Asase Ba Podcast - S2E4: Let's Listen to Our Children (Uncle Emmanuel's Ghanaian Story)
Transcript
[Asase Ba Theme Music]
Michelle: Hello and welcome to Asase Ba, a podcast that honours oral tradition and shines light on Ghanaian cultures and stories that are often untold or silenced. I’m your host Michelle, and my pronouns are she and her.
Welcome back, guys! So this is officially episode four. How’s everyone doing? Summer is winding down and it’s getting to that stage where fall is coming. When it’s the end of August, I’m just kind of like “oh boy, the cold again.” Living in Canada, I guess that’s just how it is but anyways, I hope everyone is doing well.
I’m glad to be back for another episode, sharing more stories from the elders. But before we get into this episode, thank you to everyone who continues to listen to the podcast, subscribe, share everything. I see it and appreciate you, thank you so much.
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So something that I’ve also been thinking about this week and today, while I record this, is reaching the elders within this digital world we live in. A lot of elders I know are on WhatsApp, Facebook, some are watching YouTube videos and I’m just thinking…I’m making this podcast. This season focuses on elders, how are the elders going to listen to the podcast episodes?
I’ve been sharing it on WhatsApp, telling elders I know to listen, telling the people I’ve interviewed to share it with their network, but I’m just thinking some more.
Because it’s one thing to interview them, talk to them, and all of that. And with technology, we can’t only think of it as something for the youth or people that are tech-savvy. Some elders are tech-savvy, but some are not. So what about the ones that are not? What do we do to reach them and bring them into this new technological world? If you have any ideas, let me know. Hashtag #AsaseBaPod or @AsaseBaPod. Let me know how you are reaching the elders in your life, especially the ones that are not tech-savvy.
How are you reaching them? How are you bringing them into this fold of this modern age where everything is all high-tech? What are you doing? Let me know @AsaseBaPod.
Alright, so on to the episode. This season I primarily interviewed different Ghanaian women and they talked about their experiences, their stories. Very interesting conversations so go listen if you haven’t already. This episode, in particular, is the only episode I’ve interviewed a Ghanaian man this season. This was a really cool, interesting conversation.
Just overall, I wanted to focus on Ghanaian women because I feel like even just doing research, you don’t hear too many stories about Ghanaian women within our history. It’s not as shared or broadcasted as Ghanaian men so I really wanted to focus on Ghanaian women. And women are a marginalized group.
In this episode, in particular, I speak with a Ghanaian man—Uncle Emmanuel. It’s a really cool and interesting conversation. He talks about growing up in the Ashanti region in Ghana, vivid childhood memories, cultural customs and traditions, the political climate when he was growing up in Ghana especially with all the coups and the political instability during that time; moving to Germany then Canada, the Ghanaian Canadian Association of Ontario, which he’s the president of; life lessons, wisdom for the youth, and his peers, and much more!
What I really enjoyed about this interview and talking with Uncle is that oftentimes, we’re asking and looking to the elders to give advice to the youth but sometimes, it’s like what advice do they have for their peers in how they should be communicating with the young people? So that’s something that was covered in this interview and was really interesting. I love all the things that Uncle said about how his peers, his colleagues, his age group could communicate with their children or the young people.
Because I feel like sometimes you’ve got to hear it from people your own age to take that kind of stuff seriously and to take things in and to absorb it. Unfortunately, sometimes that’s just the case. So I really, really enjoyed that and I think you will too. So let’s get into this interview and I’ll see you after. Enjoy!
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Michelle: To begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Uncle Emmanuel: My name is Emmanuel Duodu. I was born in Ghana and I've been living in Canada for about 32 years. That is the standpoint of me where I was born in Ghana, migrated to Canada, and living here with my family. So that’s me.
Michelle: Where in Ghana were you born and raised?
Uncle Emmanuel: I was born in the Ashanti region, from a town called Akumadan in Ofinso area.
Michelle: Being born and raised there, amongst your family and your friends, what three words would your family used to describe how you were as a child?
Uncle Emmanuel: I think I was respectful, kind, and determined. These are the three things they would use to describe me.
