Meeting and Greeting

It's disturbingly easy to make friends in Ghana.  Most days before I start work, I wander around the local area for a bit.  It gets me some exercise, lets me buy some water and seems to give the locals a bit of light entertainment too.  I tend to stick out a bit as I'm walking around - I try to be inconspicuous, but I have to accept that I just don't look Ghanaian.  Within my few streets that I know, I am acquiring semi celebrity status.  Most of the chat revolves around football, or just smiling a bit and saying 'how are you?'  Sometimes, particularly at weekends, I'm invited to sit down and have a longer chat about football - hopefully like this I can get a Premiership-based social life going.  This afternoon, I got chatting to 3 guys outside the front of the house - finding out names and football allegiance, repeating their names back to them and failing (brings the house down every time), and then shaking hands and leaving.  Bog standard conversation that I keep on having. This time however one of the guys, who hadn't said much till then, leaned forward, said something like 'I wan be fren' (I couldn't smell any alcohol), embraced me, nuzzled his head into my shoulder and planted a sloppy wet kiss on the side of my neck.  Hummmmm.  Cultural differences and all that I get, but I don't think that's normal...............anywhere.  And if anyone's interested, I'm sure he said he was a Chelsea fan.

There are rules of etiquette when you're out and about.  After not kissing strangers on the neck, the most important of these is to greet people enthusiastically, especially if they greet you.  This might cause me problems, as I am learning that a high proportion of the background chatter in the street comes from people yelling specifically at me.  If I hear 'Hey Obruni!' [white man] - well as Little Britain might say, I'm the only Obruni in the village, so they must be talking to me.  When I can't tell what's being said, it gets more tricky.  I know from local gossip that's found its way back to me that one neighbour who called out to me one day got no reply. In Africa especially this is the height of rudeness.  My solution - every time I'm out and about, if I hear a noise, I assume it's directed at me.  Rightly or wrongly I wave at the noisemaker with a "GOOD MORNING!!!" 

If they weren't greeting me before, they are now - they all love it, and I get a big smile and a wave back.  Works every time.