Dear Miss Manners

I’ve been learning more about Ghanaian manners…or lack of manners by our standards.

A girl in my office (let’s name her LM) called me Monday afternoon (I had left work early because no electricity meant I couldn’t do anything) saying that she was coming to my house. I was napping, but gave her directions and told her to flash me (miscall my cell phone) so that I’d know she was nearby and I’d meet her at the gate. I waited an hour and she didn’t come. I called her phone and she didn’t pick up. The next day I asked what happened and she said that it had gotten late and she decided she wanted to go home instead.

1) she invited herself over

2) she didn’t come

3) she didn’t call to say she couldn’t come (though the next day claimed that she had meant to but had forgotten)

4) she didn’t apologize for not coming and/or not calling

On Tuesday, LM tells me that I’m buying her and the other girl in the office bangku for lunch. I’m startled to be told that I’ll be paying for their lunches not a request, but more like a statement. I yielded, knowing that our three lunches would cost less than a $1 US total and that someday I’d probably be going to their homes and be fed.

Last weekend, as I waited for a tro-tro, the woman sitting next to me declared that I’d pay her fare. That one I objected to, not knowing her at all.

I asked a friend if these were normal behaviors and was told that the first is, the second questionable, the third inappropriate. He said if I had been waiting for her and decided to go out before she came, I should probably call to say so. But that it’s common to have someone say they’ll come, but then they don’t. Things come up, I understand, but it seems like the decent thing to do to call…

But I’m in Ghana, so I must adapt. And I guess that means it’s okay for me to do the same thing, if I should need to…but it just seems like you’re saying “something better came along.”

As for the sharing, generous bit, I’ve noticed that there’s a flip side to it, where people take what is not theirs. Bags of my “pure water” disappear from the refrigerator; LM finished one I had beside me off without asking. Later, she took a drink of someone else’s Fanta. Is it just this particular girl with these seemingly rude manners or is it okay in Ghanaian culture?