Chronicles of a Ghanaian Commuter: In Praise of Walking

Many people believe that middle-class types like those who blog about and in Ghana are all car-drivers. It's like if you can string a couple of sentences together that sound cogent, then you must be so well-educated that your disposable income is bursting at the seams. Syllogically, you must be a driver.

I got news for you: not all "middle-class" bloggers drive; some of us still commute-either because we cannot afford it, or because we chose to!

If you can get past the exclamation mark, you can, I suspect, also accept that one of the wonderful things about being a Ghanaian commuter is the freedom that comes with it.

For example, as I stepped out of the office for lunch this afternoon, I was able to hiss at a taxi that stopped and brought me here to A&C shopping Mall in East Legon. Had I been driving, I would have gone through the whole thing about getting into the car, mirrors, reversing, looking at petrol gauge and all that;-)

Yesterday, as I walked to my office--some twenty-five minutes away--from A&C, I walked with my tongue firmly in cheek: many taxi-drivers were hooting like crazy, expecting that I would concede defeat and hitch a ride. I waved my hand in a manner that indicated I didn't want a ride, and they firmly moved on.

Once I got back to the office, I thought, "yeah, this is good!" Forget that I got exercise and all that--and just think of the fresh air I got from it.

My humble suggestion is to one of these days, park your car, and walk. I know when I get kids, I'll be driving them around more than I expected, so now is my time to enjoy the walks!

Prepare for a blitzkrieg of blog posts

I feel so energised now. It's like I can do anything I put my mind to. I've been doing some serious reflections about the trajectory of my life. Though rather stressed, it's kind of a positive stress to spur me on. Things are far from perfect: I'm battling with some inner demons over a number of unfinished projects, but I am paradoxically encouraged that faith has been placed on me to do certain things I never might have considered possible.

Some of my blog posts over the next couple of days will include Taxi Tales, where I present two stories of two different kind of taxi-drivers I encountered last two weeks...and then some!

It's great to be back blogging. I had to go and set up another blog; will for sure keep you posted.

My critiquing-regionalism.org blog has gone down in the back-burner, and is one of the reasons why I feel aggrieved as I believe I have downplayed global issues in place of African Union ones. I'm perhaps the greatest proponent of global regional integration initiatives. I need to get back to that perspective in order to restore some degree of sanity insofar as my blogging of politics is concerned.

It's not so much the fact that the organisation I work for--Third World Network-Africa is finally on Facebook that enthuses me. It's the fact that when you have silent readers/fellow Facebookers of my blog(s) write me what I will paste below, I feel that the exuberance--digital and otherwise--I have is perhaps worth it:

I read your blog posts in detail over the weekend and find them very impressive,informative and inspiring...I think you have a great wealth of knowledge and experience to help shape our country and continent...i think your knowledge ,background and exposure puts you on a leverage above your contemporaries...Good thing your forebears kept that flame alight in the family.I know you shall cause that transformation we need...

I've clearly got work to do!

Taxi Tales: Of Men & Moral Ambiguities

The moral ambiguity that comes with not asking questions in a situation where the wrong thing is clearly being done is an article of the average Ghanaian's application of the law.

From tro-tros using the shoulder in traffic, to using illegal routes on the Tema motorway, you would be hard-pressed finding a Ghanaian who has not over-looked wrong-doing.

I am no exception!

Last Friday evening, I joined three others in a shared taxi to the Spintex Road--except that it was not a taxi. This taxi was a private-registered car, meaning that it had white number plates. This is one of the the beauties of commuting in Ghana--knowing how to identify either a private or commercial (yellow plate) car. I must confess that the car was rather comfortable, which is atypical to the usually-shared taxi that plies the Tema/Fridays/Baatsona route every day!

I, like the other three, said nothing because we all wanted to get home on time. We didn't call him--he did.

How could we have refused an offer like that?

And so the ambiguity continues...

Spintex Road Diaries: The Bigger Scheme...

Another manic monday that has flown faster than a purpose-driven mosquitoe on a lights-off night.

