samaraga

The name of this webpage, samaraga, is the Dagbani word for star. (Dagbani is a Gur language spoken by about 800,000 people in Ghana. Its native speakers are primarily of the Dagomba people, but Dagbani is also widely known as a second language in North Eastern Ghana.) I learned this word while staying in a village in Northern Ghana in December 2000. One of the guys from the village pointed towards the stars in the sky. We could see thousands of stars because the village didn't have any light. The only way to get light was to lit a bonfire, a candle light or turn on a flashlight. Since then this word has come to my mind many times, but I have never been sure if I remembered the right word. A couple of days ago I found out that I was right. A Dagomba man called Shani and his Danish wife Ulla, helped me and told me that samaraga means star. I really like the sound of the word and it also reminds me of looking at a sky full of stars in a small village called Gbullung.

Mari-Louise, 3rd of October 2009