Tro Tro Queen

Flies and I have become friends. We shit in the outhouse then walk to clinic together every morning. Initially their incessant buzzing in my ear had me waving my hands around like a mad woman. But their persistence wore me thin and I have just come to accept them as a constant companion on certain pathways and in certain parts of the home.

Tro-tros and I have also become good friends. Tro-tros are the (at least my) staple form of transport between towns in central Ghana. They are mini-vans that putt down the main road from Accra to Kumasi picking up and dropping off passengers en route.

“Kumasi. Kumasi. Kumasi. Kumasi. Kumasi. Kumasi.” You’ll hear the mate hang out the van door and shout. It is just impossible to miss your ride.

My favorite part: the price is just right. Average cost: 70 pesawas = $0.50. You don’t need to know me well to understand how happy that makes me. But I have other favorite parts. The mate is always a point of intrigue. Much like the way you stare at your teacher’s shoes, blouse and twitches in her face while watching her all day long, I watch the mate.

Each tro-tro has a driver and a mate to accompany him. The mate does the shouting, seating and collecting money. The driver and the mate are a dynamic duo: young men spinning their wheels, cruising the main road and making a dime in the process. They communicate without ever talking. A bang on the side of the door means stop, another bang means go.

The tro-tro extends beyond the mate and driver though. Each country and culture has its idiosyncrasies , this is one of them. Everyone moves with a quiet understanding and this system that looks haphazard and crowded actually is hardly at all. A good 12-14 of us pile into the car, you fill the back most seat first. Time to time we stop at some random roadside, from a little corner emerges a town you may have passed by a hundred times and never noticed. Someone in the back second road will deboard. Then we all will reshuffle ourselves to fill the empty spot and leave room up front for the next passenger.

Everyone on board works on the honor system. You just pay the mate and he never bugs you again. When in the back row, you just tap the passenger in front of you on the shoulder and they pass your money up to the mate and your change passes back down the same chain of people. There really is very little haggling or doubt in the whole process.

When stepping on board the passenger next to you often greats you: “Ete Sen?” (how are you) or a “Good Afternoon” in the crisp Ghanian English accent.

Bring your suitcase, bring your wood, bring your chickens, it is all welcome on board here.

Another idiosyncrony I have come to appreciate and admire really is the efficient use of the head. It is essentially a third hand that I never knew about, but somehow every Ghanian does. When I traveled to India in the past I would, time to time, see a woman carry a ceramic dish on her head. But in Ghana it is a different story all together. You name it, it can be carried on your head. A plastic bag with groceries, a couple books, a suitcase, a board holding sunglasses ready to sell, a bucket holding 20 buckets ready to sell, a sewing machine, a crate of chickens! Now if a few did that, then I would, like with a magician, be convinced that it is a talent that only a few are skilled enough or committed enough to accomplish. However, when I see 4 year olds to 94 year olds all doing the same task, turning their head to talk to each other, grabbing their baby to pick them up, reaching down to scratch their leg without flinching or hesitating about the stuff on their head, I wonder why the rest of us missed the boat on this.

So the other day it started to rain, I used that as my justification to walk around Kumasi with a bag on my head. At first I held it hesitantly on my head, using my right hand as my training wheel and eventually I was hands free. ‘Try and look normal Mona,’ I told myself. I am sure I looked like the Obruni (Gringo) trying to be an African. But now, more importantly, I can say I did it.

At the risk of making a overgeneralization, I feel like the tro-tro and head carrying system exemplify something I have noted in Ghana: a lot of common sense and efficiency. I have only been here going on one month now, so there is still a lot more to learn. But I don’t find myself fighting battles to do little things or having to talk to six different people to get a straight answer. Above all, I really feel a lot of genuine intrigue in who I am and concern for my safety. There is a certain level of peace I am able to obtain here that I was lacking back home. Escapism? Life minus LA traffic? Preoccupation with sweeping and washing and fetching water? Who knows, but all I can say is that I am enjoying my time out here.