I had been assigned to take meals in one of the university’s eight halls - Maya Angelou #QotD

Like all faculty members, I had been assigned to take meals in one of the university’s eight halls, but it was only on the rare occasion that I visited Volta Hall High Table. The dining room was vast and tiered and quiet. Following the British academic arrangement, students sat at Low Table about four feet beneath the long high row where faculty sat facing them. I joined the members at High Table, without speaking, for we knew each other only casually, and there was no love lost or found between us.

All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes by Maya Angelou

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For our closing dinner of the ICADLA-4 conference, we had dinner in the Volta Hall dining hall. Volta is one of the older halls on campus and still all female. At the High Table tonight, the 2nd Lady of Ghana spoke, but quickly came down to eat and mingle with all of us down below!

"In Ghana, or in all of black Africa, my highest single honor was an audience at the Castle with Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah" @MalcolmXquotes #QotD

"In Ghana, or in all of black Africa, my highest single honor was an audience at the Castle with Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

Before seeing him, I was searched most thoroughly. I respected the type of security the Ghanaians erect around their leader. It gave me that much more respect for independent black men. Then, as I entered Dr. Nkrumah’s long office, he came out from behind his desk at the far end. Dr. Nkrumah wore ordinary dress, his hand was extended and a smile was on his sensitive face. I pumped his hand. We sat on a couch and talked. I knew that he was particularly well-informed on the Afro-American’s plight, as for years he had lived and studied in America. We discussed the unity of Africans and peoples of African descent. We agreed that Pan-Africanism was the key also to the problems of those of African heritage. I could feel the warm, likeable and very down-to-earth qualities of Dr. Nkrumah. My time with him was up all too soon. I promised faithfully that when I returned to the United States, I would relay to Afro-Americans his personal warm regards." - Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (quoted on "Malcolm X in Ghana")

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My official trip to Ghana brings me to the famed University of Ghana in the Legon area of Accra. I will have a chance to explore the campus while staying at the University Guest Centre. In the picture here, the 2nd Lady of Ghana, Wife of the Vice-President, is addressing the ICADLA-4 conference at the closing dinner.

The sun was fierce, the land seemed to glisten and drip with steam. Here and there greyish-whitish specks showed up clustered inside the white surf - Conrad #QotD

Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you -- smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, 'Come and find out.' This one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness. The edge of a colossal jungle, so dark-green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight, like a ruled line, far, far away along a blue sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist. The sun was fierce, the land seemed to glisten and drip with steam. Here and there greyish-whitish specks showed up clustered inside the white surf, with a flag flying above them perhaps. Settlements some centuries old, and still no bigger than pinheads on the untouched expanse of their background. We pounded along, stopped, landed soldiers; went on, landed custom-house clerks to levy toll in what looked like a God-forsaken wilderness, with a tin shed and a flag-pole lost in it; landed more soldiers--to take care of the custom-house clerks, presumably. Some, I heard, got drowned in the surf; but whether they did or not, nobody seemed particularly to care. They were just flung out there, and on we went. Every day the coast looked the same, as though we had not moved; but we passed various places--trading places--with names like Gran' Bassam, Little Popo; names that seemed to belong to some sordid farce acted in front of a sinister back-cloth. The idleness of a passenger, my isolation amongst all these men with whom I had no point of contact, the oily and languid sea, the uniform sombreness of the coast, seemed to keep me away from the truth of things, within the toil of a mournful and senseless delusion. The voice of the surf heard now and then was a positive pleasure, like the speech of a brother. - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899, 1902)

Conrad has always been one of my touchstone authors and Heart of Darkness and important and key work for me. Conrad doesn't mention Ghana (or the Gold Coast as it would have been known to him) in the book. The references above to "Gran' Bassam" (currently Grand-Bassam in Côte d'Ivoire) and "Little Popo" (currently Aného in Togo) book-end today's Ghana.

One of the geographic features of the Gold Coast was it's poor natural port. In the 19th century, visitors to Accra would anchor off the coast and come ashore in surf-boats (which most travelers despised!). No surprise then that Marlow's French steamer passed by Accra.

Eric Akumiah, Ex Director of the Ghana Internet Registry on the state of digitization in Ghana #icadla4

Hon. Matilda Amissah-Arthur, 2nd Lady of Ghana & keynote at ICADLA4, Accra

Opening ceremony of ICADLA4 in Accra with the Ghana Dance Ensemble

Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. - Conrad #QotD

Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, 'When I grow up I will go there.' The North Pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, I haven't been there yet, and shall not try now. The glamour's off. Other places were scattered about the hemispheres. I have been in some of them, and . . . well, we won't talk about that. But there was one yet--the biggest, the most blank, so to speak--that I had a hankering after.
- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899, 1902)

Conrad has always been one of my touchstone authors and Heart of Darkness and important and key work for me. And so, off to fill in some blank spaces on my personal globe.