Michelle: What is a strong memory you can recall about living in Ghana, maybe as a kid or as a teenager? What’s something that you can recall that you're like “when I was in Ghana this is something that I always remember and I always talked about”?
Uncle Emmanuel: I think one of the things I vividly remember and always relish is the sense of community, sense of togetherness, and the sense of sharing and the sense of family and that we were all glued together in the town. And when we meet it's like a family. We all care for each other and people can share things across different families. So that is something I always relish and remember. The fun part of it is it's amazing. You heard the saying that “it takes a community to raise a child.” It’s an African saying and it is true to where I came from.
Michelle: That’s great. The sense of community, that's something that is so important to me and that's part of one of the reasons that I started this podcast.
What kind of things did you do when you were living in Ghana that really honed in the sense of community that we have and the whole mentality about “it takes a village to raise a kid?” What kind of things did you guys do that made you understand how important community was to Ghanaians?
Uncle Emmanuel: Though I was very young at that time, I vividly recall that when it comes to let's say, cleaning up the city, everyone gets together. There is a date people come together and say “today's the day for us to clean up our community.” It’s not only your house but the whole community. That is also a piece of it.
And I also remember when there are marriages everywhere, people get together and make sure they celebrate that. It is not only a family, but all the families in the city get to participate in community development and they participate in celebrations, milestones. So these to me really bind the community together that we are one. We are the same people and that to me is a memory that I try to see if we can replicate a little bit over here.
Michelle: Yeah, exactly. And I see there are a lot of community events that people hold to try and replicate that sense of community. [For example], our weddings and even our funerals and other spiritual communities. That's kind of how I see, at least from my perspective, how Ghanaians try to replicate that sense of community that we feel when we're back home.
And so while you were living in Ghana, describe some cultural or maybe traditional customs that you engaged in when you were growing up.
Uncle Emmanuel: I witnessed my aunties and family members get married and the tradition is beautiful, where the two families come together to go through the whole process and ensure that it’s not only the bride and the groom, but it's more than that.
It’s the families who have a vested interest in two people coming together and those were powerful memories in my mind, from the whole process of getting everyone to know that “look we’re behind these two young people” and to me that is powerful.
One of the things to talk about is funerals. It’s also a piece of it. We also ensure that mourning is not only exclusive to the families. It is communal mourning, which means that we support when somebody loses a family member and the whole community comes along and support; doing cleanup for the person and cooking for the person, ensuring that she or he is not alone so this takes the burden away to some point.
Also, when a child is born the whole naming ceremony in a way, is also very powerful. It’s a celebration but in a way that is beautiful. It’s not over the top or something that is extravagant, but the beauty of it is those beautiful cultural traditions around that, you know? Just incredible.
Michelle: Yeah, like the name naming ceremony and all of that. Obviously, I'm Ghanaian and I'm immersed in the culture but also, I understand that [what we do in] Canada versus what goes on in Ghana, change a little bit or adapt.
We make some adaptations based on where we are in our circumstances and stuff and I know the naming ceremony, for instance, is such an important part of Ghanaian culture and also particularly, the Akan culture.
There's a lot of spiritual stuff involved with that, so when you brought it up right now, it’s like “oh yeah, that's something that's such a hallmark of our culture.”
How was it like when you were back home going to school—elementary school, high school. What was your experience like?
Uncle Emmanuel: I would say that from the standpoint of families, it's no different from what I experiencing in Canada here. You're going to school, you go through the normal process and you're in school, you are with your friends, family support... I think maybe the difference is the climate. We’re in a country that is a tropical country so it's warm the whole twelve months. So we get to do a lot of things outdoors, so that is different.
Sometimes we can go outside on the lawn somewhere or the tree somewhere and just sit under the tree and do certain things, not just being in the classroom always. So teachers would be so innovative and take advantage of the kind of climate and happily do other things as well. I think it was very good to just see that as part of a school curriculum, where teachers were very innovative and doing things.
