Update on Ghana

The transition of power in Ghana to the sitting vice president appears to have gone smoothly. Ghana has established itself as a mature and stable democratic republic in recent years. Unlike the US endeavours to export democracy to places like Afghanistan and Iraq, Ghana has been remarkably successful in establishing a vibrant free market economy, stable democratic political system, and respect for human rights. It did all this on its own without any foreign intervention from the US.

Vefa Centre 2012

Yesterday I went to the Vefa Centre for the first time in two years. It has some new additions including a new coffee shop, a central fountain, and a sushi bar that were not there two years ago. Betastores Three which took over Ramstor as the anchor grocery store is now closed. But, there is a sign in Russian saying that a supermarket is coming to the vacated space soon.

News from Ghana

The current president of Ghana died Tuesday. I am still in Kyrgyzstan, but will return to Accra in August to teach. Consider this an open thread on how the death of Mills will affect the presidential elections in Ghana this year.

More on Yeti

I saw another billboard for Yeti on Moskovska today. Evidently it is an energy drink of some sort.

Yeti

Yesterday I saw a billboard on Chui advertising a beverage called Yeti. I have no idea what type of beverage it is. But, I like the name.

Thank God for small favors

The more I read about the sheer stupidity of academics in universities in the White English speaking world the happier I am to be working at the University Ghana. There are a few exceptions like SOAS. But, for the most part the people working at universities in the US, UK, and Australia as faculty are absolutely horrible people. Nowhere else can one find such egotistical, thin skinned, blowhards.  I am not sure what went wrong, but the domination of the industry in the above countries by complete jerks does appear to be a major problem.

Indians in Bishkek

I have noticed there are a lot more Indians in Bishkek now than there were even last year. It especially hit home when I went to pick up my visa extension at OVIR and noticed that my passport was the lone US one among a veritable sea of Indian passports. Despite their increased presence here there are still very few Indian restaurants in town.

Beverages

Kyrgyzstan has a number of beverages that are not available in Ghana. Most of these are sold at stands on the sidewalk similar to the traditional US lemonade stand. The most common stands are Shoro and Tan. They each sell a version of sour milk mixed with soda water and salt, iced tea with lemon flavor, and a grain based beverage. I generally either get the sour milk drink from Shoro or the iced tea from Tan. Other beverages one sometimes sees on the street are kvass and compot.

Happy Independence Day

To my family, friends, and any other readers I may have in the US, Happy Independence Day.

Television

In Ghana I don't watch much local television. I don't pay much attention to it here either. But, sometimes I notice programs playing in the background. Kyrgyzstan gets a variety of channels from neighboring countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan, and China in addition to local fare. The other day I noticed that a movie from China dubbed in Russian was playing on a station based in Kazakhstan. For some reason that struck me as funny.

Current Writing Project

Yesterday I had a pretty good idea for a journal article. I started writing it out and I have got 16 pages double spaced finished so far. I even managed to work some of the material I found in the archives here into the footnotes. The article is a comparison of African diasporic populations to other similar diasporic groups in the USSR such as the ethnic Germans, Koreans, Jews, Greeks, Finns, and other nationalities with ancestral origins in Europe and East Asia. There is not a whole lot written on Soviet citizens of African ancestry, but I think I have enough to write a solid comparative article. It certainly continues my development along a path of doing more comparative scholarship with regards to Africa.

Russian-Germans in the Central State Archives of the Kyrgyz Republic

The staff at the Central State Archives of the Kyrgyz Republic in Bishkek are very nice and helpful. It has a nice reading room that is quite accessible to foreign scholars. Unfortunately, most of what I was looking for has apparently been reclassified as secret, a total of eight registries (opisi) that I requested. I was told there was no possible way for me to access them. Ironically a number of works published before I first arrived in Bishkek in the summer of 2007 cite these secret document and some were even reproduced verbatim in 2000. Another five registries with material dealing with Russian-Germans have been moved to the archives in Talas. So I got to look at four files from four different fonds that had a little over 50 individual documents that were of some interest. Among these was a greeting from the Executive Committee of the Volga German ASSR to the Germans in Leninfeld from 1924 written in German and a protocol of a 1926 meeting of 28 Germans in Gruenfeld outside Tokmak on the issue of redistricting the Kyrgyz Autonomous Oblast. But, as I suspected I did not find anything earth shattering.

Imperialism

I am not sure where the idea that the US relationship with every developing country in the world was the exact same phenomenon as the British, French, and Portuguese colonization of Africa came from. But, calling everything the US does abroad imperialism and referring to America's projection of power abroad an empire as if it was the same thing as British rule over India or the Gold Coast is not very helpful. To my mind there has to be some sort of political control over the foreign territory involved, economic exploitation of the ruled population, and a subjective feeling of being colonized by the inhabitants of the peripheral region for a relationship to be imperial. All three of these things for instance exist in Israel's rule over the West Bank. But, it is hard to find a single place where all three exist with regards to the US to any similar degree.

Mushroom salad

Last night I had a fried mushroom and tomato salad with onions and mayonnaise for dinner. It was quite good. I do not remember ever eating fried fresh mushrooms prepared as a salad before. Unfortunately, tonight's dinner will be pelmeni, edible, but not anything new and exciting.

Things to remember about Archives

First, things get reclassified. Stuff that was freely available fifteen years ago and even published verbatim twelve years ago can again be marked as secret and top secret and locked away for decades. This apparently can happen to whole fonds, not to mention opisi. The archives available today may be a very sanitized version of the official history as one comes across numerous pages simply marked "Secret" or finds lots of little s marks on one's requests for documents.

Two, things get moved. Archives that were at one time in a central location may be moved to outlaying provincial or regional archives. Unlike in the case above they are theoretically still accessible if one can get another letter of introduction from a local university director and can travel several hundred miles to the new location.

Three, some stuff just gets lost. That is they can not find the file and there is no record of it being ever classified as secret or top secret or moved to another archive. 

Four, a lot of stuff before the 1940s is not typed. Instead it is written out by hand and is extremely difficult to read. Even though typewriters existed in the 1920s they evidently were not in widespread use in many parts of the world. 

Archives

Recently I have been spending some time in the State Archives of the Kyrgyz Republic. I have not found any earth shattering revelations. Nor do I expect to find any. But, it is always interesting to see how institutions organize their records. So far what I have not found and what is missing from the available records has been far more intriguing than what I have actually seen.

It stays light a lot longer here

I have gotten used to it being dark every night before 7:00 living in equatorial Africa. I had forgotten how long it stays light during the summer in Central Asia. Although, I have not forgotten how cold and short the days in the winter are here and I don't miss that at all.

Update

I do not have anything of great importance to report. Very little seems to have happened in Bishkek since I was last here about a year ago. It is nice not to have any papers to grade.

Back in Bishkek

I made it to Bishkek where I am spending most of the summer. I won't be posting a lot until I get back to Ghana. But, in case anybody wondered where I had gone I thought I should post that I had gone to Kyrgyzstan. I will be back in Legon in early August.

Slow Blogging Ahead

I have to go tomorrow and take care of some stuff. Blogging will be  light if at all for the next two months. If anybody wants to know what I am up to during this time send me an e-mail. Otherwise the next semester at the University of Ghana starts in August. I will be back here then.