Canoe

Every so often life throws something so surprisingly comforting and so delightfully glorious your way. And it is normally in simple pleasures.

I have found one such comfort in my quarterly readings of Canoe magazine. Published by Ghanaians, with an increasing number of West African contributors and writers, Canoe is a celebration of all that is relevant, apt and timely in Africa. A spectacle of how far we have come, and a trailer of what our tomorrows may be. Afro-centric to the core, afropolitian in content, resurgent Africa in attitude and afrochic in style, Canoe makes me so unreservedly proud to be African.

Whilst the majority of our governments and leaders have spectacularly frustrated and disappointed us, what a publication such as Canoe inspires in me is that in rising above the challenges we face day in day out in the underdevelopment of our nation, social and economic infrastructures, we choose to experience that abundant life our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus promised.

And this is our hope: that Africans can discover, exhibit and manifest the fullness of the creativity and intellect surrounding their God-given skills, abilities and talents in their generation.

On the eve of my nation’s golden jubilee celebrations I remain astonished at our limited progress. That I have not posted a note on the blog for over a month is testament to the daily and constant challenges one faces in day to day living in ‘this our great nation’. Few hours of electricity a day, five hours in traffic a day, over-priced goods and services (for most goods in Nigeria are over-priced not expensive – diamonds are expensive), reduced productivity, and the list goes on. But yet, we do and yet we do go on. We do go on demonstrating resilience, exhibiting hope and demonstrating ambition. This is what makes Africa so great – the attitude of her people.

Canoe’s creative director, Kweku Ansah, put it this way in the February 09 edition, naming that attitude ‘The Obamian Complex’:

An inspirited state of existence that propels a person to optimize their potential and utlise their opportunities in pursuit of higher goals, based mainly on merit and braced with courteous audacity, but free from stereotypical expectations and other self restraining inhibitions.

Welcome, the African Renaissance.

So, The Art of Living subscribers, I may not have been blogging, but I have been reading – marveling at all that is afrochic, afropolitican, afrocentric and Obamian around me; and praying that I will be partaker of the brilliance and splendor of Africa. Won’t you sign on?