As I said, to me I think the memories I recall are fun memories with friends and our friendships too were stronger because then, we go to school, people would come to my home and we all share the food we have. If I go to [my friends’] place, we all share. That kind of camaraderie was just amazing. Sharing was part of our upbringing, even in the school setting. I think I relish that a lot.
Michelle: Uncle, if you don't mind me asking—you don't have to share your age if you don't want to—but what decade were you going to school in Ghana?
Uncle Emmanuel: I started school around 1968-69. From primary one, and it goes on and on.
Michelle: During the 60s in Ghana, there was a lot of change going on. The decade before, Kwame Nkrumah became the first president of Ghana, which changed a lot of things. Do you remember that time in the 60s? Do you remember any kind of political or economic change during that time that affected your life or your family's life?
Uncle Emmanuel: Vaguely. I do remember that it was an era when the standard of living in Ghana was high. I have read about it and I've experienced a bit of it. Some of us have seen the residual impact in that generation. But I think from independence to the Nkrumah era, the standard of living in Ghana was high and because it was a new country that got independence and a lot of hope and everything and policies were geared towards having a very strong economy.
What I heard from my family is it was an era where the standard of living was high. Talking about the economy, I know there were some political upheaval. To my understanding, there were some basic freedoms that were curtailed and military interventions happened and a lot of things changed.
So from the 60s, so many things happened from a country that was the beacon of Africa and being a country that happens to be the torchbearer of independence for the whole continent and everybody looked up to it. It was kind of a mecca for people who were fighting for freedom or civil rights even from the United States. From everywhere. They were looking up to Ghana.
And then the coup happened and the government was overthrown and things went into retreat so the momentum was lost and a lot of things happened and had a downward spiral at some point. So that's what happened. For me, I think what I do recall…I heard “hey, there is a coup, there is a new government and we are getting freedom…” As to whether they realized that, is something to be debated.
Michelle: With the kind of rocky political climate that happened after the coup, did it affect your decision to move from Ghana to Canada or abroad?
Uncle Emmanuel: It's an interesting question. There are different factors. Personally, I think yes to some point. I thought that the dreams we had might not be realized with the current economic climate. So that was one of the drivers. At the same time too, one of the drivers was that we used to think about going abroad to see if we can enhance our educational capabilities so that was also a factor. So one was: can I realize the economic dreams I have? And two, how would I have the opportunity to pursue my educational career the way I want to? So these were the two drivers as far as I'm concerned.
Michelle: Okay. And when you made that decision, what it was like? Where did you go when you left Ghana for the first time?
Uncle Emmanuel: My experience began when I had a little scholarship to study somewhere in Germany for six months. That is how I started and from there, I hopped to Canada. The initial plan was not to come here at all. But getting to know other people, they said “yeah it's a good country, somewhere that would be good for your family down the road.” And that’s what got me here.
Michelle: So I know a lot of people including my parents and their friends, went to Germany at first. And hearing that, do you know why Germany was the first place that a lot of Ghanaians went?
Uncle Emmanuel: Personally, there was a school in Ghana called Goethe Institue. It was a German school. And those days, I had some money for tuition so I said “I'm going to pay and go there, learn German maybe I can transition to that.” So for me, it was that. I got there and went through that process and finally got down here. There are some Ghanaians that went to Germany, some went to Holland, some went to the UK. So I'm not sure, I think likely maybe it was easier to get to Germany. It was all based on the easiness to enter that country. That’s why maybe a lot of Ghanaians ended up in Germany.
Michelle: Okay. And when you first stepped foot in Germany, what did you think? Because it's such a different culture, what did you think and how was your experience living in Germany?
Uncle Emmanuel: For me, my excitement was “hey, I’m here and I see a lot of big libraries, see a lot of books here and there so I'm going to immerse myself in books.” The second thing is I was struck by the level of development that I saw over there. I saw how little people knew about Africa. The only thing people knew was just the negatives from the people that were there. And I’m not blaming them because it's not part of their educational curriculum, so anything African or Ghanaian was being looked at from a negative standpoint. Overall, people’s relationship with local people…to me, I didn’t find anything unpleasant. I thought it was good.
Michelle: So how did you find the Ghanaian community there? Did you find the Ghanaian community there?
