🇬🇭THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE GOING TO GHANA | American Couple Reacts "Ghana's Cultural Etquett

We were taught not to eat from everybody You know, but like if I can see the person cooking the food I have no problem with eating. You gotta go to people's house, you know Yeah, can you go to anybody's house? Yeah, that's the case because uh So What's good y'all it's a duma shirts react and we're back with another video who we got today see today We're back with another american reaction super excited about this video guys If you're new to us and we're new to you Because we're on the road to 100k and we cannot get there without you guys All right, join the family without further ado. Let's get into the video Okay So we're actually here in independence square where ghana declared its independence or kwame nkrumah declared ghana's independence in 1957 the first cultural etiquette thing that I had no idea about Is the handing over with your right hand I found this out The wrong way. Yeah, I basically was in a pharmacy I was a teenager and I was trying to hand over money with my left hand And they just wouldn't take it. I don't know what was going on. I was like i'm trying to pay for this thing They're just not taking the money and they won't say nothing. Yeah. Yeah like um, they're waiting for you to figure it out Y'all told us about the left-hand exchange of anything not to do it and we've only been told not to do it But we never heard an experience You're filming so it's different. They just look at you. They don't say nothing, right? So i'ma just be sitting there like Dumbfounded, right? Not really. No. Well now we know We know because y'all keep sending us these don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this. That's all y'all We appreciate the preparation. Yes Even me as an indigenous person I get that a lot with the local buses Like sometimes your right hand is full you try to pay with your left and the mates will not take it Like so it has to sink in for a minute and then you're like, okay you hand over with your rights before they take it So what is the reason? I just can't imagine talking myself. Wait a minute. Just move everything over. Right, right, right Here you go. It's like But I feel like I hand stuff with my right hand already It sucks for a left-hander Like they naturally left-handed that sucks. Yeah, I can't You know, it's my dominant hand. Yeah Behind this why do you have to hand over everything with your right hand? Hold on you guys. I'm, so sorry I look great Okay, you have to do it. All right Okay, so they believe that the left hand is used for you know, the number two and all those like So it's like a Like a disrespect because most of the time you use your rights for all the good things That's what we think like use the right for the good things and this is for All the bad things as soon as like disrespectful and sort of dirty. Yeah. Yeah What is another very important thing That is the number one Greetings, I think anybody who is coming to Ghana you've watched any video concerning the Ghanaian culture, you know how Important greetings to the people of Ghana like you cannot see somebody and not greet them and you have to greet them at every Point in the day like in the morning you have to greet the same person You have to greet in the morning in the afternoon in the evening You can't say because you greeted them in the morning, you know, you're not going to greet them in the after because the different Uh phase of the day. So you also have to greet them in the afternoon And in the evening and even if you're going to a shop to buy something you have to greet the person You can't just go and say, um, can I have toothpaste? Like they'll be waiting for you. And the funny thing is we are always waiting Like as if you know what to do You know, we are not going to tell you you have to greet we are just waiting for you to Greet, yeah, they'll be just standing there waiting for you to greet. So greetings is the number one most important Cultural etiquette and I think the good morning good afternoon and good evening When i'm in the uk, I wouldn't call somebody and start with good morning or good afternoon. I would just say hi but here People do expect you to say the time if you realize when I texted you I said good morning Yeah, you cannot just go straight to the point and say, okay Hey, um this and that you have to greet even if you forget to greet after every after the whole discussion or whatever you still have to like Greet, they may not say the first time. I feel like we sort of like that If we see one person, okay, so in our culture and where we're from we're being on hospitality so we greet But if it's the same person that we saw We're not gonna say good morning Nah, so I walk in the building. I see you. I say hey, good morning. How you doing? And I said i'm gonna go back here. I want to take a look at something Then i'm leaving i'll be like hey, good morning. I'm out Nah, nah like good afternoon. Nah Nah, I get it. I see the respect. Yeah, I see the respect. I definitely see the respect. Yeah I'm, just saying here. No, we'll greet But the good morning. Good night. Good afternoon all that stuff. We do that maybe once not not more than once We'll say hey saw you earlier like Yeah Oh, you see if they see you again I encountered this today in a store when I was uh doing the little things and I seen somebody walk past each other and when they did it there was like again Oh, you know i'm saying that the the um, the conversation was more like oh, we keep seeing each other We keep bumping into each other, you know, it wasn't no greeting. Good morning. Good night. No, no No, there's