Ghanaians love to celebrate. Weddings, christenings, birthdays, funerals—doesn’t matter. It’s a celebration. And yes, you read that correctly. It includes funerals, which are usually the loudest, longest and liveliest of them all.

You’ve heard the term “wedding crasher” before—popularized by Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson in the film of the same name, it is the idea of strangers dropping in on open-food, open-bar wedding receptions because there are so many guests coming together anyway that nobody will notice an extra few faces. In Ghana, that term applies just as much, if not more so, to funerals. This is especially popular among students, who will always keep their eyes open for free food and drinks.

For most people in the world, death is something to be feared and funerals have an eerie somberness about them. Ghanaians take a different approach, however. Rather than mourning the loss of someone, they try to festively celebrate his or her life. Rich or poor, families invest a huge sum of money into sending their departed loved ones off appropriately. Just about everyone is invited to the weekend- or week-long extravaganza, sometimes not even mattering if the guest knew the deceased or not, and coffins can often times resemble themed chambers (think soccer star getting buried in a huge soccer ball casket).

Forget weddings, for Ghanaians, the funeral is likely the biggest single expenditure they will ever have, and how grand and successful a funeral is can influence a family’s social status. As such, guests are typically expected to make a donation to help cover the extravagant costs, though many do not.

If you’re lucky enough to get invited to a funeral here, don’t try to think of any excuses to get out of it. Go, and you may find it was the most fun you had in Ghana!

After the excitement of the Holidays, a festive New Year’s celebration, and all of the time off from work that much of the world enjoys over the last 5 or so weeks of the year, a New Year lull often follows for many of us. In America, we lament the fact that many of us won’t have another holiday until late May. That lull doesn’t exist in Ghana, however, because January means that it’s time for another Africa Cup of Nations.

Africa’s pre-eminent football (soccer for some of you) tournament is held every other January. Ghana’s Blackstars had a disappointing fourth-place finish in 2012, but they will have a chance to avenge that just one year later rather than the typical two, as the Confederation of African Football moved the tournament to odd numbered years, starting this year, to avoid taking place in the same year as the World Cup, as happened in 2010 (which ironically represented Ghana’s best ever finish in the global tournament).

The Africa Cup of Nations is indeed big news in this football-crazed nation, as there are few things that most Ghanaians consider more important than watching the Blackstars–including wives, girlfriends, business meetings, etc. Funnily enough, this is even evident in a majority of the nation’s political speeches. When late President John Atta Mills appointed ministers upon taking office in 2009, excluding some widely expected appointees, he was able to smooth his decisions over with the National Democratic Congress by using–you guessed it–football analogies. The official statement that came from the President’s office stated that Mills, as the coach of team Ghana, decides “which player plays at what time. And since this is the first half, they should give the President leeway to bring the set of players he wants to play this first half.” Later in the statement, it was noted that it was possible that the potential appointees who were excluded initially would still earn their expected posts later in his term, as “the game has just begun.”

The men the nation obsesses over…

Travel throughout Ghana, and talk to Ghanaians around the world, and you’ll be hard pressed to find one who isn’t passionate about music. As a tribute to that, we thought we’d kick off this blog with a video by Ghanaian-German reggae artist Delle, who’s Pound Power video gives us a nice glimpse into the importance of music in Accra and throughout the nation.