Is it a case of overfriendliness?

The first time I went to a salon to get my hair fixed here in the States, it was quite a task calling up different salons to know their rates and also book an appointment. Eventually, I was able to get a place I was comfortable enough with. What actually influenced me to choose that particular Salon was because the owner had an African Accent.

It was quite a distance from we lived, and given that I wasn't driving at the time, my husband offered to drop me there. When we got to the location, there were two(2) African American ladies who were getting braids. The owner(s) greeted me and made me wait for some time. I took time to observe the inside of the salon and it looked like the typical braiding salon we had back home in Ghana. In fact if I had taken a picture and posted it on Facebook, I was sure to get people asking when  I got back to Ghana.

There were two(2) ladies managing the place and I later learnt they were from Guinea. After my husband left, these ladies started to converse with me. Naturally, the Africans asked which country I was from, and how long I had been in the states. I also reciprocated their questions and soon enough the African American ladies joined in the conversation. One of the African American lady, who was very chatty, proceeded to ask me how long I had been married. After answering her, she asked me how many kids I had. I told her I didn't have any at the moment and she went on to tell me that she had 5 children. Now this lady couldn't be more that 30 years old. I thought that would be the end of our conversation but she went on to tell me intricate details of her life. She told me of how she had her first child at 15, how she has 2 different fathers between her 5 kids, how her husbands job requires that he sometimes travels and that makes her lonely so she goes out to meet other guys.
She even told me some aspects of her sex life with her husband.

At some point I wanted to tell her that it was too much information but she really didn't seem to mind.  She went on and on till her hair was done.

I was shocked that people could reveal personal details of their lives to strangers, and I just couldn't understand why she did that. Being women, surely there were other less intrusive topics we could have discussed.

With time, I got to realize that it was normal within the American culture to open up to strangers. As for we Africans, the fear of witchcraft makes us very careful in revealing certain information to people we don't know.