nothing wrong with it. But at the same time Yeah our But they are definitely paying attention and then one day they'll be like, oh vanessa. She never greets like So greatness is very very important to the people of ghana So please when you come to ghana, make sure you're greeting just just prepare yourself to greet, okay Yvonne if I was coming to visit you at your house, what is the procedure as a final courtesy? You can come along with something. It's not really demanded, but it's just nice food Drink anything edible when you knock and they ask you to enter you have to ask them. Um, can I bring my shoes inside? because most people because of uh dust, you know and the mud and stuff like that that conversation is difficult because A lot of people don't know how to approach that when you approach their home and you tell them Hey, make sure you kick your shoes off at the door or something like that Some people look at you be like what but then you have people ask the question Can I bring my shoes in because if you think about like they're just talking to us you you track names with your feet Yeah, you do bacteria, you know, like if you are First of all, you put on your shoes you walking out your door you're walking in dirt dust Whatever dog, whatever Public restrooms all of that is bacteria. So for us like speaking of our household for us Um, we don't we have a baby, you know, we have a dog we wash her paws before she come in the house So it's like we don't want to track that bacteria and our baby is barefooted. We're barefooted You know, sometimes we wear socks. Sometimes we don't our floors is very clean. So we're comfortable in our house But my grandmother my grandparents They would have house shoes I can't walk in house shoes all day. I cannot So I need my floors to be clean Yeah, you just don't realize how much uh, you're sweeping with your feet as you're walking right and it comes with you And then when you want to go lay on the couch or something you look on the bottom of your foot and it's dirty like No, yeah, keep your shoes at the door. Okay. Um but as for gifts I could see that I wouldn't call it a gift. I would just call it a kind gesture Like hey y'all i'm finna come through how you know i'm saying y'all got anything plans like no then by all right bet And you come to hey, I got a drink right? Right. Okay. I just stopped by the store. I brought some chicken You know things like that. Yeah, we're big on food People don't usually Use the same slippers inside their their room But and then you also I want to mention we do eggs before we just bring things over. I feel like If it's a drink I feel like everybody's in in a position to want to have a little drink here and there depending what it is But if it's food because some people probably ate already All right, we'll always ask hey i've been telling y'all one thing on my way through something like that Or we'll ask if they need anything You know, yeah to sit So you don't just enter and then you take a seat. You have to ask them. Uh, can I sit? Then they will have you they will offer you a seat And another thing that i've realized and i've learned is that if an elder especially offers you a seat you should sit down Yeah, you have to so you can't be like, oh no. No, no, I don't want to sit down No, i'm fine standing like if somebody if an elder says, please Yeah, that's very true you have to and then you greet the people the person And the rest is just the conversation. And so let's say now we're getting on to food. You've arrived at somebody's house And there's food there something I learned as well is if you're offered food, you should you should eat it Yeah, like it's is it seen as rude to say? No, I don't. Yeah, I don't want it If you feel like you are not too hungry you can just say oh it's too much Can you just give me a little bit of that, you know, so that you don't waste the rest But even that hotel you just eat. Yeah, you just keep the rest So you don't have a choice you just have to especially if it's an elderly person That's where all these things are very like important important with your peers. I mean It's so important, but you can always have your way around that But when it comes to an elderly person, you just have to follow the rules, you know so you have to eat when they offer you the food and then Now I don't know if y'all seen the scary movie when that elderly man put his hand in that little hand in the potato salad And he was saying everybody to eat and I was looking at him like See my thing is So is this and like even people you don't really know that well home Because my thing is I have to see the way someone prepare their food yeah 100 i'm big on that Yeah, everyone isn't hygienic. Yeah you know and We were taught not to eat from everybody You know, but like if I can see the person cooking the food I have no problem with eating. You gotta go to people house, you know Yeah, can you go to anybody housing? That's the case because uh, so let us know about that energy travels And I don't need to have a bad day, right? I have an upset stomach and I still got a headache because you was upset right doing all of this, you know Yeah, he was mad that I didn't take my shoes off right slapping the food on my plate Please please do not smell the food. I'm so guilty of that Because I like to smell Yeah, it just like puts me in the mood but you cannot do that getting on to kids I have kids and what is expected of kids? Well kids are generally just you don't say much so especially with greetings You have to greet an elderly person like anybody older than you you see them Your mother whether she's not Related on the streets. You have to greet like in your neighborhood You have