When I first arrived in Ghana everyone was
saying, “you’re welcome”, meaning, “welcome”. I kept thinking, but I didn’t say “thank you”.
Sacked = fired
You’re invited = an offer to share food
Big woman = compliment, as in successful
-thought maybe I needed to lay off the fufu.
Finished = Sold out
Whenever something is “finished”, if you ask
when they might be getting more in, the response is going to be, “come back at
5:00PM” (they actually have no idea, it could be days, weeks or never).
When you get a phone call, no one says who’s
calling.
It’s not unusual for the unnamed caller to ask,
“where are you right now?” First
time this happened, I thought, who’s this creeper who knows my name, hasn’t
told me his name, and wants to know my exact location? My bad.
Palms clapped together and then arms opened into
a ‘’V” = “that’s it”, “whatever”, “so it is”
“Eh-haaahhh” (“a” is in hat, only drawn out) is
interjected throughout speech, mostly as a filler.
“Ay” (spoken very fast and with the “y”
immediately clipped) = “wtf”, “no way”, “you’re kidding”.
Even in the middle of the night, there is no
such thing as too loud.
