20 Interesting Things That Happen Only In Ghana

There are many of such things that only happen in Ghana. You might want to know exactly what some of these things are, kindly go through our list.

1. Carrying Of Load On The Head

You might think this is a normal practice but it will surprise you to know that, this is very strange to foreigners. Balancing loads on our head is a unique technique and many foreigners find it very interesting how we are able to do that with just a head pad and sometimes even on our head directly.

2. Eating Fried Rice With Shittor

The right sauce for fried rice is beef or chicken sauce, but in Ghana, we decided to add shittor to it and it has become the order of the day.

3. Plantain Chips

We invented our own chips by using plantain and it’s quite interesting, something that only happens in Ghana. If there’s any other country that does it, they copied it from us, period!

4. Chasing Cars To Make Sales In Traffic

Sellers who can’t afford stores tend to take the trading to buyers by hawking on busy streets, when the cars are moving, they chase them.

5. Carrying Babies On Our Back

You put babies in baby carriers, we grab a piece of cloth, throw the baby on our back and wrap the clothes around them, tight it in place, good to go.

6. Sitting On Top Of Loads In A Car

It is very legal to sit on cargo cars carrying loads. You see market women sleeping on top of their loads to the marketplace. But you do this at your own risk as you could fall off.

7. Conductors Hang By Buses To Seek Passengers

One of the common practices you see in Ghana is trotro mates (bus conductors) hanging on buses and shouting for passengers and it is popularly termed as “Aplanke”.

8. Drivers Park In The Middle Of The Road To Change A Tire Or Pee

In the middle of the street, you see drivers park their cars to pee or change a tire and they expect other drivers to understand and maneuver their way around them even when there is no space.

9. Ghana has Many Uncompleted Buildings All Over The Country.

Even when we don’t have the means to build, so far as we have a land, we start a building project and at some point we get stuck and leave it to rot. These become home to people seeking for a place to lay their heads. There are many of such uncompleted buildings in the country.

10. Selling Things In The Street

It seems Ghanaians wait for the government to build a walkway for pedestrian and they take over. You have people selling on pavements meant for pedestrians and they expect you to squeeze your way through all the time, forgetting it is meant for the pedestrian and you dare not knock their things over, you will pay for it.

11. There Is A Shop For The Charging Of Mobile Phones

We have shops that deal in the charging of mobile phones, thanks to Dumsor.

12. Most Ghanaians Don’t Need Prescriptions To Buy Drugs From The Pharmacy

Unlike other countries where you can’t buy drugs without prescription, in Ghana, you can even buy a drug meant for an abortion without prescription.

13. Over-the-top wedding decor

During weddings, we even decorate the cars meant for the couple.

14. Some Ghanians Don’t Mourn During Funerals they Actually Celebrate

If you should be at one of our funerals, you might think you’re at a party. The only difference is the color of the attire which is black, besides that, nothing differentiates it from a party. Music, booze, dance, etc. are all part of the funeral, we actually celebrate the death of the person, we don’t mourn.

15. Free Range

There Are still have people defecate in open places.

16. Religious names for small businesses

Small business owners usually name their business with sentences like, “God is my provider beauty salon” or moral ones like “One man no chop barbering salon”, they are mostly religious.

17. Inscriptions on commercial vehicles

We put an inscription on our commercial buses and taxis, so it is common to see cars with the inscription at the back, “Pink Sheet”, “Before You Judge A Man…”, “Still Bad Mind Koti” etc.

18. School Children Assemble And March To Class

In school, we actually assemble, sing a song and march to class after prayers every morning.

19. We Have Market Days

Ghanaians are not allowed to buy and sell every day because we believe some days are meant for the gods and so we have some days that we don’t have to sell and we also have market days specially designated for buying and selling, more like special sales.

20. Phobia for safety

Ghanaians seem to have a phobia for safety and when the police want passengers and drivers to wear helmets and seat belts, it becomes a major problem.