By Love Wilhelmina Abanonave
The African festival by playwright Latif Abubakar saw the re-enactment of the famous children’s educational and entertainment television program, By the Fireside, which combined storytelling (folklore) with music and dance.
The Den of History, an outdoor storytelling, film screenings, and African folktales by the fireside, was one of the events lined up at the festival.
The Lododo Art Foundation, which inspires creativity and reopens the art dialogue among students in particular and the general public, re-enacted By the Fireside, taking the audience back to the days when it was hosted by Grace Omaboe, who we know as Maame Dokono.
The stories told focused on the exploits of Kweku Ananse, the cunning and crafty spider who often outwits humans and his fellow animals in the animal kingdom.
The format in the Den of History on Monday, December 29, 2025, involved the audience sitting around while the storyteller sat in the middle and recounted a particular Kweku Ananse story.
It revolved around how the cunning spider was able to trick death by stealing something belonging to death and being chased to the village, where Ananse rushed past his hut in the hot chase, shouting his wife’s name, Okonorea, and his sons, telling them to come out and run away with him.
They all did, and the chase became fierce until death lost them in the forest. Seeing that he could not find Ananse and his family, death decided to stay in the village and never leave, which is why, till now, people die.
The story aimed to push the understanding that death was inevitable, and so humans had to take their lives into account and be of good service while living before death comes knocking.
The story was followed by singing and dancing, as the African festival aims to promote Accra as a global Pan-African cultural destination every December.
