Ladies, if you are sick of men who say they're going to call but never do then come to Ghana.
Ghanaian men will call you, I promise.
In fact, if you take the chance, the risk, if you dare to give those ten digits out over here in this West African nation, naively believing you're only trying to make friends with the locals, you can guarantee that you will receive not just one call but plenty of them.
You won't even have to wait until the next day, or the next hour for the reconnection because within moments of leaving the company of a Ghanaian man who just scored your cell number, a call or a flash (this is when someone calls your phone, lets it ring once and then hangs up, expecting you to call back to waste your phone card minutes/units instead of theirs) will follow toute suite.
Even text messages such as "Please call me!", "It's important! Please call me!" will suffice for the Ghanaian man trying to hang out, befriend, hook up, even marry an obruni (white) girl.
But, it doesn't stop there.
Once they've punched your name and digits into their phones, they feel free to pass the details along to their mates. YES! Those you've never met and who've never met, spoken or laid eyes on you before either!
Strange numbers abound will appear on your cell phone display, at all times of day, be it 5:30am (Ghanaians are early risers) or well after midnight (They're late to bed too!).
Though there's an option of pressing "ignore" on most cell phones over here, don't bother! Rather just turn your phone off, as there is a function on cell phones that allows them to press “retry” once "ignore" has been pressed. And, believe me, they will press it over and over and over again.
Gotta give 'em props for persistence!
Bottom line...
IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR FROM A GHANAIAN, DON'T GIVE YOUR NUMBER OUT!!
Make any excuse possible including ... "It's my friend's phone", "I only use this phone for work", "I don't have a phone here yet", "My husband back home doesn't like me giving my phone number out to other men."
Despite the warnings before leaving home, my dear JHR companions, Alison, Hannah and I have had to learn and relearn the cell phone number lesson several times over since we arrived in Accra almost one month ago.
As the polite and friendly Canadians that we are, our cell numbers were given out to several local Ghanaians, many of which were men, who seemed polite and friendly enough at first. Though definitely nice and absolutely friendly, how naive we were to think something else wasn't brewing, perhaps even boiling over, on the back burner for these fellas.
So how exactly did Ankrah, Reginald, Isaac, Thomas, King, Roxy, Raymond, Amandu, Jonas and the five random teenage girls I met on the street convince us giving out our number was okay?
And, how exactly, as Hannah amusingly pointed out, did we end up with almost as many numbers in our phones as back home, two weeks into our eight month stay in this foreign country?
Was it the numerous invites to that beautiful beach, the offer to show us the "in" spots around town that no other obruni knows about or the ability to bargain for a much cheaper price for taxi rides??? Who knows!!!
Whatever it was, the constant ringing of our phones now is certainly a constant reminder never to do it again! A lesson any obruni girl should learn prior to landing on Ghana ground!
Ghanaian men will call you, I promise.
In fact, if you take the chance, the risk, if you dare to give those ten digits out over here in this West African nation, naively believing you're only trying to make friends with the locals, you can guarantee that you will receive not just one call but plenty of them.
You won't even have to wait until the next day, or the next hour for the reconnection because within moments of leaving the company of a Ghanaian man who just scored your cell number, a call or a flash (this is when someone calls your phone, lets it ring once and then hangs up, expecting you to call back to waste your phone card minutes/units instead of theirs) will follow toute suite.
Even text messages such as "Please call me!", "It's important! Please call me!" will suffice for the Ghanaian man trying to hang out, befriend, hook up, even marry an obruni (white) girl.
But, it doesn't stop there.
Once they've punched your name and digits into their phones, they feel free to pass the details along to their mates. YES! Those you've never met and who've never met, spoken or laid eyes on you before either!
Strange numbers abound will appear on your cell phone display, at all times of day, be it 5:30am (Ghanaians are early risers) or well after midnight (They're late to bed too!).
Though there's an option of pressing "ignore" on most cell phones over here, don't bother! Rather just turn your phone off, as there is a function on cell phones that allows them to press “retry” once "ignore" has been pressed. And, believe me, they will press it over and over and over again.
Gotta give 'em props for persistence!
Bottom line...
IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR FROM A GHANAIAN, DON'T GIVE YOUR NUMBER OUT!!
Make any excuse possible including ... "It's my friend's phone", "I only use this phone for work", "I don't have a phone here yet", "My husband back home doesn't like me giving my phone number out to other men."
Despite the warnings before leaving home, my dear JHR companions, Alison, Hannah and I have had to learn and relearn the cell phone number lesson several times over since we arrived in Accra almost one month ago.
As the polite and friendly Canadians that we are, our cell numbers were given out to several local Ghanaians, many of which were men, who seemed polite and friendly enough at first. Though definitely nice and absolutely friendly, how naive we were to think something else wasn't brewing, perhaps even boiling over, on the back burner for these fellas.
So how exactly did Ankrah, Reginald, Isaac, Thomas, King, Roxy, Raymond, Amandu, Jonas and the five random teenage girls I met on the street convince us giving out our number was okay?
And, how exactly, as Hannah amusingly pointed out, did we end up with almost as many numbers in our phones as back home, two weeks into our eight month stay in this foreign country?
Was it the numerous invites to that beautiful beach, the offer to show us the "in" spots around town that no other obruni knows about or the ability to bargain for a much cheaper price for taxi rides??? Who knows!!!
Whatever it was, the constant ringing of our phones now is certainly a constant reminder never to do it again! A lesson any obruni girl should learn prior to landing on Ghana ground!
1 comment:
Hey! Hotstuff!
Guys would hit on you ANYwhere. Try not to break too many Ghanian hearts.
miss you tons.
Betsy
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