to greet them and then when you greet please do not ask an elderly person how they are doing What age does that so so let's say my children who are four and eight so they should just say good afternoon auntie. Yes Oh, we can we can get on to the aunties and uncles actually later. So good afternoon auntie and that's it So they shouldn't say how are you? No, no, no, no No, no, you cannot Even with me Like if I have to say it Um, I have to be sure the kind of relationship I have with a person But an ordinary person I wouldn't greet them and ask them like how you doing? I just greet and I move on they would have to ask you. How are you doing? And then you respond and like that's it. You don't ask an elderly person how they're doing. Why is that? Because like they'll ask you do you take care of me like why are you asking me? Okay, so if I tell you You see It's assumed that as an elderly person they can change or they can your life Yeah, so if if they ask you and you're like, oh, i'm not well, maybe i'm hungry they can Buy you food, but you cannot do it for them. So then why are you asking them? For no reason so you just greet and you live it. No, there's like first nature without necessarily thinking like that Yeah I don't know because like when you walk up as a elder person you say how are you? And they say how they're doing and if they ask you back then you reply, you know i'm saying Well, no, no, no. No, it's hello right the greeting. Yeah, it's the greeting I feel like what she was saying is basically there's nothing you could do for someone that's older than you in a sense because They like stay in the child's place almost yeah, but I feel I don't know see what we were taught. We were taught to say. Hey, how you doing? Right, you know, so Okay That's different, but I do understand it. I do Yeah, I see what's going on here, but it's like because we were taught to say. Hey, how you doing? Like yeah, like I said check on people. Yeah, like I said, it's kind of like first nature to Have that idea of it, but you're not necessarily thinking like that, but you kind of have the idea of it. Yeah Okay, they will ask all the questions you just answer And that's it. But uh, if your parents or you're very familiar with the kids at that age. No, they should I guess kids generally children in Is it a seen but not heard situation kind of yeah like They really shouldn't answer back. No, they shouldn't really ask questions. You don't talk back. You don't ask questions Yeah So even if you If somebody asked you something and you didn't know the answer the child shouldn't say but why or why should I do that? That's seen as not good. Yeah disrespectful Yeah, you're seen as a disrespectful child. So you should just listen just listen When it comes to speaking to people older than you Here people say auntie and uncle Yeah, do you just call everyone auntie and uncle that's older than you? Auntie uncle If you know their names then you can add a name, but if you don't know their name just a sign of respect. You just say um Auntie or uncle or grandmother Some people also get offended if they're an auntie and you call them grandma Then it's like I am not So it has to be careful unless you're very old then you call them grandma depending on your age also Okay, but if it's like 35 to say 50 That's maybe auntie or mom, you know, all right, so you could call somebody else mom that yeah It doesn't really mean that like yeah, that's your mom. Yeah Relationships Let's say somebody who's never been here before comes along Finds a man women whatever. What is the etiquette around relationships here? Um, the main thing will be the pdas You definitely cannot display public affection Is that anywhere? Brothers, you heard it first. We can't be touching and loving and doing all that kissing like we want to do you feel me? um And then, you know, you know our baby You know my baby's friends and she will put on her african attire while she out there in ghana And I just know that's gonna hype me up a little, you know, so i'm like I can't I can't I can't touch nothing Hey, you can't do nothing. I can't even do it. Leave it alone. Oh, you see what you're doing now All right You gonna get me in trouble. Okay. Well, let me I'm on your face. You look Even among your peers still it's like uh As and then if they are like your friends and they are not in a relationship and you're in a relationship alone And they are all over the place. Some people will be jealous. Some people would say so it's just uh we tend to Have like negativity around displaying your relationship Okay, you know people will just be like, uh, very soon it will end and stuff like we have like I think like superstition. Thank you. That's the word But I feel like the the men and the women do that because they want people to know that this is Like this is me you feel me like don't approach her or don't approach him like they feel left out Maybe some of them but I understand I understand what you're saying like the jealousy and the feeling left out type of thing but for the ones who like What they see? They may approach thinking that y'all just friends And then what you do then then you have to you know, I guess it's mommy. Oh god Oh, so if you're displaying it Envious jealous and all that. Oh, so it's like a sort of like yeah So that is one reason why They would tell you to just keep it a secret with pregnancy and all those things. We have a lot of superstitions here. So So with pregnancy what? uh with pregnancy you cannot First of all, if it's early, you cannot be telling people like you guys were you pregnant? Hey, i'm pregnant you guys Yeah, but i'm pregnant everybody knows from the know here Oh my gosh, you have to