The Travelers' Guide to African Customs & Manners: How to converse, dine, tip, drive, bargain, dress, make friends, and conduct business while in sub-Saharan Africa - Softcover

Devine, Elizabeth; Braganti, Nancy L.

9780312119096: The Travelers' Guide to African Customs & Manners: How to converse, dine, tip, drive, bargain, dress, make friends, and conduct business while in sub-Saharan Africa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312119097 ISBN 13: 9780312119096

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 1995

Business travelers and vacationers alike are heading to the burgeoning continent of Africa in ever-increasing numbers. But, for the American traveler, there are few places on the earth that present more cultural difference than Africa. For example, how do you know which countries will consider it perfectly sensible for you to wear a safari outfit--and which will take it as an insult? How do you know which countries are strict in observing Muslim or Jewish or tribal holidays, during which time no business appointments are possible? How should you behave when invited into a tribal home? Will they give you utensils, or should you eat with your fingers like everyone else--and do you eat with your right or left hand? What's the proper amount to tip your safari guide?

This well-researched and fascinating guide provides all the dos and taboos for travelers venturing into Botswana, Cameroon, Conte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganada, and Zimbabwe. Topics covers includes: conversations, telephones, currency, transportation, meals, hotels, business, private homes, holidays, legal matters, key phrases. This fascinating and invaluable guide will lessen the stress and heighten the enjoyment of anyone's trip to Africa.

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About the Author:

Elizabeth Devine and Nancy L. Braganti are authors of The Traveler's Guide to Latin American Customs and Manners, The Traveler's Guide to Middle Eastern Customs and Manners, The Travelers' Guide to Asian Customs and Manners, and The Travelers' Guide to European Customs and Manners. Both authors live in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

From Library Journal:

Most guidebooks focus on what to see in foreign countries. This one, the fifth in a series of regional books by these authors (e.g., The Travelers' Guide to Middle Eastern and North African Customs and Manners, LJ 1/91) provides advice on how to behave while there. Included are forms of greetings, acceptable topics for conversation, mealtimes and likely dishes, table manners, gift giving, and business customs. Much of the information is common sense and the stuff of all guidebooks, while some of it seems marginal to most travelers' needs: "crocodile tastes like spoiled fish" in Botswana, tapes of Kenny Rogers are popular gifts in Cameroon, torn jeans are not proper wear in Mali, meetings don't start before breakfast in Nigeria, and women can be arrested in Zimbabwe for swimming topless. The advice is so fragmentary and often obvious that this book will serve only the greenest of travelers and perhaps curiosity seekers.
Harold M. Otness, Southern Oregon State Coll. Lib., Ashland
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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