Cross-cultural relationships

We have a new site www.g-lish.org where you can read all articles from This is Ghana in a much more organised fashion. Read Cross-cultural relationships there.

I wrote a story for the "My Partner is a Foreigner" part of Pocket Cultures, a great site which seeks to "be a place to find out about different countries and world cultures: personal observations and accounts of daily life, articles and interesting projects related to countries and cultures of the world."

Here is a small excerpt:

"Godwin: “Who is this Elvis?”
Me: “Elvis Presley.”
Godwin: “Who?”
Me: “You know, Ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog…”
Godwin: “I do not know.”
Me: “Really? You’ve not heard of Elvis?”
Godwin: “No.”

The thing that still bewilders me is that ideas, experiences and perceptions that seem to have been hard-wired from birth—from Elvis to expressions like “pulling my leg”—have virtually no frame of reference in my life here."

You can read the whole story here.

Godwin talks: cross-cultural relationships--food!

We have a new site www.g-lish.org where you can read all articles from This is Ghana in a much more organised fashion. Read Godwin talks: cross-cultural relationships--food! there.


Godwin talks again...

Over the next few weeks I want to talk about cross-cultural relationships: enjoying all its goodies and battling all its challenges. Some of the challenges I experienced were expected. For example, I had to strain my ear at the early stages to understand what my sweetheart was talking about and watching movies that I wasn’t used to, like The Big Lebowski. But one of the things I wasn’t expecting was the plethora of food I would have to eat.

I used not to eat cheese because I had the idea that cheese was made from spoilt milk and was not good for human consumption, but as I speak now cheese is one of my favourite foods. Nowadays, if you give me pasta without cheese it’s like giving me kenke without stew or shitoh. (Ed: I can’t believe anyone thinks Kenke is fit for human consumption but, like, that’s just my opinion man).

My girlfriend took me to a Lebanese restaurant in Accra. I was really looking forward to having delicious fried rice and chicken, the “foreign” meal that is popular among young Ghanaians. But I saw strange names of food on the menu that made me more confused than I was hungry. So I decided my sweetheart should make the choice. We had mint tea and that was the first time in my life to have it. It was an eye opener because mint grows wild in my part of the country in the rainy season and it’s only used to repel mosquitoes and other troublesome insects. Little did I know that this smelly herb could turn out great tea and settle an upset stomach. I really enjoyed the mint tea.

Just as I was readying myself for the sumptuous meal, the waiter appeared and put on our table a massive communion bread. I thought to myself: “Oh, has my angel seen my death and therefore decided to offer me my last supper like Jesus had with his disciples by ordering communion?” Out of surprise, I looked in her eyes and asked, “Honey, what is this?” And she told me, “Lebanese bread.” And I asked, “Do people eat bread for dinner?” I thought I couldn’t eat it. That is what you get when you get into cross-cultural relationships. I decided to have an open mind. “You have to go for this!” I told myself.

At the end of the day, I ate my last supper, but I did not die. I really enjoyed the hommus and the cooked beef. I didn’t know there was any food like Lebanese bread that people enjoy and it was quite a sumptuous meal if you have all the little things that go with it.

If you’re thinking of getting into a cross cultural relationship, you will eat strange foods you’ve never seen or heard of before. That goes for my sweetheart. She eats almost all Ghanaian food except Kenke. It could be fun and exciting. So, in all this, what is needed is an open mind. Until next time…I’m going to heat some leftover pasta—with cheese!

A Good Relationship is like Fufu

We have a new site www.g-lish.org where you can read all articles from This is Ghana in a much more organised fashion. Read A Good Relationship is like Fufu there.


You may be asking, what on this bountiful blue planet is fufu?

It's a staple of the Ghanaian diet, and other parts of Africa besides, that involves mashing boiled vegetables--plantain, cassava or yam--in a huge wooden mortar with a 4-foot long blunt-ended pole hewn from a tree until the vegetables become a sticky pale ball. It takes two people. It takes a long time. (Sounds like a relationship). The ball is then dropped in a spicy soup--palm, light or groundnut--and scooped up in the right hand and swallowed (not chewed - heaven forbid) whole.

And many humans could be forgiven for asking what makes a good relationship too?

Well, I was privvy to this tidbit of wisdom a couple of weeks ago at the marriage between a Ghanaian and Canadian couple of friends.

The analogy in Ghanaian folklore follows that creating a good relationship is like making fufu: one partner is the cassava and the other is the plantain (or yam if you're up north).

When you pound cassava and plantain into a sticky ball of fufu, which ain't easy, like you're average long-term relationship, you hit lumps, like you're average long-term relationship.

So, what next?

Ghanaians believe that it is the sole responsibility of the two to address the issues--those lumps--in the relationship. In other words, to discard those things that don't help the relationship, and keep pounding away at the rest. And to solve it yourself...

"So we are the caterers in the kitchen of relationship fufu, then..." I said out loud.

Culture and language - endless balls of fu....fu....n!!!

(Oh, and I chew my fufu...)