Uncle Emmanuel: There were a lot of Ghanaians from different backgrounds. And as always, when Ghanaians meet in a different place, they always organize themselves and say, “look, let's make sure we are there for each other” so it's not different from what we see here in Canada and maybe the US. Ghanaians are very good in saying, “look, I'm here. I've seen my brother. How do we get together over here so that in the event that something happens, can support each other?” We do that, so it's the same. The spirit of kindness, care for each other, camaraderie, is always there and I think continue to thrive today.
Michelle: So what was the journey like living in Germany and you said you studied there as well?
Uncle Emmanuel: That's right, yeah so it was very good. Like I said, my time there I don't have any regrets at all. So I think building our lives, we go through different phases and I think I learned a lot so all those things are part of what shaped me.
Michelle: How did you make it from Germany to Canada, what was the journey like?
Uncle Emmanuel: It wasn’t a big deal. I came here to visit and I decided to stay and that's what happened. It wasn’t complicated for me that time. I was studying over there, I had a student visa and I just came here to visit and I immigrated to this place.
Michelle: Okay and did you notice any major differences between living in Germany versus living in Canada?
Uncle Emmanuel: Well when I got to Canada, I noticed that it's a country that has a lot of land. I was struck by that. It’s a huge country. There is so much space and I didn’t see that much space in Europe because they have a small land and a lot of people. But I found so much space over here. To me, that was fascinating. I saw that it was a country to grow, someplace you can start a family. I was very impressed with what I saw and I continue to be amazed by what this country offers.
Michelle: That’s great! When you were living in Canada, how was it like in the economic sector, getting a job here and everything?
On the last season of Asase Ba, I talked to another elder who had quite a rocky experience. She came to Canada in the 70s and she was trying to get a job and she faced some discrimination and she wasn't able to do what she wanted to do. So I was wondering what was your experience like in Canada?
Uncle Emmanuel: I think discrimination is always tough and those of us who came here as first-generation, it is a lot of sacrifice. What I mean is that some of us came here with different professions we wanted to pursue and we have to navigate through that to see “look, what can I do now? What is it that I need to do to number one, make sure that I can pay the bills?”
And some people have their wives and maybe families in Ghana that they wanted to bring over. Then also going through the immigration process too, how do you ensure that you can stay permanently in the country? And now once you stay, school education and also taking care of families and helping people at home…so these are forces you need to deal with and getting a job too. You have to overcome some of the obvious.
Someone from Ghana or Africa comes with education and transferable skills, has an accent, how is he going to fit in today? So there are a few challenges that we had to overcome and it requires determination, it requires resiliency to say that “you know what, regardless of all this, I'm going to push through and I'm gonna work hard and not let anything stop me.” So I can appreciate the whole barriers a lot of immigrants—Ghanaians or Africans for that matter—encountered at the earliest age of migration.
Michelle: Did you personally face any difficulties with that?
Uncle Emmanuel: I would say that to some extent, but I must say that I was blessed that I was able to get something sooner. So not overly arduous. Like I said, we had different experiences. I had some that I tried to look at from the standpoint that these experiences also shaped my life over here. It’s helped me to understand what it is like for the first generation in this country. And I’m sure that many immigrants from other cultures face that too.
Michelle: Uncle, so how did you connect with the Ghanaian community here in Canada when you moved?
Uncle Emmanuel: That is easy because Ghanaians like I said, once we get together, we meet each either through work or church associations or through word of mouth or where we live. People predominantly used to live in Jane and Finch, Kipling, Etobicoke and Chalkfarm and other areas. So it was a cluster of Ghanaians in those areas and it was easy to connect. There were people who come from the same area you come from in Ghana or people you know or just making friends. So to me, connecting with Ghanaians is one of the easiest things to do and I never experienced any problems with that at all.
Michelle: That's great! So you mentioned church, you mentioned associations and speaking of associations, you're the president of the Ghanaian Canadian Association of Ontario. Can you tell me a little bit about the organization and your role in that?
