Saturday, 6th March was Ghana’s 47th independence anniversary. In Vancouver, they had a party to celebrate and I attended.

This wasn’t quite like those independence day celebrations of my parents, where they’d wear fancy Kente cloths specially woven and flown from Ghana for the event, have dinner at a fancy hotel and make sensationally pretentious speeches about how great Ghana is.

When they’re done, they ride in their government issued luxury European cars to their equally grandiose homes. The guy in Ghana, on the other hand, doesn’t have access to the most basic of amenities like water. It’s not much of independence if you’re walking miles on end in search of water just like your forefathers before you, is it? I never figured out how diplomats from developing countries manage to live like kings.

I wore jeans to the party, I’m glad we’re ‘free’ but I wasn’t about to go overboard with it. Besides, honestly I’m not quite sure what Ghana’s independence means to me as a person. I haven’t quite worked that out yet.

I have so many issues with Ghana as a whole but I tend not to go into it since I don’t live there, sometimes I resent that I could never live there in the comfort I’ve been accustomed to.

The evening started off quite nicely, we prayed because Ghanaians are obsessively religious, we sang our national anthem and that of Canada. Then our consular general, who by the way isn’t Ghanaian but rather Guyanese (He lived in Ghana for 6 years and the closest they found) gave a speech from the president. Then came the ‘speech’ about how great Ghana is…, actually it was on how to pursue excellence. The MC called out past presidents and deliberately and rudely left out the one before the current one, I guess he didn’t like him

The whole thing was turning out to be a big speech-fest when in fact the email I got clearly said ‘party!’

We ate, awards were given, there was a fashion show and then the dancing began! I thought about how my mom’s running water is going to be turned off till April. Her friend’s sister died because she couldn’t get to a hospital miles away from her village, and a village that treks almost ten miles everyday to fetch guinea worm infested water from the stream that’s already drying up.

For Ghanaians our buzz word is democracy, like it fixes everything, no mention of social responsibilities. The average Ghanaian lives in poverty, or is facing some kind of hardship, that’s what our tribute to our independence should have been about.

PLAYING: Are you gonna be my girl - Jet

READING: Diary of a Manhattan call girl – Tracy Quan

WATCHING: American Idol

QUOTE: “now you dont need that money when you look like that, do ya honey”