No Two Cultures Are Identical. Here Are Some Things Unique About Ghana!
1. Wave with your palm facing down.
2. They carry items on their head. Apparently that is better for your back than carrying it. I even have seen students carry their chairs from classroom to classroom on their head.
3. The bathroom is called the washroom.
4. You can get tags instead of license plates (they are license plates with red font) that you either have for a month or a year.
5. Never place anything on the floor. Whenever we do they either pick it up for us or tell us to place it on a table or other location. The ground is considered to be filthy no matter where you are.
6. They have a million bulletin boards. You can't look anywhere and not see any of them. And most of them talk about Jesus. One that stood out to me was "You are special. yes you the one reading this."
7. They have preachers who come around with a megaphone to declare the good news.
8. Plastic bags are called polythene bags.
9. Lots of vehicles have stickers on their windows that proclaim a message of some sort, typically relating to God.
10. They have several names, but one of them refers to the day of the week they were born.
11. Americans have watches, they have the time. We are constantly go, go, go, I need to get this done, I have that to go to. They are about building relationships and spending time with others. They always have time for you!
12. In West Africa they have people that will pump the gas for you.
13. People are constantly out walking the streets, even on the interstate.
14. Girls wear earrings so you can tell what gender they are when they all have the same short hair cut. It is uncommon to see people with more than one ear piercing or tattoos.
15. Girls holding girls hands and guys holding guys hands is a norm.
16. They have a policy of patient impatient driving. You are to be kind and let others in, but at the same time you are not to expect others to let you sneak past/ get upset if they don't.
17. They drink from the equivalent of a melted ice pack.
18. They may live in the vendor shop that they work at.
19. When they greet you they say "you are welcome" and we respond "thank you." The best way I can translate that is that they want us to feel like we are at home.
20. I don't know that it is culturally acceptable, but I have seen a couple of trucks overflowing with watermelon on the highway and people lay across the top of them as they drive.
21. Males go to the restroom alongside the road/ on walls surrounding compounds.
22. Females may kiss other females on the cheek.
23. Common saying: "God is good", person one. "All the time," person two. "All the time", person one. "God is good," person two."
23. When asked how are you? The proper response is "We are blessed." When asked how your family/ job/ anything else in life the answer is "We are blessed."
24. Hawking is when people walk the streets and sell different items. There are signs in some places that say "no hawking".
25. They do not like spending time in the sun. Only the British people do that.
26. Akwaba (Uh-k-wah-buh) means you are welcome. Ete sen (Eh-the-ss-N) means how are you. Eye (ay-yay) means I am fine. (These are typically greetings in Twi, their native language.)
27. Oldest person in a group is always seen as a leader. If they have a question that they could ask any of us, they will still ask Ivan or whomever is the head of the group.
28. Sanitation is viewed differently here. Tourist locations are more likely to have soap in the restrooms and toilet paper. That is why you do everything with your right hand, you are suppose to wipe, etc. with left hand.
29. Red red is a very important dish here, it is plantain served with beans. You never ask for red red and plantain, because both become red. The red beans are served with fried plantain, which becomes red.
30. Time spent in doors is only meant for sleeping. Everything else (cooking, socializing, everything) is done outdoors. That is why if you spend a lot of time inside your house they will assume you are sick.
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