Uncle Emmanuel: This organization was formed a long time ago and I think it started with Ghanaians who came here to study for university; some University of Toronto, some York University. And they said, “Hey, let's get ourselves together here and start an association.”
Then it evolved into a lot of associations. I think when it was formed, there were fewer associations. They were just students predominantly. If you look at the 60s and 70s, most Ghanaians who were here were students and that's what they did.
And then in the mid-80s or early 80s, there was a wave of Ghanaians and they were not necessarily students, they just immigrated here. And they formed associations based on where they come from in Ghana. Whether they are Gas from Accra, or whether they’re from the Ashanti region, whether they are Kwahu, whether they are Fantes, Northerners, Bono or from the Volta association. They all said, “look, let’s form an association” and they built churches as well.
Then they said, “you know what, let’s get an umbrella organization so let’s build into that.” So they built this, which is a union of all these churches and associations so that we can organize ourselves horizontally around causes that transcend some of these verticals.
Like whether I am an Ashanti or Bono or maybe Pentecost or Methodist, it doesn’t matter, we’re all Ghanaians. There are things we can rally around as Ghanaians to make sure we can get them going. And also, ensuring that we can create some value-added platform for our young people to thrive. To me, this is one of the goals of the Ghanaian Canadian Association as well: provide business opportunities and other things. So yes, I happen to be the president at this time.
Michelle: That's great! And I love that you mentioned that this is an association for all the different ethnic groups within Ghana to come together and just create a platform or build a foundation so that the younger Ghanaians can thrive and just have a community that they can refer back to and all that so I like that that's one of your missions.
Uncle Emmanuel: Exactly and I think that is one of our cardinal reasons or goals. Like I said, we have to ensure that as first-generation, what do we bequeath? All the experiences and the things we’ve done, how do we help our young people to do better than us? Our goal is that we are here, now we have acquired all this knowledge. How can we ensure that we can help our young people not to go through some of the challenges we went through and also ensure that they can also remember the wonderful culture we have.
So these are some of the things we as an association want to continue to evolve and build and strengthen—the sense of community, the sense of oneness, the sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. And making sure that we all unite and help each other in the community. To me, that is the spirit of this organization.
Michelle: That is really great to hear as a younger Ghanaian, that the older generation is creating these platforms and events just to make sure that us, the younger generation, has that moving forward and have that foundation and community. It is great to hear at my end. So what kind of activities have you done or are you planning to do to make sure that this vision comes to life?
Uncle Emmanuel: A lot. To me, one is engagement. It is very important. When I became the president, one of the transformations that I put forward is the proverbial house. What I mean is that this is our community and if you visualize what a house is, a house means that we care for each other and we are there for each other. And what are the building blocks of this house?
The building block is education, social cohesion, youth empowerment, and taking care of our seniors. And also ensuring that business thrives in our community. We have created something we call the Ghanaian Canadian Chamber of Commerce. It’s not functioning the way I want but we are working on it. We want to make sure this has a strong foot in our community.
Because if we can create our own business, we can employ our people. We can help people to know that though you work for the government or you work for a company, you can work on a business on the side and use that to employ other people. So that’s one of them.
For our seniors, when you look at the Ghanaian first generation, most of them are retiring and getting old. How do we ensure that we organize our seniors so that we can enhance their lives, not necessarily in a long-term care home but providing an enriching life for them?
The community supports them. We have created this group and at the moment we have a WhatsApp group for them. We were going to have a meeting this April but naturally, because of COVID-19, we didn’t have it for our seniors.
The youth now, we are going through social media and I think this is one way of creating a talent pool of our young people, to create the succession planning and that when we are phasing out, then the young people can come in and take leadership roles in the community. And I think that is very important to me. That is why we created this group of young people in our community taking leadership roles. So succession planning is critical to our success in this country.
We want to empower our women—young women, all of them—to know that they can succeed, they can do whatever they want. And also male incarceration, people who get into prison. Sometimes people come from prison and they don’t know what to do. We can use our churches and association to make sure that we are in tune with what is happening in the educational field. So there are a lot of things that we are doing. We have so many things on our plate. Hopefully, we can get some things going to help our people.
