The Ghanaian mindset as it regards truth seemed to be extremely different from what I had previously experienced. I had always grown up with the idea that there is one truth and that it did exist and was attainable. Ghana opened my eyes to the idea that this is not always the case. My experiences there were all filtered through the idea that there may be no one truth. There are only colored, biased truths.
The best example happened when we were on the road from Accra to Kopeyia. We had stopped at a place to eat at the side of the road and we were discussing if we should leave right then or have a drink before leaving the place. The owner of the restaurant said that we had only 1 hour to Kopeyia and the driver of the Trotro said that it was 2 hours. The owner was serving his needs by wanting us to stay longer so tha twe could buy more of his merchandise. The Trotro driver wanted us to leave earlier so that he would have the rest of the evening free. They both colored the truth enough that we could not get a good, factual answer.
Examples are numerous. Even thinking of asking "How much does this cost" is ridiculous. Things are worth what you will pay-no matter what price is a "good deal." So what is a good deal? Whatever you pay is. Truth is again unknown and changed to a person's own mindset.
An interesting thought came to me when I got home. I accept Christ as truth The goal of religion was not to seek God as an end in himself but to seek God for things. While talking to a 17 year old that i met in Kopeyia, this point came up when he explained why so many people went to Christian churches. The reason was because they could not afford the fetishes that traditionally healed people. Christianity opened a new option to the villagers in which they could be healed for whatever they could give, many times free. The person made himself sound like he was in everyway a Christian, I would expect that if I asked them individually, so do all of the people that attend the churches. Perhaps he was and they all are, perhaps he just told me that to get material things from me by forming a false bond, the point is that truth may not be known, and this ambiguity is hard for me to tolerate as an American. Now that I am more sensitive to it I am seeing this ambiguity everywhere. Perhaps Plato was right and truth does exist as a pure quality, just not in America and definitely not in Ghana.