The Ghanaian way

Such is the Ghanaian way, that I will find myself doing and saying things which would never be done nor said in the UK despite us speaking the same language (most of the time). 

Everything you buy, even if it is just one item you get given it in a black plastic bag which are known as ‘rubbers’.  I don’t know, maybe it’s just my mind, but I always envisage a massive black condom. I regularly find myself saying ‘No rubber please, I have one’.

If you phone someone with a missed call so you can pass on your number to them it’s called a ‘flash’.  As I have met many new colleagues of a certain standing in Ghanaian society, you will frequently hear me ask ‘Can you flash me?’ after having exchanged my number. Imagine saying that in the UK!

In Ghana, you have never ‘finished work’ or finished anything, including phone calls - you are ‘closed’.  ‘Are you closed now? Shall I pick you?’ is a regular taxi phrase and nothing is ever ‘small’ it’s always ‘small small’.

One night I am ‘picked’ by Isaac, a very nice Ghanaian man from Accra who is working, briefly in Bolga to install roundabouts in schools.  The roundabouts ingeniously convert the energy made as the children turn them into light energy for lanterns that the children can use in their classrooms to read (very few schools have electricity for lighting and they are very dark).  He had spent some time with my house mate during the day deciding on the next school to install the equipment in and we agreed to go for a drink with him in town.  In his 4x4 I sit enjoying the relative calmness, the air con and the super suspension.  He asks me ‘are you gone?’, ‘Gone,’ I said laughing, ‘gone where?’  It seems even ‘sleep’ has a new word.

It is not the Ghanaian way to ‘close’ a phone call with a ‘bye’ or ‘see you soon’ or other such necessity to enable the listener to know you have indeed, in fact, rung off.  Instead the Ghanaian way is to try in whichever way possible to make the listener think you are still on the phone (at least I haven’t figured anyway, anyone makes it clear they are closing a call).  So often you will hear me mindlessly chatting away to… the phone.

Another interesting and slightly uncomfortable Ghanaian way is ‘hissing’.  Hissing (at someone) is done to get their attention and is not considered rude; it might be hawkers walking through a spot while you take a drink.  It might be people at the Lorry Station (bus station) to warn you, the direction you are heading in (indeed the one they just pointed you in) is the wrong one and redirect you the right way. You may have to do it to get the attention of a waiter or waitress, and if your hissing is unsuccessful (as mine is), a simple ‘my sister’ or ‘my brother’ will do. For in Ghana, we are all brothers and sisters.