Michelle: For sure. And you mentioned having a plan for seniors and young people to take leadership roles and that just reminds me of the mission of my podcast, which is just to honour our oral tradition and our tradition of elders talking to the younger people. So in your life right now, what do you do to maintain that tradition of passing knowledge either to your children or to the other community members you work with at the organization?
Uncle Emmanuel: As a dad, I have two girls and I try to let them know what it means to be a Ghanaian and I try to teach that in different ways, either through storytelling or telling them my journey, the culture, or even sometimes observing what I do at home—the values of being Ghanaian, the African-ness.
One which is more camaraderie. My kids look at other community members and call them aunties, uncles. It doesn’t matter whether they’re my own blood or biological family. [An example is] you even calling me uncle.
This is one of the things we have established in our community and in our young people. That tradition is very strong. We continue to teach them the value and sense of community and say “look, we are one.” That’s why when we have these youth social mixers, I go there to observe but I want you guys to also start connecting with each other at that level, to know that what binds us together is the origin of Ghana. You come from there and your parents come from there and these are some of the values. They will help you drive some of your personal experience because we are thought at an early age emotional intelligence in Ghana. Which as I mentioned earlier on, is about love, care, kindness, empathy, and all these things. We want our generation and young people to learn that. We should not misconstrue that to mean being passive. That is not what I mean at all. But the emotional intelligence, that to me drives good leadership and sometimes, these things can help us in our professional careers. Not sometimes, always. People pay money to learn some of these things now. Doing their MBA to learn about how to be an effective leader. Some of these things, we learned them when we were young. So we want to ensure we don’t lose track of that in our community.
Michelle: What are some key lessons that you’ve personally learned in life that you want to impart to your daughters or your community?
Uncle Emmanuel: One thing I have learned over the years is to never give up. It’s part of what I’ve learned through my parents. Number two, I have also learned over the years that in every adversary, success is around the corner. So that gives me a sense of resilience so that despite all the challenges, there is hope. I’ve learned that over the years.
Number three, I have also learned that in life, you're not going to get a lot of things on a silver platter or something that is just going to be given to you like that. You have to sometimes demand, you have to fight for it, you have to sometimes engage and make sure you get what you want. I am not saying in a confrontational environment. I’m talking about the sense of determination.
Making sure that as a human being you thrive on excellence, based on pride. “I’m going to get this, I’m working on it.” Hard work and all that stuff. And I learned all these things. These are things I teach my children. Also, I've also learned through life that failure should not define us or when we stumble along the way, it should not define who we are. We should learn the lesson from any adversities and take those things to propel us to directives and these are things I always tell young people. Don't be stuck in the past. You learn from it and keep going. Don't let that define you.
Michelle: That's a message. Definitely a great message. Another question is just I know some young people feel like they can't really come to their parents or to elders and have free open and honest conversations because of whatever reason. What kind of advice would you give to elders or your peers so that their kids or the younger generation feel comfortable going to their parents or elders to talk about anything they want to talk about?
Uncle Emmanuel: A good point. I think my advice to people of my generation is we should consider our children as our friends and we should strike a conversation without children rather than expecting them to talk to us. Most of us grew up in Ghana where in fact, some parents…in some cultures, we say that “when elders are talking, young people should not contribute or they should not listen.”
When you come here, you realize that now it is a two-way affair. Let’s listen to our children. Let's engage them. There are certain days you want to talk to them and there are certain ages they might not want to talk to you and that is okay. But create an environment where they should be at ease to say “you know what dad, can we talk about this?”
I think in our culture, those days when someone's son is talking to him, people used to interpret that to mean that person is not respectful and doesn’t care. Sometimes you talk to your child and it appears they are not paying attention but it does not mean they don’t listen. There are different stages of kids’ life where you have those kinds of swings. But we have to be patient and continue to engage them.
And sometimes, we need to set it up in such a way that it’s a conversation that is not just in passing. If you schedule something and say, “can we talk today? Let me know what’s happening in your school. Is there anything I can help with?” That to me is significant. Sometimes, when they come from school, you should ask them, “how was your day? Is there anything I can help with?” We have to be prompting, asking those questions rather than expecting the child to talk to you.
