The President Dies

This week I am staying with our contact, Emmanuel, and his family, at
their house in Kumasi. This afternoon, I was reading in the living
room after the kids returned from school when Godwin, one of the
Emmanuel's students, brought the news on the radio to my attention:
The President of Ghana, Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, had just died.

This came as a huge shock to me and the rest of the country as he had
just celebrated his 68th birthday on Saturday. The news is reporting
that he was taken to the hospital a few hours before his death. An
emergency session of parliament was called to swear in the vice
president, John Dramani Mahama at 8 PM. Mahama had just returned from
the US on tour for his new book a memoir.

The TV and radio have had nonstop commemoration and reaction
interviews. Mills was apparently a huge sportsman, and accordingly
the football (soccer) final scheduled for this weekend has been
postponed out of respect. There has been an outpouring of condolences
from every interviewee for his family. The mood is very somber.

At 8 PM I joined the whole family in front of the television to watch
the ceremony, with many of the parliament members sporting red and
black strips of cloth tied around their arms, necks and heads - the
traditional funeral colors of Ghana. The session began with prayer,
then a minute of standing in silence in honor of the late president.
A band played the national anthem and the vice president was summoned
to repeat his oath of office. After his completion, he was directed
to sit in the president's high seat at the front and center of the
parliament. As he sat, he was greeted by applause, but subsequently
rose to address the country.

He declared a week of mourning for the country, including flags at
half-mast, then went on to lament the loss of a father, colleague and
mentor. I can't even imagine the shock and burden he feels at this
time. After his speech the majority leader moved to close the session
with no other business and the motion was seconded by the minority
leader. With no objections, the session was closed and the band
played again.

We will see what this next week of mourning brings to our team in our
experience of Ghana. It certainly is an historic time to be here.

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PS - Just to explain the delay in posting blog updates: I am in Kumasi
with the (mostly) working internet modem that has very little data on
it, while the rest of the team is working out of Sunyani with many
blog posts written but a very dysfunctional modem that should have
multitudes of data available, but seems to refuse to load blogger.
We'll keep trying!