I only wish that you all could have joined me last night to witness the competition for Miss Ghana 2009 and the men's national dancing competition. Apparently it was scheduled to start at 8pm but in true Ghanaian fashion, didn't begin until a little after 10pm. The event started off with the men's dancing competition. Each man got one minute of freestyle dancing before the next came on stage to take his place. This was followed by a comedian, the beauty pageant, a 5 year old dancing prodigy, and a Ghanaian rapper known as "Castro".
The dancing competition had about 20 contestants. Most of them involved extremely flamboyant costume choices full of bright colors and sequins. I felt like it was a flashback to MC Hammer and old school Michael Jackson. I would say that a majority of these dancers included moonwalking and the worm (or some fashion of rolling around on the floor) into their act. I really couldn't stop laughing throughout much of the show. All of them had these fantastic super sized grins on their faces. I took some video of a few acts to share with you, please see the attached video.
In between the dancing and the next part of the show a small boy was called onto the stage. He was a dancing machine! I swear he was better than many of the adults that had just finished dancing in the competition. He could do all sorts of acrobatics and he definitely had some rhythm. He was also extremely flexible doing some of those tricks that double jointed people can manage. What a cutie, probably my favorite part of the show.
The beauty pageant if you want my honest opinion, I did not really enjoy. I was slightly appalled at the way it all played out. The women all came out on stage at once, performed a very small dance routine. They then came out to introduce themselves individually which was pretty much just a statement of name and where they were from. However, as they introduced themselves, their measurements, or "vital statistics" as they are referred to here, were given. Measurements of bust, waist, and hips. After this each woman was asked a question. Most were very simple such as, "Would you rather be beautiful or intelligent?". I don't feel that a single girl could answer any of the questions with any sort of intelligibility. Most of the answers did not extend longer than a sentence or two and many of them did not even correspond to the questions asked. After this "competition" somehow 3 semi-finalists were selected. I am not sure how this was judged. I also was slightly disgusted that they did not choose girls who were doing something maybe for the community, or something worthwhile. They asked one girl about volunteerism and she did not even appear to know the meaning of volunteering. I just don't think this is a good role model for young women.
The comedian did have some funny jokes, however when he began to compare Ghanaians with white people and looked out into the audience and saw me sitting there, I had a feeling there was trouble. Confirmed when he came off the stage to grab me and pull me up on stage. After asking me a few questions about my name and where I am from and making fun of the accent with which I speak, he asked me how long I have been in Ghana and if I had a visa, when I replied yes, this of course led to the obvious jokes. He then asked the dj to start playing music and began dancing. Then turned it off and asked me to dance in an effort to show that I do not dance as well as a Ghanaian. At this point I just walked off stage. I was already embarrassed by being up on stage (and consequently on tv tomorrow), I didn't need to further the embarrassment.
The Ghanaian singer was actually pretty good and the little boy joined in dancing with them on stage. The audience was for the most part up on their feet dancing along. The show came to an end shortly after that.
Hope everyone has something in their weekend to make them smile. My love to all.
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