As I prepare for my move to South America, digging through piles and piles of old things for purging, I’m thrown deep into nostalgia. So I thought I’d share a post from my old travel blog about my first major solo trip (and how it transformed me.)

Taxis, tro-tros and buses in Ghana

Friday, September 10, 2004

I estimate that over the duration of my stay in Ghana I rode in about 100 vehicles: taxis, tro-tros and buses.

I could write a book on what I witnessed. It would be something like HBO’s “Taxicab Confessions” mixed with Spike Lee’s “Get on the Bus.”

Ghanaians drive on the right side of the road. The passenger in a “dropping” taxi (one that you ride in alone and takes you door to door) rides next to the driver. Passengers in a shared taxi pack as many as a compact car can fit. Sometimes two in the front passenger seat and four in the back.

Picture this . . .
After you have negotiated the rate through the window and confirmed that the hand signals the driver has made matches your destination, you join two other passengers already in the back seat. It’s 2pm. The sun is bright and hot. The back windows don’t roll down. Everyone is sweating. Your arm is sticking to the person’s next to you. There is no point in repositioning yourself because there is no sense of personal space and eventually the person’s limb will find it’s way back to yours. The radio is blasting a shrill, trebble only, news broadcast with lot’s of static and popping. You are sitting in bumper to bumper traffic. The ancient taxi in front of you is pumping out suffocating clouds of black smoke. There are four teenagers on each side of the car “hawking” their bags of water and rolls of toilet paper. A lively “debate” about the upcoming elections being discussed in the news broadcast ensues inside the car. A passenger gets a call on his mobile phone and proceeds to yell above all the other noise. All of this in a language you don’t understand, punctuated now and then by a phrase in English. That’s a typical shared taxi ride in Ghana. I’ve gotten out of a few taxis before reaching my destination, preferring to walk in the sweltering afternoon sun.

A dropping taxi has it’s own characteristics. After walking away from a taxi or two for trying to take me for a fool, I agree on a price and sit in the front next to the driver. (Most are offended if you chose to sit in the back.) The driver is usually very talkative and has a standard set of questions. When they find out I live in America, the praises for President Bush flow. More than one driver has asked me to take him back with me so that he can shake Bush’s hand. (In southern and coastal Ghana, most people are Christian or traditional/animist. Northerners are mostly Muslim or traditional/animist. All the Christians that I’ve encountered have been very vocal about their dislike of Muslims. This is why it seems that so many support President Bush.) Even more perplexing than these conversations is the music that is blasting from the radio. I had to record a few because no one would believe that a driver was “grooving” to a country western song, another to an early Backstreet Boys track. (Celine Dion is very popular with the ladies. A woman sitting across from me on the bus was studying sheet music for a Celine Dion song.)

Tro-tros strangely enough are very quiet. With the exception of a short outburst of conversation, say over the fact that the driver just passed my requested stop, they are silent. No radio, no loud debates. Silence. Just before my first tro-tro ride departed from the lorry station, I noticed the man sitting next to me fervently mouthing what i guessed to be a prayer. Tro-tros have a horrible track record of fatal accidents. Perhaps this is why everyone is silent. Quietly hoping to reach their destinations safely.

Buses . . . buses combine it all. Fear, loathing and laughter. I’ve heard very personal confessions. Watched as passengers protested the silence and insisted the driver play music. Listened as the whole bus erupts in laughter over a comment, I couldn’t understand. Witnessed a verbal fight over a seat that became physical. A man attempted to snatch a women by her collar and pull her from “his” seat. Wrong thing to do when there are several other women around. A long and heated “discussion” followed about how men and women should act. How a woman who’s educated would obey a man. I was privileged enough to hear this one in English because the fight was between northerners and southerners who speak different languages. This particular bus ride was particularly animated and volatile. Others have been completed in near silence.

I think public transport may have been my most immersive experience into Ghanaian culture.