Anytime I told someone I was from Ghana they would exclaim in so much excitement “Ooohh Ghanaaaaa” and then follow with a hard deafening silence for the next seconds we are together, On days when I am lucky, they ask about our national football team and if we made it to the world cup this year and then I can say No and go on ahead to express how saddening that was, considering the fact that we were the only African Country that made it to the quarterfinals in 2010.
When Matild told me about the Fun Factory I was excited about the idea in itself and then some weeks ahead of it she suggests that my Country, Ghana, be sort of the theme this time. Immediately, I started to have mixed feelings about it. If It will go well at all, if it will be fun enough, If it will be impactful enough because of course, I had to seize this 15-minute opportunity to educate us more about Ghana right!!?
I called my Best friend in Ghana to help me remember some Ghanaian games and she came up with “pimpinaa” (a good one I must say) but just too long for anything that is supposed to last for a quarter hour. So here I am over that weekend still with no game in mind and then boom! AMPE crosses my mind..it is like that one game that every Ghanaian has played at least once in their lifetime but then I thought to myself that it’s a leg thrusting game, and we cannot be jumping in the happening(there’s a shop underground let’s not forget) so obviously we have to be using our hands (which would work as well).
Fast Forward Thursday, Fun Factory day….yaaaay! 4 pm was here, it was time to begin my “Hi my name is Effe and I’m from Ghana” moment and then continue with a short YouTube video that showed how the Ampe game is played. We saw it, I elaborated on it and we were playing it successfully in no time. I mean after the generally confused state of the players not knowing which hand they said they were in the first place(same or opposite)…funny enough, even I asked that too. We played in turns of each participant and eventually I think David, Ariel and Mate proved to be very good at it…I was excited to see the joy with which we all engaged and tried to read which hand the opponent was going to put out.
Now it was time to find out who our walking encyclopedia was….little facts and lies or misconceptions about Ghana were given out and we had to determine if they were true or false. It was again, exciting for me to find out how much the participants knew about Ghana or maybe the African Continent at large…funniestthing was how some people tried to outsmart me in their answering (what a bold way of trying to win chocolate right?)…. In the end Agnes, Ariel and Mate came tops. And was I shocked?
The last Activity, the 2-4-6-1-1 handclapping game which was rather fast and focuses on concentration and keeping up with pace; we had to clap the number of times of the numbers mentioned in the game and be faster with it as we proceed: the slower ones dropout along the line. Everyone drops out. Ariel and I were the last soldiers standing in the end. ..Need I say that Ariel was most Ghanaian woman of the day, and even though she doesn’t take Dairy….Her Kingsbite Ghanaian Chocolate still awaits her.
It was great participating in my first Fun Factory since I started working here. Even better that I got the opportunity to bring Ghana to Hungarians and all other people in my own small way for 15 minutes. By the way I hope you know that the national language for Ghana is not Ghanaian. 🙂
