Taboos

[CLT: "Kingdom Come" - Elevation Worship]

Learning about the culture and people the past bit has been wonderful, and the international program organizers helped make it that way by informing us what NOT to do in Ghana. It's not that they'll hate you if you do these things, but just to be respectful, don't. I'm sure I'll learn some more things during my stay, but here are a few:

1- Don't gesture or shake hands w/ your left hand. The left hand used to be avoided superstitiously; it's seen it as your "dirty hand". If you must shake hands w/ your left hand, you apologize as you do it.

2- Don't do thumbs up; do a "peace sign" instead. If you do thumbs up w/ your thumb not entirely vertical, it is an insult to someone's mother. To be safe, just do the 2 finger "that's good" sign.

3- Don't eat while you're walking, and don't eat a meal when travelling by tro-tro. This is seen as very rude. I'm not sure exactly why, but it may be because you're not able to greet people as easily, and it may also say that you're not taking time to appreciate your food.

4- Greet those you make eye contact with. It's just polite and friendly to say, "Good afternoon," to those lock eyes w/ for more than a few seconds. I haven't quite mastered this yet; I'll greet some people, and they just continue to walk by and give weird stares. Guess I'll just have to work on it!

5- Knock before you enter a room; you don't necessarily have to wait on a reply to your knock. I entered a room the other day when I saw the door open anyways. The man jokingly chided me for not knocking before I entered. When I offered to go back outside and knock, he started laughing and said it wasn't a problem, but I definitely remembered to knock when I came back.

All in all the Ghanaian people are very friendly, and they laugh with you when you mess up or do something weird. A lot of the people are eager to teach you about life and the culture. Some of the things take getting used to (especially if you talk with your hands!), but it's so rewarding to immerse yourself in the culture and have the people here respond!