Word: kwame
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...Fodome, a small village in the eastern Volta region of the new nation, 22-year-old Kwame Deh and his family and friends gathered around a radio and listened through crackling static. "I felt very happy," remembers Deh. "The future was ours...
...left them with a deep appreciation of basic principles that others take for granted: stability, democracy, jobs. This is the story of one family - three generations of Ghanaians - who have experienced the struggles and triumphs that define Africa's first 50 years. In many ways, the Dehs - Kwame, Suzzy and Delight - are unremarkable, average. But in their incredible ability to keep mining Africa's most precious resource - optimism - they are extraordinary. Just like Africa itself...
...HOPE AND FRUSTRATION Linus Kwame Deh was born on the floor of a mud hut. His parents divorced before he reached school age, and it was his father - a bricklayer and farmer - who raised him. Kwame means Saturday, the day he was born; Linus is his Christian, or colonial name. At school, in the lush hills of the Volta region - an area that had originally been colonized by the Germans, but later came under British rule - the young Kwame sang God Save the King and saluted the British flag. "That's the training for discipline," remembers Kwame, now 72. Along...
...Kwame is sprightly for his age. When I first met him in April last year, he was wearing loose-fitting gold-colored trousers, a gold shirt and a small gold skullcap all made from the same embroidered fabric. He welcomed me into his modest rented home on the eastern edge of Accra, pumping my hand with the energy and strength of a man 20 years younger. The inside walls of his living room were painted electric blue, and a gold vase of plastic flowers sat on the coffee table. There was a small television in the corner, and a telephone...
...After leaving school, Kwame trained as a sculptor. Working off a photo supplied by grieving relatives, he would mold the face of a mother or father or child for their gravestone, or craft statues of Mary, Jesus and the saints for the many churches that were springing up across the country. Traveling from village to village, Kwame discovered a curious thing: people in the Volta region were underwhelmed by the idea of independence. Fearing that Ghana's bigger tribes would discriminate against them, many Voltans wanted independence to come in stages, or even the chance to secede altogether. Tribalism, which...