Response to comments

The bottle, roaster, cow, and plane that I referred to in an earlier posting were coffins. Yes, you heard me right: coffins. There's an industry here to make fancy, specialized coffins...I don't think the Ghanaians are the ones buying though.




My favorite: an uterus for a gynocologist.

View a few more here.


Trends

I've been thinking about Rana's question related to universal vs. Ghanaian trends. While I think it may be too early to answer, I'll give you my preliminary answers.

I think that Ghanaians, more than other cultures I've experienced, are generous. They share food, their homes, beds and offer whatever they have. But maybe that's because I'm a foreigner. I'm watching to try to get a handle on whether they do the same for each other, and I think it's still there, but to a lesser extent. It constantly brings to mind the possessiveness and ownership that Americans have about their things, their time. Big difference.

The other Ghanaian trend I've noticed is the classism. And that's always from Ghanaians who are middle to upper class and somehow think they can say things to me about "the street people" or "lower classes" or "riftraft." I've heard similar lump summations about the Muslims and other ethnic groups. Blanket statements generalizing that whole groups of people are theives or lazy. Hate it. Hope that it doesn't seem I'm doing the same about "Ghanaians!"

Ghanaians are, as a whole, the most fundamental Christians that I have met. Though similar to a lot of Ethiopian and Eritreans I met. I think the depth of religion, dependence on it, and invocation of it is a Africa-wide trend.

I can happily report that very few Ghanaians smoke.

I sense the slower place of life common to third world countries, where human interactions are highly valued and infastructure makes it difficult to depend on a watch.

That's it for now, but I'll fill you in when I get more.