More Ghana Comments
In the U.S. we say "Thank you" and then "You're welcome". In Ghana they say "You are welcome" and we thank them for welcoming us. Really, it makes more sense, don't you think?
I've always been interested in humor from a psychological perspective, particularly the difference between humor and pain, which both seem (to me) to stem from the same kind of cognitive dissonance. (As a college sophomore I told a sociolinguist that I wanted to be a humor scholar. Her reaction was less than encouraging! So this is all just my impression.) In addition, there's the whole factor of "getting" or "not getting" a joke. I bring this up now because if I had to name one thing that's different between Ghana and the US, it's the sense of humor. I don't know if one culture has "more" of a sense of humor than the other; it sure seems like Ghanaians laugh more often, but I'm sure that's just because I'm not getting the jokes. So what's interesting to me is that even when I'm sure I got the joke, I still can't figure out what's funny. But luckily, the few times I've tried to make a joke, it's been appreciated!
A couple of years ago, Naomi got me hooked on John Irving novels. The first one I read, A Prayer for Owen Meany, took me nearly a year to read because I never read novels during the school year. I brought The Cider House Rules to Ghana, thinking that the summer would be a good time to actually finish one of these 600-page things. Well I've been enjoying the book thoroughly, and now at page 448 I've noticed that there are 4 totally blank pages dispersed between pages 506 and 532. So now I'm on a funny little mission to find The Cider House Rules at some used bookstore in Kumasi. It sounds ridiculous, but I actually saw two copies of it at a bookstore in Accra (before I knew of this problem, of course)!
On a different note, AIDS awareness is huge here. I've seen several billboards and signs with the saying: "Stopping AIDS is as easy as ABC: Abstain, Be faithful, and Condomize!". In the most random places (a calling card, say), there'll be this little image of a yellow cartoon hand and the logo "Love life, stop AIDS!". In the Legon University bookshop I flipped through a children's book called "I Have HIV," written in first person about a 10-year old boy who got HIV a very graphic way. The book was so matter of fact that it was shocking, but at least it was accurate and real. It's good that Ghana's general vibe of hyper-Christianity hasn't (apparently) condemned the use of condoms or the ignorance of the facts.
I've always been interested in humor from a psychological perspective, particularly the difference between humor and pain, which both seem (to me) to stem from the same kind of cognitive dissonance. (As a college sophomore I told a sociolinguist that I wanted to be a humor scholar. Her reaction was less than encouraging! So this is all just my impression.) In addition, there's the whole factor of "getting" or "not getting" a joke. I bring this up now because if I had to name one thing that's different between Ghana and the US, it's the sense of humor. I don't know if one culture has "more" of a sense of humor than the other; it sure seems like Ghanaians laugh more often, but I'm sure that's just because I'm not getting the jokes. So what's interesting to me is that even when I'm sure I got the joke, I still can't figure out what's funny. But luckily, the few times I've tried to make a joke, it's been appreciated!
A couple of years ago, Naomi got me hooked on John Irving novels. The first one I read, A Prayer for Owen Meany, took me nearly a year to read because I never read novels during the school year. I brought The Cider House Rules to Ghana, thinking that the summer would be a good time to actually finish one of these 600-page things. Well I've been enjoying the book thoroughly, and now at page 448 I've noticed that there are 4 totally blank pages dispersed between pages 506 and 532. So now I'm on a funny little mission to find The Cider House Rules at some used bookstore in Kumasi. It sounds ridiculous, but I actually saw two copies of it at a bookstore in Accra (before I knew of this problem, of course)!
On a different note, AIDS awareness is huge here. I've seen several billboards and signs with the saying: "Stopping AIDS is as easy as ABC: Abstain, Be faithful, and Condomize!". In the most random places (a calling card, say), there'll be this little image of a yellow cartoon hand and the logo "Love life, stop AIDS!". In the Legon University bookshop I flipped through a children's book called "I Have HIV," written in first person about a 10-year old boy who got HIV a very graphic way. The book was so matter of fact that it was shocking, but at least it was accurate and real. It's good that Ghana's general vibe of hyper-Christianity hasn't (apparently) condemned the use of condoms or the ignorance of the facts.
posted by Lauren | 12:11 PM
1 Comments:
Wow, Lauren. The AIDS education campaign is hard for me to imagine. I gotta go to Africa someday.
I love John Irving too. I read Cider House Rules years ago.. Good luck finding the book!
Love,
Michelle
Post a Comment
<< Home