Not sure about funny looks in Africa, but I'm European myself.
In Europe contracts tends to be more on a "fair" side of equation (less opportunistic sneaky clauses but more in-your-face bummers).
In North America the initial paperwork scale quality greatly depends on absurdity levels of lawyers at the other side (lawsuit-prone enterprises, large corps with unlimited budgets "just because they can" and heavily regulated industries claiming "this is industry-standard contract" BS).
In my past - after prolonged, fruitless battle with IBM lawyers - I accepted all [ridiculous] IBM terms and was rewarded with 5 yrs of doing well-paid, WFH, interesting, creative, cool stuff.
So there is no hard and fast rules - go with your gut sometimes is a best advice.