Diversity Diaries: Patricia Zapor

By Patricia Zapor
Reporter, Catholic News Service, Washington, D.C.

04.11.02

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I was one of several reporters visiting a remote village in Ghana to report on a U.S.-funded peace-building program. Our meeting with village representatives was in progress when we were joined by an older man, to whom the villagers paid obvious deference.

One of our Ghanaian escorts leaned over and whispered to me: "That's the chief. We're going to go greet him." He and the three other men seated to my left got up and walked over to the chief. I stood and followed them, as did the three women seated to my right.

As my turn came, I knelt to extend my hand to the chief, who was sitting on a low stool. He looked up at me and burst out laughing, joined by the rest of the villagers. In this part of Ghana, women were not expected to do such things. Our escort had only been explaining what the men were going to do, not indicating I should join them.

The chief cheerfully shook my hand, as well as the hands of the women who followed me. It was a gracious gesture that turned a potentially awkward faux pas into a politely shared joke.

That and other experiences soon taught me that while men's and women's roles in rural Ghana were very clearly distinct from each other, what Americans might see of as demeaning roles for women were not considered that by Ghanaians. The amusement of the chief and the villagers came not from my stepping across a forbidden boundary, but from the fact that I was ignorant about polite rituals that even their youngest children understood.

And I learned that gracious good humor knows no cultural boundaries.

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Diversity Diaries
Diversity Diaries is a collection of true stories from newspaper people around the country who have experienced or observed pivotal moments in diversity.  10.04.01