Controlled Chaos

I know I’ve talked about traveling here in Ghana before, but please bear with me as I revisit the conversation. The reason why I bring it up is because it so utterly different than how we travel (or how I traveled) in the US. Traveling here is kind of like having 500 people on the dance floor at once. Some are doing the waltz, some are disco, some are line dancing and others are break dancing. It’s magic, somehow it flows altogether. I have not been here long enough (I don’t know if there is enough time) to figure it out, but somehow it works. Most of the time. To give you a better understanding of how this dance works, want to introduce you to the dancers. We have tango tro’s, boogie buses, trippin’ taxi’s mamba motos, and thrown into the mix are poor pedestrians.
Tros
Tros are a large passenger vans. There are usually 5 rows of seats, and comfortably you have 3 per seat. Unfortunately, comfortable is not a word in the Ghana dictionary. Ghanians don’t like to waste space, so they will put four in a row. My personal goal was 22 passengers in a van. Up close and personal. Actually, having all those people around you kind of softens the blow of all the pot holes. Nine times out of ten the doors don’t shut correctly, you usually can see the road underneath your feet, the dash board indicators don’t work. And, let’s not forget the luggage. Big stuff goes in the back. I’ve seen refrigerators, 100 pound burlap bags of stuff, chickens (of course they are alive!! silly) and who know what else. All the “normal” luggage is expected to be on your lap; i.e., back packs, small boxes, groceries. The real big stuff goes on top of the van. 100 pound bags of produce, live goats... There was one time I saw 8 goats tied to the top of the van. Yup.
There is the driver, and he has a mate. The mate is in charge of collecting the money, and communicating with the driver. If the van is not quite full (God forbid), the mate is yelling, as he is hanging half outside the window, the destination of the tro. Of course you can’t understand what it is he is screaming as he goes, for example there is a city called Kofferidguha, but he is yelling “Rodua”. The tro will barely come to a stop, load passengers and make it’s way to the station. As he is pulling out, there are 5 tro’s wanting to take his place, and, of course while he is pulling out, no one is letting him in. Horns blaring, tires screeching, and mates yelling, somehow you make it back on to the road. Don’t ask me why there are not tons of accidents.
The good thing about tros is that they are cheap. And, you don’t usually have to wait too long for one to drive by, the mate shouting the your destination. But, 99% of them would be illegal to be on a road in the US. Most windshields are cracked, transmission works sometimes, and the mechanical parts are somehow working but I am not sure how. One trip I was on was supposed to take 6 hours. Half way towards our destination, something in the gears or clutch stops working. So, we get out, push the tro up the hill, and coast down into a small village. Our vehicle stops next to what looks like a graveyard for tros; heaps and piles of parts and bodies. The driver gets out, talks to the mechanic, who proceeds to crawl under the tro. After much banging and clanging, he comes out with what looks like the drive shaft (I am no mechanic by any means, it could have been the gas tank!), goes to another broken down tro, takes that one off and puts it on ours. In three hours we are up and running again. The sun has gone to bed, and we are almost at our destination,(key word almost). We are heading up a hill on a tiny dirt road when, the transmission decides it is done for the day. We can not move forward or back up; we are stuck like Winnie the Pooh in the Hunney Tree. After 10 hours of being on the road, and not yet at our destination, we are at our wits end. We call the place where we are spending the night and they offer to come and get us. Luckily we are only about 20 minutes away. I feel bad for the poor driver though; he has to stay behind with his vehicle and hope to have it fixed the next day. When we pass through 3 days later, the tro is still sitting there. The driver lost money on that trip!