even before you post if you're a social media person and you have to post It's after you've given birth you post your pregnancy Okay, I mean I think that's I think that's quite a smart idea I never posted a lot during pregnancy. I maybe posted towards the end. How was the maybe a picture? But yeah, it's because of this superstition and people people may be like thinking badly about So this is the thing we've never shared our pregnancies until The end of our pregnancy. Well the first pregnancy we didn't share it until the baby was born the second one we shared towards the end, but this third one because You know, it was on social media and I was sick and people were concerned about this not about us not posting We posted very early on So that's you know, I can relate to that. I've always been very very private when it came to my family Um, especially our children so I could relate to that and I I like that That's one thing I can get with You can't show your belly, you know, you have to wear the loose thing cover up so How does that feel for the woman like With that level like not being able to show it I guess is that like first nature for you all or do y'all have that moment to be like I really would Kind of like want to have like these moments. Yeah, you know, yeah, we'd love to know that But the relationship yeah, that's just the pda's and when you think you're serious then you can introduce them to your family How do you get out of a situation where you've not meant to be disrespectful but people are finding it disrespectful What I would do Is just sitting Taking whatever they are saying and at the end you just apologize Like okay. I'm, sorry. I won't do that again. And And then you leave Even if you don't like it, that's like the best way to get out of any situation if I was to go to let's say, uh Queen mother's house or a chief's palace or something like that. Is there a way in which you have to greet people? Yes, if it's a gathering And there's a prominent person you'd greet that person first Okay, so for example, it's like a traditional wedding and then you have a queen mother in there you would greet the queen mother first but if they are seated like in a circle or a straight line You would first go and greet the queen mother It doesn't matter where she's seated or they can wherever they are seated you greet them first you come back to the line Then you have to greet from your right Okay, so you come and greet this person thank you you have to greet them individually from the right you have to greet them Individually good morning. Good morning. Good morning times are moving on The older generation is moving on. Do you think that these traditions will stick? Into the next generation. Yeah, it will but then the intensity The intensity is yeah yeah, because um So do you expect The same from young people because I did it so I expect them to do the same respecting people Basically, that seems to be it. That's like the underlying message throughout all these things Yeah, one thing that i've noticed is people say yes, please. No, no, please um That sort of thing Sorry. Yes Uh with a place it's just like a sign of respect, you know So when an elderly person asks you a question instead of just saying yes or no It's too raw. So you just okay So yes, please no, please even with your name. Sometimes when he asks you like what's your name, please? My name is this and that's okay. So it's just a sign of respect for the elderly person and then thank you It's also very very important when somebody does something for you. You have to appreciate it Then you say thank you then with sorry Sorry, it's just uh Like when you hit somebody accidentally you have to apologize, you know when somebody hit themselves and you're around Just like a sign of what's empathy? Yeah. Yeah sign of empathy to the person then you say oh, sorry I feel like I did that before I moved here as well. If somebody hurt themselves, I would say sorry You feel bad for their situation You feel bad for their situation or if you do it to somebody Like here on the streets if even you're walking on the street with people and you just like accidentally step on them You have to turn back and apologize even if they are going like you have to show something like a sign of remorse So, thank you so so much for sharing um Ghana really seasoned. Yes, and you keep them seasoned very respectful people That's what I got out of all of this respect learning it though Would probably be a different thing because like, you know not being from there when we would when we come Um, we have to understand the culture More than just being amongst the people because we want to be amongst the people, right? Um, and then we come into these big groups and we come into these high important people We gotta know exactly how to greet them and what they're saying how to say things I feel like it's just a tweaking of our culture. There's a lot of things like um, she said about the shoes about um the way we greet, um, you know, the aunties and uncles Uncles, we kind of say that you know, mostly we'll say ma'am or sir All right, we'll probably say what's up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so it's just little minor things I don't think that would be hard for us to get adjusted to at all. All right, we tell you standing now We're gonna say I am saying I don't think it would be I don't think so. I honestly don't think so. Yeah, so we hope you guys enjoyed this video with us Like this video subscribe turn on the post notification bell We have enabled our super thanks if you like support the channel that way As well as our reaction request form is in our description box below. We'll see you soon. Peace