Today I turn TV critic, well whatever shows you watch on YouTube critic anyway. An African City, I am probably one of the last people to know about it, but for the few people who haven’t watched it, you can catch it on You Tube.

I was at a blog camp a few weeks back and learnt about An African City, a kind of sex and the city but located in Ghana. So I tuned in and watched, and I was hooked. I watched every single one of the 15 minute episodes.
This is about a group of young ladies, all of whom have returned to Ghana having lived in the States and UK. It talks about the trials and tribulations of young ladies in their early 30s. Most of them are well to do, the main characters father is the Minister of Energy and she gets a job as the COO of a radio station. There are a few ladies who owned their own business but don’t really make an impact, the man eater who runs her own company and the token British girl (with a strangely American accent), a lawyer who is finding it hard to find a job.
I will start on the negatives first; sometimes it comes across as a rip off of sex and the city. Every episode the ladies have an encounter with a different guy, and really there are not that many single Ghanaian guys left in this country (or is there a corner of this country where they are all hiding and I don’t know).
Then there is the direct rip off of Samantha, I don’t know if I like or dislike her, I don’t hate her but sometimes she can be a bit much. But she does grow on you, she is a no nonsense kind of woman who is just out for sex and the benefits that come with a relationship but without actually having a relationship. Hey who am I to judge.

There is the British girl, she just sounds American to me, and she always has a fag in hand. There was a scene where she was at the gym, fag in hand, and I know I am not one to talk, but it was a bit too much.
I also didn’t like the assumption that life was that easy. Apart from the Lawyer who was having a tough time finding employment, they were all running their own business and they all (including the lawyer) came from well to do families. They could afford to sit in the likes of Bella Roma and African Regent and drink cocktails by the pool. It didn’t show the average person who did reasonably well abroad and was trying to make it on a meager salary.

They didn’t show the guys with the sweet mouth but nothing in his pocket, but I guess they are showing that they are a little bit smarter in their choices of men then I have been.

However, I don’t think that it would have been as popular if they were eating fufu at the local chop bar or a coke at a local spot, then it would have been just another local African movie I guess.
What it is though is a group of friends trying to adapt to the culture, trying to adapt to the men and finding out that Mother Ghana can be very unmotherly at times.

I am starting to build a little network of girlfriends, all of whom are either born outside like me, or have spent a substantial amount of time abroad and we talk about the same things and have similar issues with the girls of African City, although we are slightly mature in age than the girls of an African City, we all want the same thing, a good career, to settle down, get married and have a couple of sprogs. When you are single, at whatever the age, whatever the social status, whatever the climate, most of us ladies want the same thing.
If you haven’t watched it already, check it out and let me know what you think.