Taxis
There are two types of taxis; line taxis and drop taxis. Drop taxis are one of the most expensive ways to travel. They will only take you to whatever destination you want. They will always try to gouge you; and you have to fight with them to get the price down. A line taxi will wait until it is full before it will go to your destination. It’s cheaper than a drop taxi, but sometimes you might have to sit in the taxi up to an hour before the taxi fills. The normal capacity is 5 people in the car, plus baggage in the back. Most of the cars are about the size of a Scion, tiny little cars. Now, I said that the normal capacity is 5, two in the front and three in the back. Well, during our training we would have to travel from our home stay to our training site every Friday. Our allowance for training was $2 per day.... beer costs $1.50..... you do the math, we didn’t have a lot of money. So we would try to make a deal with taxi driver, we would pay the fare of 4 people but try to fit more people in the car than that. We got to know each other quite well on those trips. One night after having a few beers at the spot, we fit 12 people in the car. Remember, the car is the size of a Scion. We had three in the front, 6 in the back seat and 3 of us in the very back. I am quite proud of that record!!

Buses
There are three types of buses; Metro, STC, and Scary as Hell Buses. Metro are similar to those similar to those in the states, sort of.... They are cheap, and are usually packed. Again personal space is not a concept the folks here understand. There is a mob to get on the bus first, so you can get a seat. Once the seats are full, you pile in amongst the bags, bowls, kids, and produce. You have to hang on for dear life as you get bounced and thrown around. There are no real bus stops that the driver will stop at. If you want to get off, you yell “Bus Stop” and hopes that the driver will hear you and hope that he feels like stopping. You usually will get dropped within a 1/2 mile of where you wanted to get off.
STC is similar to Grey Hound... sort of. It is a lot more expensive than taking a tro, and is supposed to leave at a designated time. Unfortunately, they never do. Either there is a mechanical problem (the bus is “spoiled’) or they wait for the bus to fill.
One day I had to go down to Accra. Because it is a long drive, and the tro’s are very uncomfortable, I decided to take a bus. I wanted to see which one would fill faster and when I checked, they looked about the same; both were 30% full. I got on the bus and thought, well, I can be patient, it might take little longer to fill but it would be worth it. The seat was actually comfortable though the AC was spoiled. A trip to Accra from Kumasi is about 4-5 hours. I sat down at 9 am. I closed my eyes and took a little nap. When I woke up at 10 we were still sitting there and maybe 50% full. I was surprised that it wasn’t fuller, but when I looked out the window I realized why. There was a battle going on outside. Whenever someone new came through wanting to go to Accra, the person was accosted by each of the drivers. With much pushing, shoving and yelling the drivers would argue which vehicle the poor passenger would take. I thought a fist fight would break out, it was close. It seemed that our bus was on the loosing side. Other vehicles were loaded up and on their way while we just sat there. Elven came and went, so did noon... By one, we were all pissed and yelling at the driver for us to get on our way. Finally by 2:00 we were finally full. I sat there for 5 hours waiting to leave!!! I should have been down in Accra by then! With a sore ass and a pissy attitude, we pulled out of the station hoping that we would be in Accra by 7:00 at the latest. Peace Corps has a rule that we should not travel after dark, because it can be dangerous. The sunsets at 5:30, and Accra is definitely NOT a place I wanted to be wandering around at night. After this ride, I still had to take 2 other taxis to get to my final destination. Well we finally arrived to the city limits around 6:30, but still a way from our destination. The traffic this time of night puts NYC to shame. Cars, tros, buses as well as motorbikes, ladies selling wares on the top of their heads, and of course, goats, sheep and cattle filled the streets. I am not taking about side streets, I am talking about 4 lane “highway” (I hate to use that word because the image that comes to your mind is NOT how it is here. They are doing a massive upgrade to the roads, so the roads are all torn up, not yet paved, and difficult to navigate with no traffic). Our driver gets creative and knows a short cut to avoid the tangled mass of metal. We reach the short cut, which is a one lane road, and find a big truck broken down in the middle of the road making impossible for us to pass. Par for the course. To make a long, long, long story shorter, I finally get to my destination around 10:00; only a 13 hour trip!
Amid the chaotic dance, the drivers have a good grasp on driving. Maybe they are listening to music only they can hear. Whatever the case, when you get on the road here, you learn how to pray fast and hard!