It,s 18h39 and the tro-tro engine has burst to life, taking the order-of-four-seated commuters to "bush road! nungua side" destination. Ofcourse some of us will stop closer.

Have to say that it seems rather incongruous listening to Natasha Bedingfield's "These Words are My Own";, and have a few commuters whistling to the lively tune behind me.

Go on, call me a snob.

While ur doing that, spare a thought for those languishing in hospitals out of family negligence, or those who have broken up on Valentine's day.

Those seem to be the small things, but they really are not...in the bigger scheme of things.

Good health is a virtue, and having someone to call your partner or lover are two of the age-old and time-tested formulations that remind us of our humanity. and make it simultaneously meaningful.

Can't wait for CSI tomorrow morning--even if it might make me soporific the subsequent couple of hours!!

It sure is great to be alive, and have and make choices.

___sent: e.k.bensah (OGO device)+233.208.891.841/ekbensah@ekbensah.net

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As the Week Opens in Accra: Reflections on Blogging about Life in Accra

I used to think that it was my international blog that got me stuck in what I call a blogging paradox, but it appears that almost almost four years of blogging about life in Accra, it seems I'm getting the block here as well.

In 2006, in order to ensure that the blogging came in free-flow, I started to categorise my posts. I came up with:

Darkness Falls...

, which chronicled living in testing times when the electricity went going off and on, and citizens were confined to what was called a load management. It seems so distant now that I had almost forgotten how serious a toll it had on one's finances.



Before that, though, I had come up with As the Week Draws to a Close...in Accra, where I rounded up the week's events. From 2006-2007, there was quite a bit to write about; but in 2008, as Accra became increasingly Westernised, it seems like there was less to write about. Am unsure whether it has anything, though, to do with it, as there remain myriad number of problems and challenges in the country.

Now that we learn that President Attah-Mills has inherited an economy that is broke, the task cannot be more daunting!

All that said, with new categories like Mid-Week Madness and Taxi Tales, it seems like theer is plenty to write about, but I am just not feeling like writing it!

Like the picture above, looked like insofar as my blogging here is concerned, I have reached the end of the road?

I have said elsewhere that I don't like New Year resolutions, so there will be none of that here--just to say that I really do not have any excuse!

The sky is my limit!

I'll see you here soon!

Taxi Tales: The driver's made a killing

By the time this thing goes to the web, the hole in my pocket would have been that more deeper, for I foolishly asked the driver to wait for me as I run like hell past Parliament House (Ridge) and headed towards what looked like a white tent to obtain my accredited pass for the ACP Summit tomorrow.

I have been in a queue for the past thirty minutes. Everything is A-ok. Kinda. Just want my pass so I can get outta here. Time is 14h35, and can well imagine that the taxi driver must be feeling that considering the rather-sweltering heat, must have gone and done a runner.

Certainly something my dark side would want me to do. Question is: will I succumb to the easiest option out there right now? Or will I listen to that omscient conscience...

_________________this msg was sent by e.k.bensah - OGO device

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Taxi Tales: Road Rage à la Bicyclette

Insults and tro-tros are no strange bedfellows, but Monday night’s was particularly insightful.

There I was having boarded a tro-tro heading to Tetteh-Quarshie interchange (roundabout) from driving school, when a man on a bicycle almost bumped into the tro-tro. Now, the natural thing in Ghana is to suck your teeth, cuss a bit and move on. Instead, after the insults went flying from some of the male passengers to the cyclist as to whether he was drunk, etc, the cyclist would return a few minutes later as the tro-tro slowed down. He tried to cross the route of the vehicle so that it couldn’t pass!

The insults went in freefall – and it was interactive! The cyclist cried out to the tro-tro "you’re a fool! Didn’t you go to driving school?! Don’t you know how to drive?!"

Meanwhile, some of the men visibly agitated started waving their hands unceremoniously and accusingly at the cyclist for this foolhardy action, asking whether it as *he* who was not mad and a stupid fool for his action? In the meantime, a female security guard sat between the men grinning like a chesire cat, and shaking her head mildly. I could tell that she would have done things differently. That’s perhaps the reason why my actions unwittingly mimicked hers;-)

Taxi Tales: "They are Killing Us!"

