Adventure

Greater Accra isn’t very big. I haven’t actually seen a map of the area, only smaller individual town maps, so I can’t be certain, but I would assume that Greater Accra is less than 20km squared. We live about 10km out of the city centre, however a journey into Circle takes anywhere from 45 minutes to over an hour.

Last night Sarah and I went on an adventure. We were planning to meet up with some friends in Legon. At first I thought Legon was a spot (bar). It’s actually a suburb which houses one of the universities.

We left Pokuase (where we live) at around 7:30 with a rough idea of how to get there, we had two options, and took the one we thought would be quickest and most direct. Trotros run less frequently at night time, but there is no specific time that they stop running and each route is different. Our first destination was Achimota New, which neither of us had been to before. On the first trotro the mate (conductor-esk) helped us by flagging down another trotro, while we were driving, and they were driving. This second trotro was to take us to Achimota New.

Achimota New is fancy. It’s paved, there are lanes marked out to specify or direct one where to pack, there is order, which is uncommon here. Once arriving, and disembarking from the trotro, we found out that the trotros to our next destination Legon, had stopped for the night. At this point we could take a taxi, or another trotro to a nearby location. The taxi driver quoted us 8 cedis (dollars), this is ridiculous, and as usual we were expected to haggle, but considering the trotro would have cost 50 peswas (cents), we weren’t going to pay 8 cedis. So we went on the hunt for another trotro to take us to Thirty-Seven, at the time we understood it as Tech7.

So 3 trotros down, and about an hour in. It wasn’t too hot last night, which was helpful. We arrived in Thirty-Seven without too much trouble, a few nice people had helped us here and there along the way. It was pitch black when we were looking for our connection in Thirty-Seven. One young man was very nice to help us, but it wasn’t long before he was keen on some digits (our numbers). We found the 4^th trotro to take us to Okponglo on the route to Medina. The trotro was only half full when we boarded (climbed in), and as with trotro rules, it doesn’t leave until it is full. The kind man, requesting our digits stood by the window, and was quite persistent. I maintained that I don’t know you, but thank you anyway. I even tried- I don’t think my husband would be too happy about that. After about 5 minutes of continuous failed attempts to get him to bugger off I asked the man next to me how to say no in Twi. That got a few laughs, my pronunciation was probably shot. Then I tried the “I’m sorry, no.” It’s a very handy sentence to have now. Me pacho debi – the spelling is probably off.

Coincidently the man who taught me a few new words is a Twi teacher. I asked him if he’d like to teach a few obrunis how to speak Twi, he wasn’t very keen unfortunately, but he told us where to get lessons, so we may check it out. We were pretty zoned out by this point, Sarah even commented on the attractiveness of a young man in the seat in front of us after he got off. It wasn’t until the next stop, an extra 10 minutes or so down the road, that we realised we had missed out stop and that cute young man had actually got off at our stop. We jumped in a taxi for an extra 5 cedis. We could have just taken the 8 cedi taxi from over an hour before.

The entire journey took over 2 hours, 4 trotros and a taxi, it cost us about 3 cedis 50 peswas each and was rather enjoyable. The trip home took about half an hour and cost us 15 cedis together.

Such is life hey J