Maxx Orange Kitchen - MOK
MOK - Cooked With You & Radio Maxx 105.1 FM
MOK is simple abbreviation or acronym for the Maxx Orange Kitchen is the charitable initiative made possible by kind courtesy leadership and management of the Orange Broadcasting Brand - OBB, thus Radio Maxx 105.1 FM in Takoradi at the heart of the Western Region, Ghana.(West Africa). According to authentic information available, it’s been fifteen (15) solid years of making this event worthy course to the young masses as a means of continuously feeding the less-privileged kids on the street of Takoradi in the south-western part of Ghana.
Factually, before making this out-door program successful there’s often Audio-Promo, Live Presenter Mention (LPM) and Announcement to the general public on Radio Maxx 105.1 FM to ensure donations of food items of all kinds such as bags of rice, chicken, soft drinks, canned or tin products, bottled as well as sachet mineral water and other edibles which go through cooking process then sharing to street kids in the city of Takoradi, Western Region, Ghana. It certain, some comes from the sister city of Sekondi and its environs to participate as well.
MOK 2022 took place on the street of Liberation Road, close to Market Circle which is under re-construction in Takoradi. In the early hours of Easter Monday, 18th April,2022 - chairs, tables, canopy and public address sound system to ensure music playing as well as live monitoring of on-air programs by the organized media company, Radio Maxx 105.1 FM became available at the street-venue of MOK. There’s loading and off-loading of food items donated by some cherished listeners of Radio Maxx 105.1 FM, precisely from the station’s premises located at Essikafo-Ambentem No.2, close to Bethel Methodist Church in Takoradi, Western Region of Ghana.(West Africa).
It’s comely to catch glimpse of key voluntary support by the members of Mike Foundation as a youth-dominated Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) through their respectable cooperation to ensure success of the Maxx Orange Kitchen - MOK 2022. Certainly, some volunteers were chosen through directive and decision of the radio station’s CEO, Sir Maxwell Okyere Ahenkorah, an expatriate of the United States of America.
MOK 2022 experienced unusual down-pour, thus intermittent drizzles and heavy rainy moments. Well, regardless of the boisterous nature of windy conditions, it didn’t change the general atmosphere or it never stopped the event or attendees of both young and old folks to enjoy delicious cooked rice, stew and chicken as well fried fishes, meats and soft drinks served on the street blocked with barricades i.e.(Liberation Road) in Takoradi, Western Region of Ghana, West Africa. Interestingly, although the main purpose of Maxx Orange Kitchen - MOK is to feed kids of all walks of live on the street. It’s realized many adults couldn’t cope with the fact that only kids had to fill their bellies on such a festive season of Easter to their satisfactory merit.
Hahaha, LOL! - Hunger is there for old too! As I over-heard one woman say that emphatically to my ready-to-hear ears. Well, with respect to the target, it’s meant to feed over Five Thousand (5000) street kids in the Sekondi/Takoradi metropolis, Western Region of Ghana, West Africa. On mind visual recollection and reflection, when boisterous winds set-in it’s all hands on deck to hold canopies firm on ground to ensure stability and non-disastrous atmosphere as electrical equipments also needy safety to avoid accidental occurrence of fire out-break at the scene.
MOK 2022, had the following industrious leaders and staff-body of Radio Maxx 105.1 FM playing vital roles at the out-door venue on Liberation Road in Takoradi, Ghana. Indeed, the mastermind CEO as well the Boss, Sir Maxwell Okyere Ahenkorah, being quite instrumental in bringing the cooked rice, stew, fried chicken, fishes, meats and take-away packs to the street-venue. Better-still, he also did very well during collection of donation and compilation of the donor’s and sponsors details as well as particulars. Also, he being part of the packing of food items at his office and other rooms of the radio station is quite memorable and shows the quality of a leader, leading by example in terms of event organizing.
More-so, next to give a worthy mention is the General Manager of Radio Maxx 105.1 FM, popularly known as Mantse, a church leader Reverend Alexander Nii Sackey, host of early morning devotional program dubbed Maxx Morning Bells - MMB. Indeed, this man has been so committed to the Orange Broadcasting Brand - OBB since its early years as well as movement from different geographical locations within its catchment areas of Takoradi and beyond.
To be precise, he helped to convey soft drinks, bottled and sachet water from the station’s premises to the street-venue, aside breaking of ice blocks to freeze the drinks in the refrigerators meant for the Maxx Orange Kitchen (MOK 2022). Amongst other things, he also supervised the happenings and made reasonable decisions in the absence of the CEO Sir Maxwell Okyere Ahenkorah, when the going got tough on the street-venue of event. The on-air presenter of the mid-morning show Maxx Metro Mix (MMM) as well marketing executive, Sir Harold Ewusi also contributed well to and fro in relation to the needed items and other equipments at the station’s premises and street-venue. The likes of DJ Asabir, DJ Mike G and Ebo Smith were also solid to ensure music playing and sound technical assistance on the street-venue. Of course, it’s scene of all hands on deck so Ayatullah Abass (Kendrick) on-air presenter of Maxx Over-Drive (MOD) fame also did well as he later went to do presentation on the radio.
