On Saturday 24th January I was invited to Leicester in the east midlands to deliver a presentation about the Ghanaian Cultural Experience. The train from St Pancras only took aprox 1hr.  I was joined by Jide, Grace, Michael and Ashanti who were part of the 2014 Ghana group. We were met by Lois and Joyce who live in Leicester, and they took us for a stroll around the town centre and shopping mall before finding a place to eat.

After lunch we took a short walk to the African Caribbean Centre which is very nice and consists of a Café Lounge, Dance Studio, Main hall and seminar and meeting rooms where singing, steel pan, hair braiding, martial arts,  keepfit and black studies classes take place.

At the entrance of the foyer area is a glass cabinet displaying a very large 8 headed Ghanaian unity carving. The carving is a genius interlocking sculpture made from one single piece of tree trunk either sese or cedar wood.

 I loved the mirage painted on the wall in the dance studio which represented positive community representatives. There was also a mirrored wall, which I was told I could use to conduct a head wrap workshop in the near future.

In the café area was a banner displaying information about the Leicester Windrush Project. They wish to create a documentary to acknowledge the history of Caribbean people and their contribution to Leicester’s heritage.


The workshop was organised by Lois McNab who currently runs a Black Studies group in Leicester. Lois, her daughter, mum, sister and friend Hazel were part of the Ghanaian 2014 group.  Everyone gave a testimonial about their experience, highlights, gratitude, after thoughts, memories of the activities, ceremonies and journey encounters of each region they visited.

There was a lot of interest in the next Ghanaian Cultural Experience which takes place in November 2015. If you would like to join us then please send an email to info@thecalabashhub.com with your name as an expression of interest by February 20th 2015.