I think that is what I will tell my generation too, that engage your children, talk to them, get to know them. And try to be someone who listens. Listening is a very important attribute. Listen with the intent to understand. Don’t go “oh this is a child, therefore this…” No, that’s not what it is. You should start at an early age. You shouldn't start talking to them when they are teenagers. You should start talking to them when they are two or three years.
You have to start early. You cannot when they are in their teenage years and you want to engage. It's too late. And also paying attention. So when it comes to parenting these two words are critical: listening, and paying attention. If there’s something that you think may not be alright, ask “can I help? Is there anything I can do to help?” Those are critical pieces in how we can engage and I think it’s incumbent on us as parents to adapt. To me, it’s all about adapting.
I always tell my people that one, we came here to observe; two is to learn, and three is to adapt. Sometimes we observe, we might learn, but sometimes we don’t adapt. It has taken us so many years to observe and now we need to adapt. Parents need to do the same thing. We can not raise our children the way we were brought up. It’s not gonna work. Some of it works.
What I’m talking about is engagement. That’s the level. It’s not gonna be that anything the parents say is final and therefore, it’s a one-way street. It doesn’t work, no.
Michelle: I love how you mentioned listening and attention. I am definitely in agreement and I think those are two critical things to think about when having conversations with your children or younger people. Because as a younger person, I learn a lot from the elders and conversely, I think the older generation also learn from the youth so I think it is definitely a two-way street with listening and paying attention to each other and our experiences.
Thank you so much for bringing those up. So, Uncle, this would wrap up the interview. Thank you again, you had so many words of wisdom and lessons. When you were talking, I was just sitting here saying “yes that is right” and that is great.
Thank you so much for having the time to be interviewed. Just before I go, if anyone wants to connect with you on the Internet, is there anywhere that you want to link them to?
Uncle Emmanuel: Thanks Michelle, I think I really appreciate the opportunity to be on your podcast and I think what you do is great. Your generation is a generation that connects the world in a way that is not found. Using social media for good. And I really appreciate it. We’re here to support you and make sure you are successful because this is one way to engage our people, especially young people.
At this point, I will say that I have a Twitter account but I never use it. In fact, I need to activate that. But I am on WhatsApp and email. I’m very active on WhatsAp. I have Instagram. Facebook. I need to be more active on that as well. So I have all of that and sometimes when you combine all of them, my day goes so fast but I need to be a little more alive on them. Sometimes, they take a lot of time. I’m behind on them. LinkedIn as well. I’m not that active but I’m on there. Sometimes I go and see some people asking, “Hey, where are you? I miss you.”
Michelle: Thank you so much I will put it in the show notes so that anyone can connect with you if they feel called. Thank you again, so much. I will let you go now, I am sure you are busy.
Uncle Emmanuel: Thank you, Michelle, I appreciate it.
***
Michelle: Thank you so much for listening to this episode, I hope you enjoyed it. And if you have any feedback, comments, thoughts, hashtag #AsaseBaPod so I can see it and so that other people can see it. Feel free to email asasebapod@gmail.com as well. Asase Ba is on Twitter and Instagram @AsaseBaPod so hit me up on there and the podcast is published every two weeks, so I will see you in two weeks. Alright, take care, everyone. Bye!
[Asase Ba Theme Music]
Episode Notes
In S2E4 of Asase Ba, Michelle talks to Uncle Emmanuel about growing up in the Ashanti region in Ghana, vivid childhood memories, cultural customs and traditions, the political climate when he was growing up in Ghana, moving to Germany then Canada, the Ghanaian Canadian Association of Ontario, life lessons, wisdom for the youth, and his peers, and more!
Join in on the conversation! Use the hashtag #AsaseBaPod.
SUPPORT
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SOCIAL MEDIA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AsaseBaPod
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GUEST
Emmanuel Duodu - available on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more.
Email: emml.duodu90@hotmail.com
HOST
This podcast is produced, edited and hosted by Ghanaian Canadian Michelle (pronouns: she/her). She is also the creator of the theme music.
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