Some female staff were seen round including Bettina Sweetie Doie, as she also did well with the serving, loading and off-loading of food items, alongside the technician Sir Sylvester and Angel…… It’s obvious Sir Philip Ampofo, who’s hosted me and promoted Synchronized Chaos Magazine a couple of times as Anchor of the Joy 99.7 FM - Super Morning Show (SMS) also contributed directly and indirectly to bring about ultimate success of the Maxx Orange Kitchen (MOK 2022).
Also, not forgetting Sir Henry Aggrey (MC Clenzy), and Mr.Gabi Ampiah of Sunday Evening Gospel Train, they all did brilliantly well behind the scenes as well as ensuring LPM of the donations made possible by audience of the Orange Broadcasting Brand - OBB, Radio Maxx 105.1 FM (Magic Music Station - MMS). Notwithstanding, some members of staff were not present at the street-venue of the event but they also contributed effectively to this year’s Maxx Orange Kitchen - MOK.
MOK 2022 had contribution of items and donation of cash from the following companies and benevolent individuals: Akroma Plaza Hotel, TICO, Raybow International Hotel, Ghana Water Company Limited, Jomra Electricals, One King Mineral Water, Philnock Enterprise, Voltic Cool Pack, Agwils Enterprise (Inchaban), 1st Gate Supermarket (Kojokrom), Elok Jewelry, Nana Yaw Pinto, Eagle Nest, National Investment Bank - NIB, Zenith Bank, First Samuel Enterprise, Red Run Pizza, Sally’s Akwaaba Boutique, Mr. Godfred Teledzi, Miss Chima Obi, Aniyak Guest House, NPP Loyals, Ghana Police Service, Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly - STMA, Maa Anita (EcoBank) and all anonymous donors.
However, not forgetting generous heart of another VIP media figure, Mr.Kwame Adu-Mantey - CEO of Focus 1 Media, he also donated tremendously to support such a worthy course of Maxx Orange Kitchen (MOK 2022).
Well, as a writer of this Arti-Blog what I also did was new English audio-promo for the Maxx Orange Kitchen - MOK as part of on-air publicity apart from the creative poetic piece which stated MOK in the last stanza, dubbed Two Decades Of Orange Enjoyment #2DOE. It’s a means to promote the MOK 2022 as well s 20th Anniversary Celebration slated to take-place on 5th November, 2022. Better-still, physically I also assisted during loading and off-loading of donor’s products t the station’s premises and street-venue of MOK respectively. More-so, airing of the processes and procedures to donate on Sunday Evening program Gospel Train as a Guest-Panelist, thus it’s also effective to the glory of God and humanity. Nevertheless, the rains which occurred might have associated with divinity as a means of our Creator’s showers of blessings upon us being conscious generous care-givers in the society of poverty-stricken people.
As Maxx Orange Kitchen - MOK is annual charitable event to kids on the street, and then you’re welcome to partner with us via Call or WhatsApp the following Numbers: +233207174878, +233243445144, and +233243734791
Thanks for taking time to read.
Name: Ike Boat
Email: ikeboatofficial@gmail.com
Call/WhatsApp: +233 267117700, +233 552477676
Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/ikeboatofficial1
Country: Ghana, West Africa.
At the Witching Hour
My witching hour is not past one, or two, or three.
It could be any time of the night or day.
On a dark, moonlit, or sunny stage,
my contemplation unlatches a gate
through which each ghost or demon parades.
He that denied the visionary type of dream
little knew how we remain in our sleep awake
and commune with the dead, the living,
the little, and the great.
At the witching hour, I bandaged the injured arm of a friend
who lived on a different continent.
I saw the wave that galloped and gaped
to swallow the coasts of distant states,
and I prayed
in churches whose locations remain vague,
simply because they’re not replicas
of what my subconscious portrayed
of past events.
Lady Penrhyn“In a very ugly and sensible age, the arts borrow, not from life, but from each other,” Oscar Wilde.
I stand before Lady Penrhyn, the convict ship
and think of Turner and Stevie Smith,
of Joan transported into a sheet
on a no-return, perennial trip.
What would I find on Wainewright’s board?
Did he leave behind a poet’s scrolls,
some portraits he hid from the world,
or the poison he wore in his ring?
Would I find his victims’ ghosts,
or innocence appealing to a misguided mob
who loves to chew on human flaws
since slander has always been the mode
with which uniqueness is destroyed?
