///Kumasi & Politics///

Lotsa things going on lately in the Akpungalo Junction. First off my roommate Dan Lawton is catching a national buzz for the piece he wrote about the political affiliation of U of O faculty who are involved in a program that invests millions annually for political diversity. It was first in our school paper but was then picked up by the Christian Science Monitor a huge national publication. Sometime last week it picked up a lot of buzz and led top his subsequent radio interview with Lou Dobbs on CNN radio. The next day he was asked by Bill O'Reilly to be on his radio show and his name was googled over 500 times, all while being in Ghana so it must ahve been just a little strange I can imagine. But the piece is really good and while pissing off most of the faculty and staff it was a very honest piece and goes to show that out of the 111 faculty and staff members, only 2 are republicans, one of them being our President Dave Frohnmeyer. Check it out it is pretty interesting.
http://media.www.dailyemerald.com/media/storage/paper859/news/2009/06/01/Opinion/A.Vast.Disparity-3745308.shtml

Also, we are all doing journalism internships in one form or another. Some are at Tv station, others at radio and newspapers, and then people like me at Ad and PR agencies. My roomate matt works for the Dialy Graphic which is the biggest newspaper in Ghana.
I don't know how many of you are familiar with the Eric Frimpong story but here are the basics and Matt and I plan on reseaching the story that has gained a lot of publicity back home but not so much notariety here. But bascially Eric is a Ghanaian soccer player that went to UCSB and after being part of their national Championship team and eventually being drafted by DC United, he was accused and convicted of rape and sentenced to 6 years in prison. Now anyone who knows Eric would vehemently disagree of the charges and decision and although there was no DNA evidence to convict him and no signs of lying by Eric himself and previous alcohol related problems with Jane Doe herself, he sits in his cell while the appeal process is in motion. Here is the story ESPN the magazine did, its pretty mind blowing. He seems very innocent and non deserving of his sentence while enduring an unfair trial to begin with.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=4300383

What no writer has seemed to capture though in the Ghanaian side to this story and contacting his family here to see how it has effected them. What Matt and I want to do is show how something like this can effect Eric and his 3 families(Ghanaian, American friends, and soccer). Thanks to many contacts from my main man Jeff Foudy (shout outs to Foudy) we are on the brink of executing a really interesting story.


Lastly, we just got back from Kumasi last night which is 4 hours north of Accra. It was rad, we went to many craft villages where yes Mom I got you something nice. But one things will most likely be my lasting image of Africa and that is the Kumasi Central Market, the second largest market in the world next to Ethiopia. It is number 1 on my top ten list of places to never have a panic attack. You can get your True Religion jeans with your Elephant skin, and your diapers with your cow eyes. The meat market was insane, you can walk right through 15 men with machetes chopping animal heads off, It should be the setting of the new Silence of The Lambs movie. People in our group were throwing up, as the smell resonates on your clothes like a bonfire. Google image the Kumasi Central Market. Here are a couple images to give you a feel.