Hilfen für eine interkulturelle Ehe.
Ein sehr persönliches E-Book von Opoku und Ina, für alle die Englisch beherrschen. Es ist lehrreich und unterhaltsam, ein kleiner Einblick in die ghanaische Kultur; zum Schmunzeln und zum Festigen der eigenen Beziehung.
Content of the E-Book
1. Who do you think you are?
2. Are you prepared to change?
3. How to handle unproductive statements
4. You can destroy your own marriage
5. Sex is important
6. Food should bring happiness into the family
7. Marriage has no Formula
8. Who should be the leader?
About the Autor
„I met my wife in Ghana in the year 2003, after spending six months of quality time to get know and understand ourselves better in courtship, we grew a strong belief that we can finally join the marriage train. Over the years we have solved a lot of cultural differences and we sailed through these challenges calmly and peacefully and most at times make fun of these transitional phases in our lives.
My wife grew up and finished her high school education in the Eastern part of Germany. After the wall break‘s she settled in Bavaria in the western part of the country but later relocated to Austria where we reside till date. In the year 2003 when we met, I was a tourist guardian and like any other tourist guardian duties, I was charged to introduce the tourists to the cultural values of the locals and in the same light introduce them to new experiences like eating local dishes etc. There is the conventional rule in my country where locals mostly prefer to eat from street side food whilst foreigners mostly also prefer food from well serine restaurants. As a good cook who has had the opportunity to travel to the neighbouring west African countries, I knew how street foods tastes and my wife on the other hand has never had that kind of exposure since she has never cease the moment to give it a try; there commenced our first cultural challenge.
I told her the serine restaurants are mostly for foreigners since it has been made to meet the expectations of these foreign nationals who have somewhat kind of the same systems in their countries whilst the street foods are for the locals. “Many Ghanaian locals will not tag along a foreigner to a road side food joint because they wouldn’t like to eat from these places mostly due to the environment and the atmosphere around, but, any foreigner who dares eat the local dishes served from the streets will say bye‐bye to the “so‐called” serine restaurant” so I told her. She then laughed and was eager to know how the self proclaimed road side food joint are and how their food tastes.
Mostly I do take her to the kind of standardized restaurant to eat, and there also happens to be a road side food vendor right opposite that restaurant. Always when I get her what she wants, I quickly run to the other side of the street to fix myself something from the road side food vendor. One day she decided to join me on the “other side”, when we arrived at the spot, she asked “where’s the restaurant?”. I then asked her to sit on a wooden bench, and I ordered for “Konkonte” local dish with a mixture of groundnut and palm nut soups on it, in an earthenware pot. When the food was served, my wife looked at it and said “enjoy your meal”. But while I was eating, she started to lavate her lips with her tongue due to the aroma that was emanating from the earthenware pot and how appetizing it was; she then asked “Opoku can I taste your food?”.
I humbly replied “my dear I will be proud to see you taste my “Konkonte”, in fact I will add your name to the Guinness world record book as the first white lady on earth to ever taste “Konkonte”. She smiled and lo and behold she did taste the “Konkonte” without noticing a group of locals were watching and admiring her from afar. They started cheering and felt very proud of my wife and that a white Lady came to eat at their joint. After tasting the soup, my wife drew the earthenware pot to her side on the table, and in a jiffy we had finish the first dish and ordered for the second one. You see humbleness and respect for each other can make a mix cultural marriage successful.
Our second challenge was the snapping of our wedding pictures. When we came out from the registrar’s office after signing our marital documents to take pictures, she told me she want to stand on my right hand side and I said “no problem”. Then the photographer cried out that she has to stand on my left and I quickly replied “we need two different sides”. So in our wedding pictures we have both sides; the one she stood on my left and the other on my right.
Respect and humbleness has helped us to conquer our cultural differences without making these cultural values weigh down on us. We have been married for eleven years now with two boys and mostly people congratulate us, before we do remember how old our marriage even is. We don’t even remember and think about how old our marriage is because we have grown to understand that we are but one body and we never cease to let anything come between the good and beautiful thing we share (LOVE).
We are ready to help you to be successful in this course if you wish to let us in.“
Yours,
Opoku Boahene
AUTHOR