[Inspired by Thomas Griffiths Wainewright’s painting Lady Penrhyn, Stevie Smith’s poem “Deeply Morbid”, and Oscar Wilde’s essay “Pen, Pencil, and Poison”.]
Benighted
They have terrorized the marrow of your eyes,
so you stream music to ward off the evil at my side,
your warning that no savior will arrive,
and we’ll perish, as we lived, quite wide apart.
Your firmly-closed lips
can never reproduce that characteristic smile,
which has made you immortalized
in a child’s mind.
The pallor of your face is the shroud
that will obscure the sun and every star
from my sight
for as long as I am alive.
I view your picture,
the electronic guide.
It will bear no fingerprints,
no scent,
or a trail into the past,
just another mirage
in a life that was benighted from the very start.
Abominate
I know now why the placid sea
brings into my eyes a wealth of tears:
that untainted blueness
is now what I cannot attain.
They have tarnished my heart
with unremitting enmity.
Their implacable hatred
has seeped into my brain
and forgiveness is no longer
my salient trait,
for now I abominate
their abhorrent names.
Weird
I admit that I have earned the epithet weird
for taking my little dog for a stroll three times a day –
a dog I adopted and snatched from a cage,
whose nose had borne the brunt of the penal cane –
when I should have been smoking the hubble-bubble with friends,
complaining about the vapidity of everything,
or rather flirting with a man who spits on the street
a hundred and sixty-eight times a week!
I admit that for you I must be very weird,
for befriending my inanimate books,
abandoning a species who chews on news
that specializes in slander and ridicule,
that reduces the living to hilarious cartoons.
Better be a weirdo,
the object of your churning tongues
than an empty-headed parrot
with a polluted mouth.
Devotion of Faith
There was a purpose for the Stations of the Cross.
Good Friday night he carried a cross on his back.
A night of darkness when he was crucified alone.
Easter Sunday recognition of life given for me.
God's affection to reunite my soul lost to him
Jesus' deliverance for my soul suffering alone
Faith restored a soul which lived in misery.
Fear of death was conquered by Jesus’ death
Life eternal to live among the stars of heaven.
Thingin’
Thing one says to thing two, “Let me tell you a thing or two.”
Thing two says, “Do tell.”
Thing one tells. “Two things were thinging when the phone rang.”
“Aren’t you going to answer that?” thing two asks.
Thing one ignores thing two and continues telling. “Thing one picked up the phone. ‘Hello?’”
“Thing,” the voice on the line said, “let me tell you a thing or two.”
“‘Do tell,’ said thing one,” thing one says.
The voice continued. “‘The voice continued,’ thing one said,” thing one says.
“What did the voice say?” thing two asks.
“I can’t say,” thing one says.
The voice continued.
Thing one continues.
Thing two tunes out.
Thing one signs off.
The voice continues.
“Do tell.”
If Only
It, to all appearances. It could be mistaken for. Warm to the touch. Just the other day. Hard to find these days. Only when nothing else. It was, she remembered. Could it be? Hard to find in these parts. She remembered, back in college. How long had it? If you touched it with the tip of your tongue, you could taste it. But that was. If only. If only.
Planned Obsolescence
There once was a thing that could foresee its own obsolescence. A seer, this thing, a foreseer. They say humans are the only creatures that are conscious of their own inevitable death, but what about things? And are they even correct, those who say that among all earth’s creatures, only humans are aware of their own mortality?
People have consciousness, but things? I can foresee my own mortality, I guess you could say my own obsolescence. When we speak of “planned obsolescence” we’re speaking of things, not people, yet surely we can apply the term to people, wouldn’t you say? We, the people, are aware of our own planned obsolescence.
As for the thing that could foresee its own obsolescence, I am that thing, writing this thing.
The Book I Imagine
I’m imagining a book I’d like to write. I imagine a shape. Shapes. I can almost hear the loud parts, and the quiet ones. I imagine pages, more than I’ve ever written before. Tension and release. Hot and cold. I imagine what it would be like to read the book I’m imagining, sometimes gripping, sometimes confusing. Elusive. Slippery. A laugh here and there. A sky full of unfamiliar constellations. But no plot. No characters. Those I can’t imagine. There are limits.
The Blend
I had forgotten how delicious this coffee was. I don’t know what compelled me to buy this particular blend again after so long. Monday used to be a sad thing, back to work. Retirement fixed that. I love Marvin, but that mischievous cur chewed up my reading glasses, and now I can’t get on with that book I was reading, Survival for Dummies. Yeah, the coffee’s great; I haven’t had this blend in years, used to be my personal custom blend, three-quarters Kenya Double-A and a quarter French Roast Mexican Altura. Delicious. We used to drink it together, she and I. I haven’t had it since she left.