It has become an article of my quotidian walking diet to stop by the Spintex Road GOIL filling station to either pick a taxi, or walk home. Depending on my mood, I pick a taxi. Last night was no exception.

There was a slight difference in the usual silence that rings through from the filling station to my house some six minutes away from GOIL. Usually, I am so knackered, I allow myself to converse with my thoughts. Yesterday, the difference was in the mini-conversation I had with the taxi-driver after he said that I would be charged GHC1.20--instead of GHC1.00. He told me that yesterday was "the last day" he would be charging me that rate, which I found interesting, considering I have never seen him around that area before.

Oh well.

He went on to say that "they" were "killing us". I knew exactly whom he was talking about. Generally, he was referring to the government; specifically to the National Petroleum Authority that has, yet again, allowed Ghanaians to suffer and experience the vagaries of the fluctuation of oil prices on the market.

Joy Online, in its report put it this way:

This is the second time petroleum products prices have been adjusted in less than a month and the third since October 2007.

The Public Relations Officer of the NPA Steven Larbie tells Joy Business report that the reviews will no more be done monthly but according to price movements of crude oil on the world market.

What it means is that a gallon of petrol now sells at 4 Ghana cedis 68 pesewas or 46,800 cedis; while a gallon of diesel is 4 Ghana cedis 63 pesewas or 46,350 cedis

Putting these prices into context, you can understand why the consumers will have to pay the taxi-drivers. I have had quite a few tales of these over the past few days--and I really cannot blame them.

What I do think is extortionist is when the taxi-drivers decide, consequently, to offer arbitrary prices, knowing fully well that they are providing us with the service, and so without them, we cannot get to our destination!

Whatever the case may be, it's true, this government is killing the average consumer's disposable income.

That, on top of these high prices, one spends around GHC50.00 to buy the equivalent of electricity that would have taken me (before November 1st) almost three weeks for, now, just under two weeks!

Taxi Tales: Of Demolition Men...

It began yesterday with what would prove to be a discerning afternoon, replete with dramatic and cascading scenes of pockets of crowds congregating in clusters of emotion, awe, surprise and resignation as men fron Accra Metropolitan Assembly, in collaboration with Zoom Lion--all clad in reflective attire--started demolishing structures, kiosks and whatnot.

All this was happening in a messy atmosphere of smoke, emanating from the furious fire of burning wood and metal.

It truly was a sight to behold.

The helplessness of those whose kiosks were being destroyed was palpable. The glimmer of hope in their eyes for a daily income must have died there and then.

But this was to be expected--for in the past few weeks, the AMA has undertaken a clean-up exercise of Accra--to rid the capital of filth before 15 countries descend into the country in January 2008 for the Cup of African Nations, to be hosted in Ghana.

Either way, the taxi driver who brought me back to the office was ambivalent. He felt that Ghanaians are too stubborn for their own good and that, whilst the situation was sad, the "squatters" had been informed as recently as a six months to a year ago.

"We Ghanaians, we are too stubborn!" he added as he fropped me off, taking my fee.

Could't agree more!!

Taxi Tales#3: Long or Short?

This isn't a trick question, but conceiving of it seems a bit absurd--at first.

According to one taxi driver I took from down the road from where I work, he prefers to ply short routes than long ones.

Don't ask me how I got to know. There I was, looking forward to enjoying my fresh bread,then he starts that his "paddy" (he isn't Irish, incidentally!) asked him to go to Teshie Nungua, which is some thirty minutes drive, near Tema--the port--, away, and he declined. He maintained that if he had received 80,000 cedis (circa $7.50), he wouldn't have gone, because for him you make more money from short ones, where he charges 10,000 cedis, than the long ones.

So, it's all about the money, then, is it? I thought, wondering why he wasn't wearing his mandatory blue uniform and navy trousers.

