Current Musical Gold: Installment 22

"I like music. It defines life, love, and everything in between. I also happen to have an abnormally ridiculous amount of music in my possession, most of which I listen to very very rarely because I have a tendency to overplay. As in, overkill. As in, when I'm feeling a song I will play that tuneage over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again until I am either sick of it, or it is inducted into my special itunes playlist simply titled LEGENDARY. Many songs have come and gone; only the chosen few have made it to LEGENDARY status. Every so often, because I like to share music that is good, I will post the tracks that I am feeling at the moment - the ones that are on trial to make it to LEGENDARY. Hopefully in this manner, you, my readers, will be able to expose yourself to a broader variety of good music. And who knows - maybe it'll even make your LEGENDARY."

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Current Musical Gold: Installment 22 (in no particular order)

1. Can’t Get It Right Today – Joe Purdy

2. May Angels Lead You In – Jimmy Eat World

3. Glory Bound – Wailin' Jennys

4. Un Canadien Errant – Luke Doucet

5. White Winter Hymnal – Fleet Foxes 

6. Cobbled From Dust – The Acorn

7. The Long Journey Home – Aaron Lee Martin

8. Upward Over The Mountain – Iron and Wine

9. Ocean And A Rock – Lisa Hannigan

10. Dors Dans Mon Sang – Karkwa

It’s been a very folky week, clearly.

The parable of the apple, the banana, and the grapefruit

Suppose you are an apple and want your friend, a banana, to be friends with your friend the grapefruit because said grapefruit is one of the gnarliest fruits around and you think banana would benefit greatly from a friendship with grapefruit.  You introduce the two and constantly hound banana about whether or not he has befriended grapefruit yet and when he says no, you get all whiny and go, "Awwww man, but grapefruit is the gnarliest fruit around!" and then banana just gets super weirded out by you and thinks that grapefruit is probably a freak.  And then grapefruit is sad because he really wanted to be friends with banana and was making good progress until you got your stupid apple self in the way and made a big mess of things.

The moral of the story is, you can never make two people become friends.  You can only introduce them and hope that genuine connection occurs, because when it comes down to it, friendship is between two people, and that is that.

I think I'm starting to get why Jesus is so constantly fed up with me.

Ghana Updates: Episode 7

So because Muftaw's show was taken off the air for a bit, Leah and I worked this past Tuesday to Friday and as such, ended up with a four-day weekend.  We decided to take full advantage by heading up north a few hours to Nkoranza, a small town that was of interest to us for two reasons.

The first was Operation Hand in Hand, a children's home for mentally handicapped kids who are abandoned by their parents.  The home also doubles as a guesthouse, and sits on a gorgeous plot of land lush with grass and trees and chickens and donkeys.  First thing Leah and I remarked: the calm.  It was definitely nice to get away from city noise, if only for a night.  We had an early night as the sun went down in the span of thirty minutes, but it paved the way for an early morning that was spent touring Operation Hand in Hand's grounds, seeing the children in the bead workshop, and getting some great interviews for a jhr piece.

The second reason for visiting Nkoranza was its proximity to the Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary.  Now, let me make it clear that I love animals.  So much so that I even took a first-year bio course in third-year as my one elective (not the only reason... it also boosted my GPA at the cost of watching two review lecture videos.  Total bird course, no pun intended.)  There is little wildlife in and around the city centres, which is where we've spent most of our time while in Ghana.  However, out in the rural areas there is still an abundance of living and breathing critters, and the monkeys of Fiema, considered sacred to the locals, were no exception.  They were funny and not at all scared of us, which made for some sweet shots.

Remember to keep checking www.jhr.ca/blog for official updates on the stories we're covering!

peace fam

ATTENTION

Yo, so this is mostly just for my brother, but for those who aren't aware, I am keeping TWO blogs this summer. One is this one, which is for personal perspectives, thoughts, and the same refreshing honesty that keeps you kids coming back (riiiiiight?)

THE OTHER BLOG is my PROFESSIONAL blog (because I'm graduated and doing crazy things like WORKING now) and it's got my PROFESSIONAL perspectives, thoughts, and refreshing honesty (so long as it in no way incriminates jhr) on it. You can find that blog at:

http://www.jhr.ca/blog/author/ctse/

That is all.

Happy Father's Day

Current Musical Gold: Installment 21 (Ghanaian Edition!)

So this is a special edition of CMG, coming to you from Kumasi, Ghana. It features all of the music that blesses the radio waves here. Enjoy.

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"I like music. It defines life, love, and everything in between. I also happen to have an abnormally ridiculous amount of music in my possession, most of which I listen to very very rarely because I have a tendency to overplay. As in, overkill. As in, when I'm feeling a song I will play that tuneage over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again until I am either sick of it, or it is inducted into my special itunes playlist simply titled LEGENDARY. Many songs have come and gone; only the chosen few have made it to LEGENDARY status. Every so often, because I like to share music that is good, I will post the tracks that I am feeling at the moment - the ones that are on trial to make it to LEGENDARY. Hopefully in this manner, you, my readers, will be able to expose yourself to a broader variety of good music. And who knows - maybe it'll even make your LEGENDARY."

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Current Musical Gold: Installment 21 (in no particular order)
1. Hold You - Gyptian
2. I Love My Life - Demarco

Seriously, that's all that plays on the radio. Ghana DJs are of the infamous two-track variety.

Ghana Updates: Episode 6

It's been raining like mad for the past few days, which is REALLY REALLY nice because it keeps things relatively cool. Plus, Ghanaian thunderstorms are wicked awesome. I'm officially a fan.

This past weekend there was a "prayer camp" (also known as a church retreat) that happened on the Presby Guesthouse grounds (our front yard.) There were about two or three hundred people gathered for the weekend in our humble little abode, and things got cramped. As in, I couldn't get out of my door because people had stacked their bags there. As in, we couldn't walk down the hallways without having to navigate our way past dozens of sleeping bodies on pull-out mattresses. It was somewhat of a gongshow, but definitely an experience. What wasn't an experience (or a good one, at least,) was the hours these prayer campers kept - try 5am to 1am. Yeah, if you're counting, that's 20 HOURS of straight singing, praying, exorcising, miracle-working, preaching, dancing, crying, and screaming. Also consider that Leah, Lin, and I enjoy sleeping at regular hours. So yes, it was an interesting weekend. When I went to pay rent today, the woman told me to come see the manager tomorrow about potentially getting some money back for the weekend (I think they felt pretty bad for throwing that situation onto us. Really. We got home from work to find 300 Ghanaians worshiping in our front yard.) So maybe tomorrow, we can get some money back. We'll see.

Anyway, that is that. Finally went to the club that we've been invited to go to every weekened since we got to Kumasi. That was yesterday. More on that later.

For now, here's a picture of some kids from Mufty's neighbourhood. They're gems.

bless up