Peter Cherches has published five collections of fiction and creative nonfiction since 2013, most recently Masks: Stories from a Pandemic. Called “one of the innovators of the short short story” by Publishers Weekly, he’s also a jazz singer and lyricist. He’s a native of Brooklyn, New York.
All are welcome to attend the Hayward Lit Hop, a multi-venue literary reading at 3pm Saturday April 30th, coinciding with and continuing after Hayward’s first youth poet laureate award ceremony. Several Synchronized Chaos contributors will read from their work.
Welcome, readers, to Synchronized Chaos’ second April issue, To Know We’re Alive. This issue explores ‘signs of life’ of many kinds, creative and emotional and intellectual as well as physical.
Michael Robinson relates his faith journey and in honor of this weekend’s Easter celebration of resurrection and new life. John Culp asserts his spiritual wellness and his choice to stand with what’s good. Stephen Jarrell Williams shares gentle odes to love, writing, and the next
John Thomas Allen leads us through a semi-urban nocturnal trek amid the cicadas and beer cans and metallic moonlight. Dan Raphael ponders existence and observation from a distance in a variety of domestic and ordinary settings.
Mahbub discusses lively characters: birds in flight, soccer player Diego Maradona, people of the world embracing in peace. He pleads for people to come together in harmony and also to show special care for those in need, such as the frail and lonely elderly.
Denis Emorine celebrates the rich heritage of Russian culture and urges us not to equate all of it with Putin’s contemporary aggression. Chimezie Ihekuna celebrates the dedication and honor of a soldier who has chosen to put service to their country above their own desires.
J.J. Campbell brings us our monthly theme, mentioning how pain is often a medical clue that a person is still with us. His work explores heartbreak, disillusionment, and the vague unease of watching news of a distant war.
Howie Good sends up vignettes of trauma observed from a distance, of how the passage of time, space, and culture renders inhumanity mundane. Brian Fugett renders trauma half a world away into a symphonic metaphor, pondering what it means to bee the audience to events that kill children.
Gabriel T. Saah paints a pastel photo of a gentle village beachside love, along with the drama of driving in the rain. Santiago Burdon also depicts love, at nighttime, in a hypnotic sentence replete with moonlight, street lamps, and scented magnolia blossoms.
Yusuf Salisu Muhammad celebrates his love for his mother in a piece full of visceral images: food, the home, and his body. Gerald Onyebuchi renders love through Biblical psalm imagery, adding a historical, cultural, and spiritual dimension to his romantic yearnings.
Please enjoy and find comfort and inspiration in this month’s issue.
The Soldier's Will
You can take all his weapon
But you can't take from him the spirit of a champion
You can take his fellow brethren
But you can't take away from him his divine amen
You can take away his food
But you can't take away from him the knowledge of his hood
You can take away his health
But you can't take away from him the beauty of his eternal wealth
You can take away his frivolities
But you can't take away from him the fullness of his priorities
You can take from him the presence of wars
But you can't take away from him the ' 'eternality' of the cause
You can take away from him his meal
But you can't take away from him the Soldier's Will
My New Face of personality
My face is burnt;
Should I hurt my thought?
Fire tries to end my facial physicality;
Should I affect my reality?
I had no idea my face with experience such;
Should I negatively talk about it much?
I realized beauty comes from within;
My facial look is just kidding;
When the need for character steps in
I realized my current facial condition is to make me reach a decision;
Separate the grains from the chaffs of my situation;
Appreciate a true friend and frown at a false companion.
Now...
It has motivated to smile in the face of life's hurdles
It has inspired to surmount life struggles
It has courageously positioned me to always stand tall
It has amazingly strengthened me to see direction, despite a standing wall
It has helped me define character in a proper perspective
It has shown me why focus should be my prerogative.
Though my face was burnt, causing facial deformity but...
My facial deformity is not up for mockery;
It is a situation that makes a good story
My facial deformity is not up for ridicule;
It is a situation that makes a good life riddle
My facial deformity is not up for caricature
It is a situation that makes the building-up of an amazing creature
A Psalm for your body
i tongue this hill your body o woman
this pure ground of worship is a journey to horeb
a goddess I must appease
I must wet with petals of songs
here is my voice take it:
the mower plying your sacred lawn
from your scriptures
I eat the torah of longing &
fill the desert of my bones with chapters of your dew
o woman you are genesis you are fire & rain & clouds
you are leviticus you are the storm that cannot be
you are revelation gathered in the mouth of a brook
everything beautiful and broken teeth of a knife eating the
poisonous bud of history
even God knows: when hunger
tickles a woman's heart when the molars in her song
becomes the gasp of a dying bird
silence becomes a name screeching in the dark
these hands your hands are alabsters of memories
every touch every song they make prays me into
an altar of fresh wine all shades of sweet-darkeness & honey
o sweet honey sweet shepherd of my soul
come ferry this heart to a house filled with colours
