Lagos Water Regatta

The Lagos Water Regatta is focused on displaying decorated sea transportations. This event is celebrated on Easter Sunday each year. 

"This involves the parade of boats and yachts including large fishing boats, ferries, barges and other marine vessels beautifully adorned, depicting social-cultural, traditional folklores and occupational aspects of the people of Lagos State". Hangout Nigeria

World Happiest People 

A recent survey shows that people living in Switzerland are the happiest people in the world, and Libya has the happiest people in Africa, while Togo and Benin made the top least happiest people. I don't know how I feel about this survey because many people in Africa are very much happy with little. I guess the question is how was the survey conducted? What are the components of happiness? 

This BBC report provides more information on the survey...

The World Happiness Report examined 158 countries and is aimed at influencing government policy.

World's Happiest Countries	World's Least Happy Countries
1. Switzerland	1. Togo
2. Iceland	2. Burundi
3. Denmark	3. Syria
4. Norway	4. Benin
5. Canada	5. Rwanda

The study bases its rankings on data from the Gallup World Poll and takes into account variables such as real GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, corruption levels and social freedoms.

"Increasingly happiness is considered a proper measure of social progress and goal of public policy," the report said.

"A rapidly increasing number of national and local governments are using happiness data and research in their search for policies that could enable people to live better lives".

The SDSN is comprised of people from academia, government and the private sector and was first launched in 2012.

The Mail&Guardian Put the 10 Happiest and Unhappiest together from the Gallup World Poll.

Koutammakou with its Tatas

Koutammakou is famous for its clay castles known as Tatas in Togo. The exoctic looking clay hut castles were built to defend the local people from slave traders. Today, it is used as a store house for farm products. Some of the Tatas contain fetish items and livestocks, I think it is amazing that the Tatas are still standing tall in the 21st century.

The Ghanaian Economy

Inflation, rising bond yields, lack of electricity are some of the issues affecting the Ghanaian economy. Despite these challenges, the Ghanaian economy is considered as one of the fastest growing economy on Africa's continent. This one place where your investments will yield fruits.

According to (CNN) Despite its relatively small size and population, Ghana boasts today one of Africa's fastest-growing economies, driven mainly by its substantial natural riches and strong agricultural production.

Previously known as the Gold Coast (because of the vast quantities of the precious metal found there), Ghana gained its independence from Great Britain in 1957, becoming the first sub-Saharan nation to break the chains of colonialism.

Since then, it has navigated stormy periods of army rule and political uncertainty to emerge in recent decades as a vibrant democracy that has enjoyed several peaceful transitions of power.

Over the last six years, Ghana's economy has grown each year by an average of 6%, hitting a record-breaking 15% in 2011. Growth declined in the following years, but in 2015 economists expect the country to post strong growth of around 8%.

Unsurprisingly, the west African country has traditionally relied heavily on exporting precious metals and minerals, including aluminum, diamonds and, of course, gold -- Ghana is the continent's biggest gold producer, following South Africa.

Besides oil and gold, agriculture is a major pillar of Ghana's economy. The sector makes up around 20% of the country's GDP but, more importantly, provides employment for more than 60% of its total workforce.

At the heart of this is cocoa. Ghana is the world's second-largest producer, following the Ivory Coast, with the commodity being the country's third export product, below oil and gold.

Yet, lately the Ghanaian government has stepped up its efforts to diversify the economy, pushing for more vegetable production to help boost growth.

Last year, the country exported more than 42,000 tonnes of vegetables, up nearly four times compared to 2009.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is on TIME Magazine's "100 Most Influential People" List.

I am writing about Chimamanda because she promotes that African beauty that this blog represents.

"Ms Adichie is described in the US magazine as "rare novelist who in the space of a year finds her words sampled by Beyonce, optioned by Lupita Nyong'o and honoured with the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction".

"With her viral TEDxEuston talk, We Should All Be Feminists, she found her voice as cultural critic," wrote Radhika Jones, a deputy managing editor of Time" BBC.

Nigerian flag on North Pole! Yay!!

This blog is about celebrating everything beautiful about the African continent. So, I am happy to announce that you can officially see the Nigerian flag on North Pole. Thanks to the gorgeous Teudon Morgan for participating in the North Pole marathon! 

Tuedon told the BBC that "The North Pole was extremely difficult for me: It was so cold, with temperatures of -41 C, and I noticed that my body was losing a lot of energy - it was like the magnetic field was sucking all my energy out.

The last 4km (2.5 miles) were the hardest for me - I started to see buildings where I knew that there was nothing there.

I didn't have any training for this - I didn't have any snow to train on.

In Qatar, where I live, it's the extreme opposite: I wear T-shirts and shorts to run; in the North Pole you have to wear all these different layers.

There are no crowds at the North Pole Marathon to cheer on the runners

We were 44 competitors from 22 countries and I finished quite late, I was one of the last people to finish. But I compete[d] with myself. I was just singing and praying and when I got to the bend where I could see where other people had planted their flags, I kept saying to myself: "I have to plant the Nigerian flag there; your country's flag has to be there."

Tuedon with the Nigerian flag # she made it to the finish line 

Saly Senegal/ Saly Portudal

Saly Senegal was established on a Sandy beach line during the trade era in Senegal. M'bour and Thies are part of the city created by Portuguese traders. It is a major tourist destination in Senegal and the economy of the city is dependent on tourism.

Boabab trees in Sub-Sahara of Saly (the Sahel) 

Saly sandy beach line

Ouidah Festival Benin

This city is famous for it's voodoo festival-the birthplace for Voodoo religion. Worshipers and tourist travel from far to witness and participate in the festival, which is held from January 7th-14th. A one week festival ...for the chief priest to bless his followers.

"One of the best things to do in Benin is visit the city of Ouidah, the birthplace of the Voodoo religion. Every January, Ouidah is home to the annual Voodoo festival, an amazing, vibrant celebration of Voodoo worshipers. While visiting Ouidah, enter the Temple of Pythons and take a picture with a sacred python around their necks. Or hike through the Sacred Forest of Kpassè. And while walking along the slave trade route, see the slave barracks, the auction block, and the extremely moving and emotional Gate of No Return". -Sara Cooper, ONE Campus volunteer, SUNY Oswego