The Importance of Being Perfect

On my first day back in Keta, Perfect introduced me to Success.

Wait. Let me explain.

The British give Americans a hard time for being overly earnest, but man. We have nothing on the Ghanaians. In addition to their local names (Korshie, Gobah, Kofi, etc. depending on what day of the week they were born), everybody has an English name, some of which are actual English names but a lot of which are just English words being used as names. A lot of them also have religious overtones. So you'll meet people named Perfect, or Success, or Innocent, or any of these other things that we would never use as a name because we believe in irony and we believe in jinxes and we know that when our children grow up to be flawed, underachieving or guilty then having a name that proclaims the opposite is just going to invite mean jokes.

While the names given to children might display a simple, heartfelt religious devotion, the names given to businesses are pious beyond any consideration for relevance. For some reason this is especially true for hairdressers, which all have names like God's Grace Barbershop or All Things From Jesus Hairstyles or Thy Will Be Done Beauty Saloon.

That last one is not a typo, and it's not just one place. There is a whole group of hairdressing establishments here that advertise themselves as Beauty Saloons. Which is amazingly great. Because, firstly, once it's pointed out, salon and saloon are totally the same word. Or once were, certainly. Plus, it suggests any number of bad jokes about beer goggles. 'My wife looks good when she's been to the salon, but she looks better when I've been to the saloon.' That sort of thing.

Here's the rule: Anything that combines etymology, booze and jokes gets an automatic thumbs up.