tro tro diaries

So far I’ve spent a big chunk of my time traveling on tro-tros to and from the e-CARE centers. For the most part I find it very entertaining because there is always something interesting going on. At the stations there is a ton of people selling bread, crackers, frozen juice or yogurt, fish, fruit, water sachets and pretty much any other thing you can think of. Tro-tros don’t leave until each seat is filled and things are loaded up on the top so there’s usually some waiting involved and with the heat it can get really hot and stuffy. I like to stare out the window and wonder what it would be like to walk around with a box of bread in my head all day with that sun and whether people will need to push the tro-tro this time for it to start!

Where did all the vendors go?

There are always some interesting characters in each tro-tro ride. In two occasions we’ve had men preaching and praying for twenty minutes and collecting money at the end. One of them started his sermon tapping a man’s shoulder and saying: “You are a Christian, let’s pray” – I was impressed at everyone’s willingness to participate in this moving church service! I couldn’t understand the rest of the words except for “Aleluya”, “Praise the Lord” and “Amen!”. Then we have the people selling natural medicine, extra special pens or combos of toilet paper and toothbrush for a fantastic price you cannot find anywhere else. There’s also always someone who wants to get my phone number before he even asks my name and someone who complains to the mate because the price seems too high or his balance is incorrect. My favorite is the woman who carries a baby in her back and manages to slide through the seats with her bags and all without hurting the baby’s head. Sometimes we also have the small boy who has to stand in front of her mother for the entire journey because she doesn’t want to pay for a seat. My most memorable ride so far was sitting between a big mamma with her baby and two bags, and a young Muslim man who kept asking me whether I would marry a Muslim man and hinting at the fact that he was single and lonely…

Squeezed at the back of a tro-tro

It is pretty hard to estimate how much time it will take to get to one place to another because anything can happen in a tro-tro and the people I ask usually say things like “You’ll get there by the evening” or “around five to six” (meaning any time in between or even seven). So I usually leave early and prepare myself for arriving at whatever time the tro-tro get us there. From what I hear though I’ve been really lucky because none of the tro-tros I’ve been on has broken down in the middle of the road … yet. There was a day when I had to evacuate a tro because there was a fountain of water coming out from underneath the driver’s seat when he stopped to check what was wrong. We all agreed it was overheating and because we were close to the station we simply waited for the next one. The roads here are all pretty flat as compared to the ones in Guatemala but it still makes me a little nervous to see how many things can go on top of these cars and how fast they can go.

There’s no doubt in my mind that having a better transportation system could really benefit Ghanaians: less complications for products to get to the market, more field visits from NGOs, less accidents and an overall more enjoyable ride! The problem is how is this going to happen? Shyam suggests changing the old German cars for safer ones but I don’t know how you would even go about doing that. I’ve come across a couple of road building projects that are being managed by Chinese companies including a really tall bridge and some paving of roads but, how sustainable is it for foreign companies to be building infrastructure and at what expense? Will the worst and more remote roads be fixed at all? For now I (and everyone else I guess!) will have to continue to enjoy the bumpiness of the roads and expect the unexpected.