Taxi Tales: Taxi, oh Taxi drivers, Where art thou uniforms?

I came into work this morning, half-expecting to see the taxi drivers, mandated to start wearing uniforms (sea-blue shirt and navy blue trousers), as of 1st February--i.e. today. Not too much to my surprise, all the taxi-drivers I saw on my way to work, and my Dad noticed a few, too, were, in effect, breaking the law.


Even if the Accra Metropolitan Assembly had botched things up with their lack of enforcibility, the decision not to wear uniforms smacks of disrespect for the law.

On my way home from work yesterday evening, where I took this picture (in part to show-case the erection of streetlights on the Spintex Road), I asked the taxi driver, driving a colleague and myself home, whether he was prepared. He sputtered out forlornly that "emi, me nshe uniform, o", or "I will not wear any uniform". That kind of gave me a taster of what to expect today, but one could hope anyway;-)

Just for good measure, here's some more about AMA:

"The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) is a corporate body and the highest political and administrative organ in Accra. The Assembly has legislative, deliberate and executive functions. Development in Accra is financed from several sources and at two (2) levels; central and local. AMA is a facilitator for development rather than profit making institution. This is consistent to central government policy. AMA spends 66.70% of its revenue on recurrent expenditure whilst 33.30% on capital expenditure. The expenditure ratio indicates low commitment of the city authority to development."
from:http://ie3global.oregonstate.edu/ie3/openings/ghana7.html

Let's see what the rest of the day will bring!

tags:
ghana taxi;taxi uniforms;accra;spintex road;

Taxi Tales#1: The driver's got Cheek!

I am a taxi person in the sense that I move around Accra a lot by way of taxi. Very rarely will I use the tro-tro, and now that the Mass Metro buses are becoming de rigeur, and even the new Gold Cab services, which is based in Kokomlemle, some minutes from Busy Internet at Circle, or the so-called Silicon Valley street of Accra, is stationing itself conveniently in ECOBANK agencies, to name but one, around the capital, I STILL will take the taxi anyday for the convenience, and when the pocket is a bit lighter;-)

The news that taxi drivers will be wearing uniforms is welcome news:

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With effect from 1st February, all taxi drivers in the Accra Metropolis will dress in uniforms of sea blue shirts and dark blue trousers.

According to a press release issued by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, all taxi drivers in the Metropolis are also expected to pay ¢250,000 each to have an identification number embossed on the front doors of their vehicles.

This amount, according to the release is been heavily subsidised by the AMA.

The release noted that at a meeting held on January 18 this year chaired by the Mayor of Accra, Mr. Stanley Nii Adjiri Blankson, executives and representatives of the GPRTU, PROTOA, Cooperative Transport Union and COMTSA came to the above agreement between members of the transport sector and the AMA.

The release explained that the identification number to be embossed on the taxi cabs would make for easy identification of taxis and help protect drivers from mugging and the frequent stealing of their vehicles.

---

Any attempt to bring sanity into the capital must go down very well for a lot of denizens. All that said, it is for one of these reasons that I am introducing taxi tales to bring directly to you some of the less-than-mundane experiences and conversations I have with taxi-drivers.

The first instance is yesterday when a taxi driver picked me up from the A&C Shopping mall. En route, his engine sputtered and came to a somewhat abrubpt stop. Opening the door, he went out to the engine for what seemed like a few minutes, came back and sparked the car. Off we went.

Now, I was heading for equity pharmacy, in East Legon, where we went for some seven minutes.

We got to the office, and I handed him ç15,000 (around Euros1.5), only for him to tell me that it wasn't enough, and that he wanted ç25,000!

The effing cheek, I thought.

So I asked him: "when your car sputtered on the road there, did I charge you?" He pretended he didn't hear [please note this characteristic of taxi drivers and commercial workers, when you tell them a truth, they will FEIGN BAD HEARING!!], asking "what did you say?"

I pretended I didn't hear him, and told him I was giving him ç20,000--and would not be giving him the ç5,000 extra.

He wasn't amused, but I certainly was;-)