouattara has promised a South Africa-style truth and reconciliation commission to put the country’s crisis behind it, but he also wants to try Gbagbo and his top aides for war crimes.
The International Criminal Court is carrying out preliminary research and may soon order an investigation into the gravest crimes committed during the crisis.
Gbagbo’s supporters complain that no one from Ouattara’s camp has been arrested for alleged crimes, despite evidence of abuses by forces loyal to the current president.
[source]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lowqeqNIDH1qcerqgo1_500.jpg)
My African Culture: Ivory Coast launches War Crimes Inquiry
Inquiry will establish truth of facts in six months ‘in order to take legal action against perpetrators, if necessary’.
Ivory Coast is to set up a commission of inquiry into crimes committed during the country’s post-election violence, a council of ministers statement said.
The statement, released on Wednesday after a meeting in the capital, Yamoussoukro, said the commission would “help understand how and why people were able to conceive, plan and execute such grave violations of human rights”.
“As a duty to memory, Ivory Coast intends to provide the means to establish the truth of the facts in order, if
necessary, to take legal action against the perpetrators,” the statement said.
Alassane Ouattara, the president, signed the decree establishing the commission, giving it six months to reach conclusions.
A presidential election in November last year plunged the West African nation into violence when Laurent Gbagbo, the former president currently under house arrest, refused to accept his loss.
Gbagbo instead used loyal soldiers, gangs of armed youths and mercenaries to crush dissent.
The power struggle between him and Ouattara rekindled a civil war that the election was supposed to resolve, killing at least 3,000 people.
More than a million people were displaced while tens of thousands fled to neighbouring Liberia and Ghana.
The conflict ended when Gbagbo was captured by French-backed pro-Ouattara forces in April.
Ouattara has promised a South Africa-style truth and reconciliation commission to put the country’s crisis behind it, but he also wants to try Gbagbo and his top aides for war crimes.
The International Criminal Court is carrying out preliminary research and may soon order an investigation into the gravest crimes committed during the crisis.
Gbagbo’s supporters complain that no one from Ouattara’s camp has been arrested for alleged crimes, despite evidence of abuses by forces loyal to the current president.
[source]
My African Culture: Happy 50th Birthday République Démocratique du Congo!
It has been too long since I’ve been in Kinshasa! Kinshasa has got its new Place du 30 Juin to prove it (and Kasa-Vubu his statue).
We all knew that the relationship between China and Africa was close…
In response to a growing gender imbalance in their home country, Chinese men look elsewhere to find partners…
“Because boys are lauded in Chinese culture and because families are limited to only one child per household, men far outnumber women in China. One of the many problems this creates manifests itself in dating and marriage. Some estimate that for every 100 Chinese women, there are 110 Chinese men, which leaves many men uncoupled and unmarried. And apparently, Chinese workers in Africa are finding ways to level the playing field. Despite the growing trend of Chinese workers marrying local African women, predictably, many in their home country have a lot to say about it. On the Chinese culture blog, ChinaSmack, one writer suggest “large-scale” marrying of African women could be the key to Chinese men finding love, but of course, only if they marry “high end Black girls” without “greasy skin.” “ To read the complete article, click here.
