As some of you may know, 25th May is ‘Africa Day’ and what made this year’s special is its 60th anniversary. Did you celebrate or do you ever celebrate AU day at all; personally, at your workplace, church, community? If so what did you do this year?
I will share my AU Day experience with you. In days leading up to the AU day, myself and a select few ONE Campaign UK based African activists travelled to Birmingham to participate in a photoshoot and interview towards celebrating ‘our day’ as Africans. For the photoshoot, we dressed in our ‘African themed/inspired’ clothing and also danced to our own choice of African music to celebrate our pride and culture. Out of all the activists present, I was the only Ghanaian and the rest were Nigerians (Yeah right!).
I really wish I had a ‘Kente‘ outfit to showcase but unfortunately I don’t (I used to) so I wore a skirt designed in Ghana in one of our traditional cloths. The cloth has a meaning but I do not know what it is (these are the times when I wish my grandma was alive to tell me its meaning. She actually taught me the names of numerous clothes and its meanings which I still remember clearly). The Nigerians comprised of Igbos and Yorubas who also dressed in their traditional outfits and danced to ‘Afrobeats’. I did some ‘Azonto’ moves and danced to Sarkodie’s ‘You Go Kill Me‘ and Fuse ODG’s ‘Antenna‘. BRING BACK AZONTO!
After the photoshoot, we also had an interview where we were asked questions surrounding what Africa Day meant to us, what it feels like being an African in the UK and our activism regarding African centred issues. This was actually fun and personally, gave me the opportunity to be honest in my responses. Moving on, two activists and I sat down to have a couch conversation on what Africa Day meant to us. This gave me the opportunity to say a lot of things that I always tell my friends when we have conversations surrounding Africa especially Ghana but this time round on camera (this is actually pushing me further to starting a project that has been on mind for a while now). It was a well spent 18 minutes!
Afterwards, we headed down to an African restaurant, Bantu somewhere in the centre of Brimingham to have a nice meal to wrap up the day. Some of the Nigerian activists had their native food namely ‘Pounded Yam and Egusi’, ‘Pounded Yam with Bitter Leaf Soup’, ‘Suya‘. I had ‘Moroccan Ribs with Jollof Rice‘ (not sure which country this jollof rice belongs to! LOL) and tried ‘Peppered Goat Meat‘ also known as ‘Asun‘, a Nigerian delicacy – it was actually good! But I can’t say same for their customer service. My Goodness! It was terrible! The amount of time spent waiting for the food coupled with some people even not getting their food and the extra time wasted waiting for it. Others ordered a takeaway and did not even get it after waiting and waiting…and oh! One of the waitresses was arguing with one of us like….Girl! The customer is KING and ALWAYS right! No matter what, you don’t do that!! Phew! Do Better Bantu!
After catching up and ‘chit chatting’ for a while, we made our way to the train station to our various destinations. I landed in Leeds around 8pm and by 9pm I was home!
Here are some PHOTOS from the day, Enjoy. HAPPY AFRICA DAY!
P.S. Check out our newsletter for Africa Day 🙂
Gertrude says...... 