Ghana: Politeness

I left India with the consolation that I would soon be returning, out of chaos and into the mega slowness Ghana, there is whiplash from the drop in speed, economic activity, voices, numbers. My imagination failed me brilliantly, with my only guide been Kofi Anan I should have expected Ghana to be full of the exceptionally polite and gentle. Ghana has an overwhelming feeling if niceness, full of good mornings, afternoons, evenings, thanks you's, pleases and excuse me's, occasionally punctuated by a screaming match between sweaty women. The menu has been reduced from ten pages to one, the conversation topics from five thousand to three, the ten stories a minute that would walk past have been reduced to none, I am in withdrawal. Still I am in a new place, a new culture, new things to understand, new scams to comprehend, new ways to get ripped off and an emptiness to rival Australia's. This place barely has any people, it is quiet, people slow down to let me cross the road, give way to each other on the street, if there is a word for this country it is polite.