A MAG is a Modern African Girl, so no subject is taboo. My purpose is to share things which may interest a MAG.

This week's contributors: Lydia, Doré Fasolati, this week's subjects: Kente fashion on the rise, The 16th Afrik Fashion Week, Narcotics for our kids, Musicians never die.

Kente fashion on the rise

Over the weekend I attended a wedding in Swedru and it’s nice to see that Ghanaians are embracing our local fashion and made-in-Ghana materials.

The bride wore a gorgeous customized kente corset gown paired with an army green beaded veil and she looks Magnificent. Bridesmaids wore a wine-colored kente kaba and slit paired with 2inches high heels or flats since the venue didn’t have a smooth ground. More Kente gowns have become the main outfits for weddings, award shows, naming ceremonies, birthday parties, etc. and we can’t get enough of it.

Let’s keep embracing our very own kente from Africa Ghana. Groom and groomsmen are often seen wearing kaftans with an embroidered theme to compliment the bride’s outfit or they wear the same kente to match the bride and her bridesmaids.

Weddings in Ghana currently are not for the faint-hearted when it comes to the cost. The reason why lots of the youth especially the young men are refusing to marry. Spending a million cedis on an event for a day to please family, friends, and strangers doesn’t sit well with me. How about we go back in time to celebrate and marry the beautiful customary way as tradition demands. This new marriage style will keep many youth single for a very long time.

The 16th Afrik Fashion Week, Abidjan 17-18 March brought 30 African designers and 60 models around the theme “Youth, Fashion and Cultural Diversity”. Apart from clothing, there were handbags, jewelry, shoes, and more. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find much on the net about all this, who the designers are, etc, We are funny, we live in West Africa, we hardly know the names of our neighbor’s presidents, and we are especially not interested in neighboring countries if they are French-speaking. Meanwhile, Dior was present at the latest Dakar Fashion Week, so our not being interested may end up giving the first place away on a silver platter to the Frenchies.

Narcotics for our kids. The use of narcotics worldwide is on the increase, the latest estimates are 32 billion $ per year or about 4$ for every inhabitant of this world. Ghana is no exception and is a producer and exporter of cannabis, wee, call it what you like, (ganja, grass, hashish) but some are used locally. Ghana is also a transit point for Cocaine from South America towards Europe and other countries. To finance the local cost of this transit some of this cocaine is dumped onto the Ghanaian market. Cocaine is addictive, and once hooked a user will try to get money to buy more cocaine, to feed his “habit”. One way to get that money is to sell cocaine to other users, to become a “dealer” (pusher) (candy man) and if there are no users then they have to create new users, get them addicted as well, and thus create a regular and reliable customer base. Simple. The hooked person (the term is very right, try to get a fishing hook out of your skin) needs the drug, thus becomes a very convincing salesman. And as young kids and adolescents are curious and like to experiment, these “dealers” now target school kids. Inside the school, outside the school. In the developed countries dealers sell in school busses..... Apart from wee and cocaine there are lots of other drugs on the market, and I am talking about the Ghanaian market as well, mainly laboratory chemicals, some of them extremely lethal at even very low doses, like the recent fentanyl

I mentioned wee, which is considered the least addictive on the list of traditional natural recreational drugs, which goes heroin, nicotine, cocaine, alcohol, and wee. So if your kid smokes some wee from time to time, not too much to worry about? Wrong. Adolescents' brains are still being formed and wee and alcohol have definitely no place there. So what to do about all this? Don't make the mistake that your kid would never do this, kids are kids. But would you recognize the symptoms of a kid using drugs? Do you know his friends? Where he goes? Would you recognize drugs if you saw them? Do you make time for this? Unfortunately, most parents are completely ignorant of this problem, simply because they ignore the problem. To have a child which is on drugs is hell. No matter how much talking or beating you do, things continue. They steal everything which is not bolted to the floor and sell it. They borrow money from the entire neighborhood which you want to pay back. They promise heaven and earth and more, just to get money to buy more. Some parents kick their own children out and disown them. Some girls become prostitutes to feed their habits. Some boys as well. Many of them die an early death. So maybe you should not ignore all this? Maybe you should take sufficient time for your own child to guide them through all this? Inform yourself. Talk with them, and alert them to the dangers. Listen to them. What does it look like, and how do they behave? Try to teach them to keep away from all this or find out early that they are trying things when you still have a chance to get them off it. Many parents will search each other's pockets. Search your kid's pockets, rather.

Musicians never die? At least you could say so for Mozart and Beethoven. What about our own generation? This week there was a Bob Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981)

concert in the London Cathedral, of all places, Jamaica-origin British Saxophonist Yolanda Brown (born 1982) performed

His legend lives on.

Lydia...

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